Questions over financing of parking enforcement

The parking enforcement service in Lincolnshire is entirely self financing

Lincolnshire may have to reconsider how it funds and operates parking enforcement due to an increase in costs.

A county council meeting heard that last year the operation had a deficit of £320,000, which was paid for out of reserves.

More than £160,000 was spent on installing cameras outside 10 schools which had parking problems.

Parking services manager Matt Jones said the CCTV cameras outside schools had seen more than 1,000 penalty notices issued since the first one was installed in May and had received "positive feedback from schools".

Councillors heard that unlike some other local authorities, parking enforcement in the county is entirely funded by fines and other revenue rather than out of the council budget.

Jonathan Evans, the council's head of highways, said there were reserves of around £700,000, built up from previous surpluses.

The meeting was told that a trial recently in Bournemouth saw parking fines rise from £70 to £150, with the government assessing whether to allow councils to increase penalties.

Mr Evans said a decision would have to made over the next 12 months about "which way do we go" in terms of how the service was funded and operated.

He said: "If we can't lobby the Department for Transport and change that maximum penalty charge notice, which we have been doing."

Mr Evans continued: "If we don't get any movement there I guess we're coming to that decision of do we carry on with the service as is... or do we need to scale back our service?"

Conservative councillor Charlotte Vernon described it as "not a sustainable situation long term, eventually something will have to give."

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