A BBC investigation into over-zealous and misguided local council parking enforcement and fines is to be aired on Wednesday 12 July, while the Transport Select Committee inquiry has heard how commercial vehicle drivers are being unfairly targeted.

BBC’s Panorama submitted freedom of information requests for e-mails from Hammersmith and Fulham council which suggest there is a culture of revenue raising at the authority.

The Panorama investigation details e-mails containing messages such as “Another record month, guys. Well done.” Another example says, “Well done. Another increase”, while a third includes, “Aim of project: to increase parking revenue (target: additional £5m).”

Local authorities in the UK were given the option of decriminalising parking in their areas in the mid-1990s. The role of their parking enforcement officers is to reduce the number of parking offences and keep carriageways as clear and free flowing as possible, not to raise revenue.

The Transport Select Committee is currently investigating how adequately local authority parking enforcement is operating and took evidence from the Freight Transport Association this week.

It told the Committee that the high levels of parking fines on delivery vehicles in London is a sign of policy failure rather than success.

The Freight Transport Association’s Managing Director of Policy and Communications, James Hookham, said the Traffic Management Act, which governs local authority enforcement, failed to distinguish between private motorists and professional drivers making deliveries to homes and businesses.

“No operator sets out to deliberately contravene the restrictions on parking, but the lack of adequate provision means that delivery vehicles have little choice. The legislation that underpins parking enforcement assumes that congestion management takes precedence over access to kerbside. Whilst reducing congestion is important, there needs to be a balance, and a good provision for deliveries is essential in order to support local businesses. It is high time that this was properly reviewed.”

Recent FTA surveys reveal several of its members each pay more than £1 million a year in parking fines to local authorities and have dedicated staff to appeal penalty charge notices.

It is not the first time that the approach of local authorities to parking enforcement has been considered by the Transport Select Committee.

Its 2006 report found scrutiny of local authority parking departments was ‘woefully inadequate’ and that the Department for Transport had ‘failed to undertake a systematic, nationwide evaluation of decriminalised parking.’ It found there were no clear standards in enforcement practice and a lack of transparency in the appeals process.

The Committee will publish the findings from its new inquiry, launched after it asked for suggestions of topics from the public, later in 2013.