The Clamp Alert app will launch tomorrow (Friday 29th) on both the Android Play Store and iOS App Store. Keith Butler, the man behind the app, spoke to Newstalk Breakfast this morning about the new software:

Butler told Chris how the app works, explaining, “You park your car up, [when] you’re just going to run in for five minutes. You slide the brake on the app and that geo-tags your location. You go in, you have your cup of coffee or are queueing… Then there’s three parameters. One mile will be your first alert: [when someone] sees a clamping van or ticket warden, they press the alert button and that will give the report to the person who has geo-tagged [their car's] location. You’ll get a push notification, and then you can press it and open the map and see exactly where [the alert came from]. You can jump in your car and try to save yourself a clamp on top of your four quid for a cup of coffee."

Bulter said the app will be reliant on building a community or network of Clamp Alert users, saying "it’s all to do with the users… without everybody using it it's not going to work". However, he's optimistic that, based on social network interest so far, the app will quickly enjoy a following in Dublin and hopefully expand from there.

Keith says he doesn't hate the clampers, just the idea of clamping. "It’s one of the hardest jobs you’d have to do," he said, "so I definitely wouldn’t go down the line as hating them. I just don’t like the idea of someone putting a lock on your car, and you can’t drive off if you’re in an emergency or anything. I just think it’s the wrong way of doing it, and I can’t see how it cleans up parking spaces when they’re sticking you there for an hour or two waiting for them."

Keith is a self-employed builder, and says that when pricing jobs he sometimes simply cannot afford to price-in parking, as he risks losing the work to bigger companies who can simply drop their workers off at a job location. He explained he got the idea for the app last year, when "all the little houses in Ballsbridge got flooded. All the builders were working, and there was just this one big road. There was one old lady… she came in, she used to knock on the door - she was such a nice lady - and give us all a warning [when the clampers were coming]." 

Ivan wasn't so enthusiastic about the new app, though, saying that many cars that only park temporarily are genuine hazards and should be clamped. You can listen back to the full interview and Ivan's comments via the player above.

What do you think of Clamp Alert? Leave your comments below. For more on Clamp Alert, you can visit their website.