Staffordshire county councillors are calling on the Government to review parking penalty levels for drivers who flout restrictions after learning the charge has not changed for 16 years.
While penalties have stayed at the same level set nationally by Central Government since 2008, costs associated with enforcing parking regulations have gone up – and a review found the service could not be self-funding.
The current penalty for “higher level” parking offences is £70, reduced to £35 if paid within 14 days. And the penalty for “lower level” offences is £50, or £25 if paid within 14 days.
Civil parking enforcement was introduced in Staffordshire in 2008, giving the county council powers to issue Penalty Charge Notices (PCN) for parking contraventions where parking restrictions exist. Before April 2015 on-street enforcement was carried out on behalf of the authority by each of Staffordshire’s eight district and borough councils, but since then the county council has been using the services of Stoke-on-Trent City Council for enforcement and processing of penalty charge notices
The review of civil parking enforcement has been carried out by a working group of Staffordshire County Council members. Their report was presented to the latest Economy, Infrastructure and Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee and has seven recommendations, including reviewing the county’s on-street pay and display strategy and writing to Staffordshire MPs to lobby the Department for Transport for a review of on-street Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) fine levels.
The report said:
“Members received financial statements relating to PCNs and found that the level of PCN fines was low, meaning that the service could not be self-funding and required subsidy from partners.
The Working Group were in favour of the county council writing to Staffordshire MPs to request that they lobby the transport minister about the need for a review of PCN fees and that this should be a recommendation of the Working Group to Cabinet.”
The meeting heard that since the service was brought into a single arrangement with Stoke-on-Trent City Council for enforcement and back-office services in 2015, overheads had been steadily increasing for reasons including fuel and wage costs. But penalty charge notices hadn’t increased in line with these costs – and the value hadn’t been reviewed since 2008.
Councillor Peter Kruskonjic, who chaired the working group, said:
“Parking has become a bigger issue nowadays. We need to increase the penalty charge because at the moment it is not a cost-effective service that we’re running.
“The fines are not really a deterrent. People are willing to take the chance that they won’t get caught.
“One of the observations was by the time someone has reported an issue, by the time officers come they’ve moved on so in effect it’s a wasted journey and a waste of resource. I think we need to implement the recommendations and enforce them.”
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