As Wales Online reports
“After seven months of a parking free-for-all Aberystwyth is to have traffic wardens
The university town and seaside resort made national headlines last summer when Dyfed- Powys Police first axed wardens in the town, leading to a parking free-for-all on its streets
It is hoped the devices will act as a deterrent to irate Aberystwyth motorists who, by June, will have enjoyed more than a year unchecked by wardens in the town.”
Seven months without wardens. Been a bit longer than that here in RCT and parking here will remain a free for all for some months yet.
At the November Council meeting Mike Powell asked a question of the Cabinet Member for Highways
“As Cardiff has had Civil Parking Enforcement powers since July 2011 and has received over £1 million in charges, why has RCT not applied for Civil Parking Enforcement Powers?”
The response was quite lengthy but failed to quite explain the delay in RCT actually getting their act together and applying for the necessary legislative permissions.
In January 2010, a Civil Parking Enforcement Feasibility Report was carried out by Consultants. A letter of 10th April from the Police came forward indicating they are looking forward to withdraw traffic wardens from 31st December, 2010.
The Cabinet then agreed to go forward for Civil Parking Powers and we have moved forward, as follows:
July 2011 – Statutory Consultation was commenced
August 2011 – Survey undertaken of all traffic regulation orders
September 2011 – Submission to Welsh Government
November 2011 – SLA signed with Merthyr
In Jan/Feb – July 2012, remedial work will be undertaken where every sign will be replaced, renewed or maintained.
In Feb 2012, we will submit final comments to the Welsh Government.
April – July 2012 there will be staff training.
Mid 2012 – publicity launched and press releases.
July-Aug 2012 – we expect to have full implementation of Civil Parking Enforcementment
So they knew this was happening in April 2010 and more than two years later, they will have a new system in place. Wouldn’t want to rush them after all.
This explanation – as minuted – is pure gobbledegook.
“July-August 2012 – we expect to have full implementation of Civil Parking Enforcement so to do it any quicker runs the risk that other authorities get to a point where they bring this in and have to hand back potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds because they cannot go ahead.”
2 comments:
In my experience the lack of traffic wardens in Aberystwyth has not had a significant effect. Even before the police stopped funding the traffic wardens the entire of Ceredigion only had 3 traffic wardens. The only area where I can see the reintroduction of traffic wardens having any real effect are the areas where parking is time limited. The police themselves seemed able to cope with all other forms of illegal parking.
Not been the case here. This combined with the hiking up of car park charges has meant many people are now parking in residential streets, on corners, too close to junctions, on yellow lines, etc. Police do not have the resources to patrol all the side streets.
There is a huge demand from residents for residential parking but RCT Council simply turn it down out of hand.
It is affecting trade particularly in areas such as Treforest where parking is supposedly time limited on the main street because the shops there are mainly small shop, take aways, etc.
And people are not using the Council car parks so they are losing revenue.
Post a Comment