Towaway compound moves to south Bristol

A new car pound is now collecting towaway vehicles in Bristol.

With the closure of the site used for many years in Kingsland Road, St Philip's, cars towed away for parking offences will now be taken to the Hinton Rescue depot in south Bristol.

The site is off Bamfield, just before the junction with Whitchurch Lane.

Just beyond Whitchurch Sports Centre, on the right when travelling towards Whitchurch Lane, there is a lane that leads into the new pound.

To reach the site from the city centre by taxi will cost between £8 and £10 on average.

This week, towaway charges imposed by the Government across the country rocketed.

Until Wednesday it used to cost £140 to recover a car that had been towed away – a £105 release fee plus a £35 parking ticket.

An extra £12 a day had to be paid for storage after 24 hours. And after a fortnight, the parking ticket would double to £70 if still unpaid.

From Wednesday, the new basic release fee is £150 and the storage charge has gone up to £20 a day.

So it will cost at least £185 to release your car – and the charge goes up the longer you leave it.

For van drivers it is even worse. The release fee alone for vans over 3.5 tonnes is now £200.

The parking ticket and any storage charges are on top of that. The present arrangement between Hinton Rescue and the city council is temporary.

Long-term there will be a permanent contract on offer, which Hinton Rescue – together, no doubt, with other operators – will consider when the council draws it up.

Hinton Rescue's recovery manager, Ian Woolcott, told the Evening Post: "The temporary contract is additional business for us and very welcome.

"Because it is only temporary, we will be running it with existing staff.

"The site in Whitchurch has always been used for vehicle storage – including illegally parked vehicles we've brought in from other areas where we already have contracts with councils."

Hinton Rescue runs a vehicle recovery services for broken down vehicles – as well as towaways in some districts – across a wide area of the West, including Bath, Bristol, Weston-super-Mare, Shepton Mallet, Frome and Glastonbury.

It has six depots, 80 recovery vehicles and 150 employees.