Decriminalised Parking in Durham District
The County Council is looking seriously at moving to something called “decriminalised parking enforcement” across the Durham City district about 12 months from now.
This is all about who can issue fines for things like parking on double yellow lines, or causing an obstruction.
At the moment, these are criminal offences and tickets can only be issued by the police, a traffic warden (of which there are currently none anyway) or a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO).
There is now provision in law for the Highway Authority (the County Council) to introduce a scheme whereby the Council can do this sort of things and the offence ceases to be a criminal one. Sunderland, for instance, currently has this arrangement.
Personally, I think this should be an improvement because parking offences are very low down the priority list for the police and I know of areas (e.g. back lanes) where there are continuing problems. Having a dedicated staff to deal with it should improve things for most residents.
County Councillors for the City area were given a presentation on this after last week’s Highways Committee. The first stage for getting everything set up is for all the local parking orders to be checked for accuracy and consistency. Then the Council will draw up a scheme for approval by the Secretary of State. If that goes through, the Council will contract out the service and with a fair wind it could be in place this time next year.
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