Devon’s on-street parking to be re-organised

Devon County Council is re-organising the on-street parking service to reduce the costs of enforcement.

The County Council has been reviewing the structure of its Civil Parking Enforcement (CPE) over the past year in order to reduce the operating deficit in this part of the service.

Since the introduction of the CPE service, the District Councils have provided on-street enforcement under agreement with the County Council. A review of the service showed that significant costs savings could be made by re-organising the way the service is provided. As a result, notice was served to the District Councils in March 2013 to end the existing agreements.

Alternative options for delivering the enforcement service have been developed by a cluster of District Councils (Teignbridge, South Hams and West Devon) and the County Council. The options have been compared and the County Council has now decided to transfer on-street enforcement in-house as this will provide the necessary savings, offer a good prospect of on-going savings and provide a flexible service that can meet future needs. The decision could involve the transfer of around 64 staff from the Districts to the new County service.

The County Council understands that this change does present some of the Districts with a challenge about how they can provide for cost effective enforcement of their own off-street car parking. However, the new service delivery model is available for the Districts to use if they wish, and further collaboration with the Districts could enable them to take advantage of the savings that the new ways of working will deliver.

Councillor Stuart Hughes, Devon County Council Cabinet Member for Highway Management, said: “We have always worked closely with the district councils and they have provided the County Council with a very good on-street parking service. However, due to rising costs it has been necessary to look at operating the service differently.

"Although we put forward new delivery proposals to the districts, unfortunately they were not accepted by them. We have considered both an in-house and a district-led alternative in order to determine which could provide the best service for the future.

"The result of this assessment has been to bring on-street parking enforcement in-house which offers the greatest prospect of saving hundreds of thousands of pounds a year which will be used for highway improvement and sustainable transport projects. We need parking enforcement to ensure that traffic is managed safely so that we can keep Devon moving.”

Devon County Council’s Civil Parking Enforcement Service has been in place since May 2008, after the Police withdrew its traffic warden service. Enforcement and back office administration has been provided by the eight district councils through agency agreements with the county.

The new in-house arrangements are due to be introduced on 1 April 2014.