Nearly £200k of parking tickets issued since council took over enforcement
Parking officers issued tickets worth more than £190,000 in the first 10 months of Telford & Wrekin's civil enforcement – despite the service being suspended altogether during the spring lockdown.
Telford and Wrekin Council took over responsibility for illegal parking, which had previously been handled by West Mercia Police, in February 2020.
It has been revealed the council's traffic wardens had issued 3,077 fixed penalty notices and 421 warnings by the end of November.
Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show the Wrekin, and the road leading to it from Wellington, together saw 381 tickets issued for 'parking in a restricted street', after new regulations including a one-way system were introduced around the beauty spot.
In Newport, two parallel town centre streets had a combined 265 cases of vehicles overstaying the 40-minute parking limit.
A council statement said its approach was “firm yet fair”, focussing on local priorities and supporting “positive parking”.
The authority employed five 'neighbourhood enforcement officers' when it took on civil parking enforcement (CPE) powers, but that number has since increased to eight.
Between February 1 and November 30 last year, 1,033 lower-level £50 fixed penalty notices (FPNs) and 2,044 of the £70 notices were issued – as well as 421 warnings.
Of the 3,077 FPNs, 2,109 have been paid, 322 remain outstanding, 81 are subject to appeal and 565 have been “cancelled”, or resolved without payment.
The last category includes tickets that were initially logged in error, or, the council says, in “instances where the officer is provided with information as they are processing the FPN and such information has indicated it should be cancelled”.
A spokesman for the council said: “Telford and Wrekin Council’s approach to CPE from the very beginning was around developing and sustaining a firm yet fair operating model.
“This approach has continued throughout our first year of operation alongside the response to Covid-19 which saw suspension of CPE during the first national lockdown.
“The information provided confirms the approach taken and, working with partners such as the police, town and parish councils, it enables focus on a number of local priority areas to include high streets, schools and car parks in order to manage and support positive parking but also keep the highway free of traffic parking illegally.”
The five officers employed when the first lockdown was imposed, in March 2020, “were deployed to support a number of crucial workstreams to include the delivery of free school meals, collection and delivery of PPE [personal protective equipment] and Kindles to care home settings”, the statement said.
