Council backtracks on plans to run bin lorries on vegetable oil
Mark Inskip
Liberal Democrat District and Parish Councillor for Sutton Learn more
Urgent Action Needed at East Cambs Street Scene
Don't Rely On Volunteers To Solve Illegal Parking
Council backtracks on plans to run bin lorries on vegetable oil
Urgent Action Needed at East Cambs Street Scene
Don't Rely On Volunteers To Solve Illegal Parking
Don’t Rely On Volunteers To Solve Illegal Parking
by markinskip on 27 January, 2022
Last October East Cambs District Council rejected calls to investigate civil parking enforcement to address the problems of illegal parking which blight the district. Rather than adopt the scheme used by almost every other council in England, East Cambs District Council chose to call on volunteers to take on parking enforcement under the supervision of local police.
This was Fore Hill in Ely last Saturday afternoon, a two-way street with double yellow lines on both sides. While law-abiding residents waited patiently for spaces to become available in Ely’s car parks, others chose to ignore parking restrictions believing there was little likelihood they would receive a parking ticket. And it isn’t just Ely, but across East Cambridgeshire our towns and villages face instances of illegal, and often dangerous parking.
In East Cambridgeshire parking enforcement is the responsibility of the police. Although there has been some recent improvement, nationally the number police officers is still less than a decade ago. Locally Cambridgeshire Constabulary recently cut the number of PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers). Police resources are stretched extremely thinly and as a result activities have to be prioritised. Inevitably parking enforcement sits near the bottom of the list and gets little attention.
In October 2020, district councillors debated this issue to identify the actions the council could take to introduce effective measures to tackle illegal parking across our district. At the time the administration proposed two solutions, both of which appeared flawed based on research undertaken by myself and my colleagues. We were concerned that we should not rely on these two options but also investigate civil parking enforcement.
Just over thirty years ago the Parliament passed the Road Traffic Act 1991 which first permitted councils to apply for the legal powers to take over the enforcement of on-street, as well as off-street, car parking regulations from the police. In return they would be allowed to keep the proceeds. A total of 320 councils out of 327 have taken on these civil parking enforcement powers and employ civil enforcement officers who issue parking tickets. Three more, including South Cambridgeshire, Huntingdon and Fenland are planning to adopt the same approach.
Fast forward twelve months from the council meeting in October 2020 to another meeting in October last year. Council officers reported back on their investigations into the two ideas previously proposed by the council’s administration and confirmed there were legal obstacles which meant that neither idea could be implemented. They also confirmed no time or effort had been devoted to assessing the proven alternative of civil parking enforcement for East Cambs.
The council, which previously seemed keen to tackle illegal parking, decided to hand back responsibility for addressing the problem to the police. We now have a pilot scheme which relies on volunteers issuing parking tickets on the police’s behalf when their PSCOs and officers are not available. At the meeting in October I explained that I was doubtful this scheme be terribly effective and once again made a call to explore civil parking enforcement, the approach used so successfully by so many councils. Again the administration rejected that call.
It is of course early days for that volunteer scheme but, judging by last Saturday on Fore Hill, the initial results are not encouraging. We know there is already a proven effective alternative, isn’t it time to seriously investigate that option?
4 Comments
Good afternoon Mark, on the subject of illegal parking.
It seems all rules have gone out of the windo
Sorry didn’t finish my comments, ipad ran out of charge.
High Street in ely is often in chaos as drivers park in loading bays, thus leaving delivery driver no option but to park on the road. This means traffic is backed up through the traffic lights.
Disabled spaces are used by able bodied drivers, it seems common sense and courtesy is no longer applied. It is free for all!
Regards
Jackie Wallis
Hi Mark,
Having spent ten years as a PCSO in East Cambs I know one thing for certain…. Even if there were 24/7 parking wardens whose only job it was to patrol the area seeking parking offences and issuing fines, this would still not solve the problem of illegal parking.
I recall a period where parking enforcement was made a priority across the district, there were five PCSOs in Ely city alone and they were instructed to dedicate their time to dealing with parking offences. They would often issue ten to fifteen fines per shift each, call it a minimum of 50 tickets a week each, just in Ely city and it still did not stop the problem. This was alongside the villages PCSOs also issuing a minimum of five tickets a week each in the villages. There were around 15 PCSOs at the time out of Ely station. Clearly enforcement alone is not the answer.
One part of the problem is that the fines were FPNs of £30, this is never going to be enough of a deterrent, a more likely deterrent would be fines of £100, in line with London fines or more, the higher the better, to the point of being unreasonable so that people feel it really is not worth taking the chance. Of course this would probably require changes to legislation I expect so is not a simple fix.
A different option is to seek to design out illegal parking opportunities. Forehill for example could be made one way leading up to the Market square and then the whole other lane could become more parking bays.
Other areas could have bollards in place to physically prevent people from parking there.
The ideal solution educates drivers on how to park appropriately so they no longer park illegally or inconsiderately but frankly until we see a change in people’s attitude this will never happen, there will always be someone who thinks they are more important than the law or they somehow take priority over everyone else.
As we see more and more houses built bringing more and more people to rural areas we will see more and more cars. Until we as a society find a way to get around without cars but with the same level of convenience we will have parking problems.
It’s an issue that will require a multi agency long term approach between councils, police, highways and the public have to buy in too. It will need to be a mixture of enforcement, design and education and properly implemented with good communication to drivers and the public.
Hopefully one day we will see something that comes close to really dealing with this issue.
When I raised the issue of dangerous parking on Sutton High Street with Council Officers, because recent planning permissions, granted by the Council, have removed off-Street parking provision, I was told to report it to the Police. The Council is not taking ownership of this problem.