Shropshire parking ticket revenue plummets
Saturday 1st May 2010, 11:30AM BST.
Money from parking tickets issued across Shropshire fell by 50 per cent in the last year, figures showed today.
Parking wardens handed out more than 10,000 tickets in the last 12 months bringing in nearly £280,000. But in the previous year more than twice as many tickets were issued by parking wardens – netting almost £650,000.
But motorists could see more wardens on the streets with plans being drawn up to bring in eight more – fewer than 18 months after the number of attendants was slashed in half.
The details were revealed by Shropshire Council – which is working on a range of changes to parking and enforcement in the county – in a report due to go before councillors next month.
Figures showed in the financial year April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010, 10,068 Penalty Charge Notices were given out, with the authority making £278,629.
In the previous financial year 20,142 Penalty Charge Notices were issued, with the council making £649,643.
Councillor Martin Taylor-Smith, strategic planning and transport portfolio holder at Shropshire Council, confirmed the authority was looking to increase numbers, but said it was not seen as a “cash cow”.
In December 2008, the former county council approved cutting the number of traffic wardens from 28 to 14, although it is understood that 16 are currently employed.
Councillor Taylor-Smith said a report on parking plans would be going to cabinet on May 19.
He said: “The council took over the enforcement and reduced the number of officers down and also relaxed the enforcement regime. We’ve reviewed this and we don’t see it as a cash cow but it is something that hopefully breaks even.”
As part of the same report, the authority is looking to equalise parking charges across the county, and Councillor Taylor-Smith said to enforce this the number of wardens would need to rise.
Dave Roberts, Shropshire Council’s environmental enforcement manager, said: “The new approach ensures that penalty charge notices are issued only as a last resort, as the main priorities are to keep roads safe and to educate people on parking restrictions.”
By John Kirk
UK News
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idiots cut them for political points, now they will have to raise council tax to plug the whole loosing more votes than gained by lax parking regs
lol
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The council will now have to think of more money raising ideas now people have become wise to money raising stealth taxes.
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Must be that people are parking more responsibly, job done! cause for satisfaction all round for everyone I would have thought except amongst the thwarted and desperate Frankwell bean counters. Expect more hurried double line painting especially along innocuous out of town centre back streets.
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How nice that we as a county abide by the local laws. What happens when the council employ more wardens and the revenue still does not come in, the poor wardens get sacked again and its cost the tax payer more money. Surley this should not be considered a money making opportunity by the council.
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Fines should not be counted as revenue… full stop. It’s the wrong mindset.
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what sort of an incompetent bunch of managers have presided over this reduction in income – oh wait thats the same lot with more earnings than the PM who were exposed in the Star last week as costing us a cool million in salary alone (double this to cover their golden pensions and NI costs)
SACK THEM ALL!
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Revenue down 50% on last year so they decide to increase the number of parking wardens. Not a “cash cow”. What a load of rubbish. Why increase the number of wardens then?. Just like the main political parties, our council think us the public are idiots.
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This is a disaster, im staggered that a conservative council could be running with so little regard for basic business principle like generating some cash flow. if these people were running a business they would have gone bust by now, they should be sacked for this failure which means legal people like me will pay more council tax whilst still struggling to find a car parking space outside by own house because lazy illegal parks continue to block my drive.
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how embarrasing for the council, they couldnt organise a drinking competition in a brewery
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that is a serious black hole to plug
just goes to show the false economy of sacking public sector staff, job centre plus and the inland revenue have made similarly costly mistakes with our money of late, you cant just call everyone a beurocrat get rid of them and then realise unemployment, criminal activity and anti social behaviour like illegal parking goes up costing the whole economy more in the long run
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Personally I’m quite expecting a sharp and well aimed axe to be taken to the public sector from the new coalition government. I want the deadwood, the jobsworths, the mouse-pushers, the clip-board warriors, the non-descript non-jobbers, the stategists, the consultants, the diversity managers, the equality wonks, the PR officers, and the rest of the public flotsom currently soaking up my taxes with their unaffordable index linked very-nice-thank-you pension for the rest of my life bunch OUT. Then of course it’ll be time for the Quangos…lots of fun to had there!
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this is to be expected with the recession people are going shopping in the town centre and more likely to obey the law to save money at this time
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this is the consequence of politicising decisions like enforcement, it should be impartially managed by an independant technical specialist or privatised completely ideally, it cannot be acceptable for this loss of funding for our public services because some politian wanted to get elected in the short term, now care homes and rural primaries must be shut down to pay for it
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this is a good thing surely it shows that people power has won out, we wont accept paying to park, its our right to park where we like, they should make up the money from efficiencies not council tax rises
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Proof that zero tolerence does work. Even the whingers are getting the message..Park illegally and you’ll get fined, its as easy as that..
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im appauled as a legal parker who has never had a ticket, in future i wont bother, i’ll just park illegally on the street it seems no one really minds
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we should welcome the reduction in tickets, its good for the shops, local traders will be happy about this laissez faire approach, if they have to make the money up then they should not put parking up, cut some of the non jobs instead
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maybe this should be compared to revenue from the car parks e.g. legal parking to assess the change from illegal to legal parking ??
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