Parking enforcement
Responsibility for parking enforcement is split between councils and the police. Council parking enforcement is carried out by civil enforcement officers (CEOs), who have replaced traditional traffic wardens.
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Our CEOs enforce parking regulations relating to:
- pay and display payments
- parking time in car parks
- limited waiting bays
- taxi bays
- loading bays
- school keep clears and zig zags
- double and single yellow lines
- resident parking zones
- disabled (Blue Badge) parking and disabled bays
- dropped kerb access (also police)
- double parking (also police)
- pedestrian crossings (also police)
CEOs can issue parking penalty charge notices for any contraventions of these regulations.
The police enforce the law relating to:
- obstruction - such as parking on a pavement where there are no parking restrictions
- dangerous parking where there are no parking restrictions, for example, on bends and at junctions
- dropped kerb access (also CEOs)
- double parking (also CEOs)
- pedestrian crossings (also CEOs)
- offences in car parks not related to payment, parking duration or disabled bays
The police are also responsible for moving traffic offences - our CEOs do not have the power to stop vehicles.
Our CEO teams patrol car parks and other areas where there are restrictions in place. So we can use our resources most effectively, we prioritise areas where we know people park irresponsibly and/or illegally.
CEOs only issue tickets in line with the law and must operate in a fair and consistent way. They do not have targets to meet, and they do not get commission. Neither do they target particular people's cars or business vehicles - they do not have access to ownership information so they do not know who owns each vehicle.
- stop selfish and dangerous parking
- improve safety at schools
- keep traffic flowing, so reducing congestion and pollution and speeding up response times for emergency vehicles
- keep disabled parking spaces free for genuine users
- give fair access to parking provision
- improve turnover of parking spaces, so more people can park and use local shops and services
- educate people about what is allowed and what is not allowed, so that there are fewer problems in future - ideally, we would not issue any parking notices because there would be no need
Our annual parking reports give useful information on our parking services and how we are improving parking services and enforcement across the borough for the benefit of the community. The reports also include statistics relating to parking income and expenditure and enforcement activity.
For more detail on penalty charge notices issued, see penalty charge statistics.
We are a member of two parking associations that provide good practice advice and guidance:
PATROL - the Parking and Traffic Regulations Outside London (PATROL) Adjudication Joint Committee.
BPA - the British Parking Association.
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Page last reviewed: 23 August 2021
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