Civil Parking enforcement and more scrutiny

I've not slipped off and deserted this blog - it's been a busy week with various bits and pieces - so rather than go into lots of details I'll do a brief summary - do please email or call me if you want further info.....in terms of Council business the week started with...

Photo: Police have parking enforcement responsibilities until 5th Nov - here they are earlier this week in action opposite Blockbusters

Parking briefing

On Monday for all councillors - Parish and District - but being during 'normal' working hours meant only a few of us there. The District takes over responsibility for civil parking enforcement from 5th November - basically this is good news re more local control but it is yet another squeeze on local resources - no extra money to set up ie £1.2 million - when the parking ticket fines come in they will help running costs - when we break even then we can spend money on related community benefits - some say we never will break even - there is no contribution from central government and it seems the police who will have a much reduced work load in this area also wont make a contribution or see their monies drop.

District councils will enforce on-street parking in most of Gloucestershire from 5th November. Five district councils will be taking over from the police traffic wardens in a partnership project led by Gloucestershire County Council, the sixth - the Forest of Dean - is likely to follow next May.

Introducing Civil Parking Enforcement will hopefully help the District to manage congestion, improve turnover of parking spaces outside shops, prevent abuse of disabled bays, and release police resources to tackle crime and disorder. So from 5th November Stroud District Council will be responsible for both on and off-street parking enforcement, with a team of parking attendants on patrol. While Cotswold District Council will be carrying out back office functions including payments and penalty charge notice processing on behalf of Stroud District Council. Plus the County Council will deal with parking strategy and new parking schemes. The police will still be responsible for enforcing cases of 'obstruction', for example cars blocking a private driveway or a road without road markings.

There is lots more info about how this will work on the District website - with more info coming soon - Winchester has seen a 50% reduction in double yellow parking andcar park use is up 8.6%. So hopefully good news for the District - many issues were raised - indeed - well over an hour of questions.

Photo left: New road paint in Randwick - in my view unnecessary urbanisation of our village

I noted that as a result of the hand over to the District we have seen loads more road paint put down - this urbanises rural areas and is unnecessary - there are other ways of restricting parking than all the ugly paint - sadly there was not time for the County to review these issues before reinforcing existing Traffic Orders - a missed opportunity.

It now seems that if we want changes to current Traffic Orders we will need to put forward a case - it is unlikely any but the most urgent will be considered in next two years due to finances etc. It is vital that complaints about the service/parking issues are made so that a picture of problem areas can be fully assessed.

Resident Parking permits is an issue that needs looking at urgently - there are streets that face considerable problems - I've attended several meetings with residents and others in areas like Lansdown - yes we have problems here in Whiteshill but the problems there are terrible with cars parked on pavements, regularly mounting pavements and travelling far too fast....anyway enough on parking...

Planning Scrutiny

As part of the Quarterly Service Plans in my role on Scrutiny I get to see two service heads each 3 months to scrutinise their plans and more - this week I met with Phil Skill, Head of Planning and Cllr Lunnon - my report will go to Scrutiny meeting next week - but just to note the discussions included Section 106, performance indicators and the impact of Huntsgrove.

Regeneration Scrutiny

I also met with Nick Fenwick, Head of Regen - again with Cllr Lunnon - again my report will go to Scrutiny next week - issues covered include transport interchange, the planned new Regen Strategy, the Green Travel Plan and again 106 agreements.

Other stuff

An interesting meeting re Stroud Rugby Club proposals, a meeting in Cheltenham with Friends of the Earth Coordinator re Staverton (Don't forget Camp Hope this weekend) and more...got to go now so this will have to do for now - more later.