Southall has an oversized box junction that is generating £1 millions per annum.

According to Ealing Times “Nearly 19,000 motorists were fined after being caught on CCTV while stopping in the box junction between South Road and St Joseph's Drive, despite two rulings by the Parking Ombudsman saying it is too large.”

There a several more around the same area generating huge income for the Council

Ealing Council states that it has received unfair media claims about the money it receives from traffic and parking fines and wants to tell “the truth about traffic fines”.

It states that “By law the money received from motorists for parking and traffic offences has to be spent on enforcement or ploughed back into improving roads and transport in the borough.”

In 2007/08 there was £17.6 million income in the Council’s parking account and this year the figure is expected to fall to £16.2million.

More than half the money received goes towards the Freedom Pass, which provides free public transport for the over 60s and those with disabilities. The money is also invested in transport projects, measures to reduce traffic congestion and improve traffic flow and road safety schemes.

The council goes onto say “Overall the Council invests more in parking and transport each year than it receives from penalty charge notices”.

If you take a look around the streets around Southall Broadway, you can’t ignore the fact that road are falling to bits and are full of holes. So, no money has been spent on them, other than to keep them barely useable. The only repairs done last year were to the box junctions, which are generating huge revenue for the Council. Even some of those are in need of repair again!

Councillor Phil Taylor, Cabinet Member for Customer and Community Services, said: "Nobody likes it when they get back to their car and find they have a parking ticket or grabs the post in the morning and discovers a traffic fine, but that doesn’t mean we should stop enforcing the borough’s roads."

"Without any enforcement people would undoubtedly double park, block junctions and stop on crossings, endangering pedestrians and creating congestion. Ultimately our aim is to encourage people to follow the rules of the road so that driving in Ealing becomes a more pleasant experience for everyone."

Nobody wants Ealing Council to “stop enforcing the borough’s roads”. What the residents want is enforcement against “people would undoubtedly double park, block junctions and stop on crossings, endangering pedestrians and creating congestion” instead of maximising easy picking on on unsuspecting motorist who have fallen foul of the wide arms of the law but are not causing any of problems.

Two rulings by the Parking Ombudsman say the above box junction is too large. The Department for Transport said it expected councils to pay back money which had been raised through unfair enforcement to motorists.

Appeals against penalty charge notices are heard by the Traffic Penalty Tribunal and in London 68% of appeals were successful in the year ending March 2007.

The person who knows more about this than any body else is Jim Douglas, who runs consumer website Moneybox Junction.

Box junctions is not the only area Ealing Council is making easy money.

Even with difficult parking condition around Southall Broadway, the traffic wardens allow a motorist only 3 minutes to go obtain a resident parking voucher from a friends/relatives house and have it on display in the car.

The actual process may take upto 10 minutes but Ealing Council is not interested in reality or common sense, it just wants you to pay up.