Council wants new powers to tackle pavement parking

A YORKSHIRE authority wants extra enforcement powers to deal with inconsiderate parking across a county.

North Yorkshire County Council’s proposed response to a Department for Transport consultation on moves to help councils combat pavement parking comes more than two years after it emerged that, while it was an offence to drive on the pavement, even for a short distance, no- one was prosecuted for this.

Residents and councillors voiced frustration after hearing even if a vehicle fully blocked a footway, it was impossible to pursue pavement parking offenders unless they had been witnessed by a police officer.

Pavement parking can cause problems for pedestrians, particularly wheelchair users, people with mobility and visual impairments and those with prams or pushchairs.

In addition, parking on pavements and verges is not an offence in England outside London unless specifically prohibited by a local authority using a formal Traffic Regulation Order.

However, many roads in rural and historic areas such as North Yorkshire were not designed to cope with high traffic levels and on- street parking, so it is accepted pavement parking is necessary in some narrow streets and to maintain free- flowing traffic and access for emergency services.

The council is responsible for 9,200km of roads and 4,000km of footways.

An officer’s report to the council’s executive members has concluded a combination of an improved traffic regulation order process and further enforcement powers for enforcement would help the authority crack down on offenders and could be introduced relatively quickly and at no cost to the council.

It calls for the introduction of legislative changes to allow local authorities with parking enforcement powers to enforce against ‘ unnecessary obstruction of the pavement’ with fixed penalty notices. The Government is not proposing full decriminalisation of parking offences as there may be some circumstances where an obstruction of the pavement is more appropriately dealt with by the police. And exceptions would be made for emergency services and road and utility maintenance vehicles.