County councils are counting the cost of introducing decriminalised parking enforcement over the next five years.
Counties across England, including ~Derbyshire~, ~Shropshire~, Cornwall, ~Staffordshire~, ~Northamptonshire~, and ~Leicestershire~, are preparing to take on parking control during the next local transport plan period.
They have been spurred by the network management duty requirement to tackle localised congestion, local police forces taking resources away from enforcement – or pulling out altogether – and the Government’s new reserve power to require councils to introduce it. But most are not expecting it to pay for itself for five years, given the £1M-plus start-up costs, and their financial models indicate that in the longer-term, it will be difficult to make it break even.
~Cornwall County Council~'s assistant director of transport, ~Colin Jarvis~ could not see at the moment how it would be funded. He said: ‘We have carried out studies that have shown decriminalising parking would not be self-financing. But, it is no longer a big priority for the police and we have lots of traffic orders and little enforcement.’ The county is considering launching pilot schemes in one or two of the districts, and, in what Jarvis described as ‘a cautious but optimistic approach’, he expects DPE to be in place within the next six years.
Derbyshire's finalised LTP2 document flags up the ‘substantial set-up costs’ – estimated at £1.2M – while recognising that, in the absence of national road-user charging, it will be the county’s main demand management tool up to 2011. ~Mike Ashworth~, ~Derbyshire's director of network management, said it would take five years to recoup this investment, taken from the LTP2 allocation.
But the scheme – to be introduced by 2008 – would need to be ‘carefully thought through to make ends meet’ in the longer term, if compliance went up, as expected, and income was reduced.
Leicestershire has used prudential borrowing to cover the £1M upfront cost – including almost £500,000 to review the traffic regulation orders and the need for restrictions – which would be paid back over five years. Traffic wardens stopped enforcement this month, except for community support officers doing it alongside other duties. ‘People are abusing double yellow lines, because they know they can get away with it,’ said ~Matthew Lugg~ director of highways, transportation and waste management.
Staffordshire which is hoping to start DPE before Christmas, is to spend £900,000 in capital costs, while its eight districts will pay £1.5M. A spokesman said: ‘We are expecting to make a loss in the first year, because we will only be issuing warning notices to gain public acceptance of the scheme.’ The aim would then be for it to be cost-neutral.