THURROCK Council has focussed parking enforcement on known issues and hot-spots to help make sure that nuisance parkers do not block roads, the recently published Parking Annual Report highlights last year’s successes and lays out plans for the future.
Following a successful year in 2021-22 the team of 10 Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs) has been increased to 15 and with five more posts being recruited the team will soon double in size to 20 to enable them to more quickly respond to resident concerns about parking and provide greater focus to targeted operations tackling known issues.
Additional patrols by CEOs prioritised schools, following concerns raised by parents and neighbours, and officers are carrying out an ongoing operation to enforce against HGV drivers which park in the borough instead of using nearby HGV rest centres.
Successes include:
- additional night-time patrols in HGV parking hot-spots leading to 1,590 Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) being issued totalling £84,984 in fines
- between February 2021 and April 2022 officers formally warned 122 lorries to move and issued 183 fines to 59 drivers that did not act on those warnings. More than 90% of those fines have been paid.
- issuing 24,605 PCNs to vehicles that had broken parking rules between April 2021 and March 2022, meaning that drivers were fined more than three-quarters of a million pounds for parking illegally in the borough
When combined with money raised through council operated car parks and on-street parking it meant that the parking and enforcement service funded all of its costs and generated an additional £241,909 surplus, which is ringfenced for highways and transportation improvements.
Cllr Ben Maney, Cabinet Member for Highways, said: “Our aim is to make sure that our roads are safe and keep moving to allow residents and visitors to get around the borough. All enforcement activity takes place with this aim in mind.
“Over the last year we have prioritised enforcement activity to the issues we know cause the greatest concern for residents: HGVs and parking issues outside schools at dropping off and picking-up times. We will build on this work and provide additional resource to help curb issues caused by nuisance parking.”
The report can be viewed online at thurrock.gov.uk/parking-enforcement/parking-documents-reports-and-auditing
