EFFORTS to deal with term time parking chaos outside Redditch schools have been raised at County Hall.
However any hope of getting any enforcement of poor parking remains remote – at least for the time being.
Instead the plan is for borough officers to work with schools and the police to devise a way of dealing with the issue.
The County Council is responsible for issuing Travel Regulation Orders (TRO) which give civil enforcement officers – traffic wardens – the power to ticket drivers.
At the moment only one school in the borough – out of about 40 – has a TRO in place.
During a discussion on a report by an all-party working group into parking enforcement Councillor Matt Dormer (Con/West) the Leader of Redditch Borough Council, told the borough’s executive committee that he had already raised the TRO issue at county level.
The working group called for TROs on all zigzag lines outside schools, but, recognising that the county council doesn’t have the finance to do this, called on County Hall to write to the Department of Transport requesting ring-fenced money to provide them.
If and when this is forthcoming the working group also called for the borough to fund an extra civil enforcement officer to patrol schools, working term-time only.
The enforcement officers are currently provided by Wychavon District Council with Redditch getting ‘1.8 officers’.
The committee heard that any profit made through ticketing goes to County Hall while any loss is sustained by Redditch.
Figures for 2018-19 showed that Redditch’s 1.8 officers served 1,664 penalties turning a profit of £11,346.85 for County Hall.
Labour’s Coun Bill Hartnett (Church Hill) and Greg Chance (Central) both spoke for the appointment of an additional officer should the TROs be put in place.
However an amendment moved by Coun Mike Rouse (Con/Church Hill) called for a trial period before anyone extra is employed.
Coun Dormer agreed: “I know 1.8 officers is not a lot but it would not hurt deploying those 1.8 to see if it’s worthwhile,” he said.
He added that many of the complaints revolved around parking on pavements and blocking driveways, and these were police issues.
