Parking wardens in ticket target row
Monday 12th July 2010, 11:30AM BST.
Parking wardens have been given targets of nine tickets per day in a Black Country town, a confidential document passed to the Express & Star reveals.
In it, staff are told they are expected to issue more than one ticket each hour and to avoid quiet streets.
A team of 25 wardens from private firm APCOA took over parking enforcement from police in Walsall in April, 2009.
They issued almost 14,500 parking tickets in their first six months – nearly triple the number handed out in an entire year by police.
Tickets were even slapped on a police car and a bus. The firm’s latest figures are yet to be revealed.
Bosses from the firm, which also controls parking enforcement in Wolverhampton, Sandwell and South Staffordshire, today launched an inquiry and denied they give targets to wardens, also known as civil enforcement officers (CEOs).
But minutes of the meeting between managers at APCOA’s Walsall office, within Walsall Council House in Lichfield Street, state: “We need to be hitting nine tickets per CEO per day.
“Between the months of April and September, we only had two members of staff that have continuously hit the required ration of 1.25 tickets per hour.”
Walsall Council has asked for an urgent inquiry.
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While I’m not a big fan of targets, what other methods can be used to show staff are doing their jobs?
Not as if there aren’t enough cars parked illegally…..
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Do they tell the police that each officer must arrest at least 5 people a day to prove they are doing their jobs correctly??
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The police attend incidents. Control tends to be aware of roughly where they are and what they are doing for much of the shift.
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So the targets is all about justifying the job then? If no one parks illegally then no need for them and a saving to the tax payers. In that case I urge all people to not illegally park thus no need for these people then?
Not all police attend incidents. Some just patrol. What about these then? Not every day a fire engine gets called out!! Control will know where the engine is though ,back in the fire depot doing nothing. Do they need to justify the job by targets?
Wardens are there as a deterrent and to punish drivers who don’t abide by parking laws. They shouldn’t need to run around the streets finding cars parked illegally just to satisfy their managers. They are doing the job by patrolling. They are there just in case. It shouldn’t matter if they don’t issue a ticket as long as that genuinly means no one is parked illegally on their beat. BUT! I do understand that means a lot of honesty in the job that they do.
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Take a look in Bloxwich, in a High street no more than half a mile long, there are a disproportinate amount of wardens strutting around to the level of traffic there.
If we want to save some money on Walsall Councils budget, how about halving the requirement for these “workers” and targetting areas that give specific problems with parking rather than flooding towns wholesale in an attempt to issue as many tickets as possible.
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It shouldn’t be about targets. It’s about keeping our roads free of congestion by fining people who park illegally.Shouldn’t matter if a traffic warden gives one ticket out a day or fifty. The wardens are doing their jobs just by patrolling the streets, even if they don’t give any tickets out.
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We all know traffic wardens have always had targets, even though their bosses would always deny it. How do you think they are measured on performance? It’s not by the amount of metres they walk on a day is it!
They have been caught, weighed and measured.
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Do you use the same method to the police or firebrigade? How many fires have they put out in a week or how many arrests have the individual officers made? Or even how many sick people have the paramedics dealt with each day. And! if they havn’t made any arrests or put any fires out or even dealt with any sick people do we sack them for being idle on the job? Bit of a stupid thing really putting targets on these people.
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St Joe,
They can only ticket those people ILLEGALLY PARKED and have issue triple that issued by police. Is this a case of the private sector doing a job better than the public sector. As an individual who never parks illegally but does see the inconvenience caused by those who do, I have no problem with the number of tickets issued!!
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It’s probably a case of the private sector milking it. Not a good idea putting this kind of thing in the hands of the private sector. Same as Wheel clamping. Its about money only and that means targets no matter what!!
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I’m amused that you think its only about money stjoe.
Surely without illegal parking there is no money?
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True Martin no illegal parking no money. It’s certainly not about anything else if the private sectors involved is it? Milk it and find as many cars as you can..Perhaps make it up if you dare and give no lea way at all. Oh but they take photos don’t thye just to prove the cars are illegally parked. Got it covered havn’t they. Lets hope walsall council does investigate the matter then.
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The easy thing to do is not to shop in Walsall if you need to park. I had a ticket whilst I went to Prontaprint to collect some printing. The ticket said I was observed from 15.25 to 15.25. The appeal failed – mainly because I said that I had parked on a double yellow line. I don’t any more. I now shop and buy products from where I can park without fear. That is not Walsall; Sandwell or Dudley. Wombourne and Lichfield are both good.
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Whilst Councils state they don’t have targets for issuing tickets, they know exactly how many have to be issued to cover the costs of what is allegedly a deterrent!
So even if they say there are no targets as such, they have a break even figure in mind!
If an operative isn’t issuing enough tickets, he or she will be held accountable or they will be instructed to vary patrols to attend busier areas or at peak periods, until they hit the targets that don’t exist!
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They need to get down broad street in Wolverhampton. It constantly has cars parked outside the takeaways blocking traffic and not a parking warden in sight.
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Try driving through Brierley Hill High street, some idiots even park on crossings, they have new bus only areas the don,t even take notice of those signs, they just seem to get away with it.
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Totally agree. I believe certain blue-badge people think they can park where they like, even if it means breaking the law! Which certain one’s seem to think doesn’t still apply to them.
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Blue badge olders are permitted by law to park on double yellow lines provided they are not causing an obstruction or parking in a dangerous manner.
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The double yellows with single cross stripe tehy cannot park on though.
And causing an obstruction still gets them a ticket on normal double yellows.
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Exactly Bob, but I have seen certain blue badge holders park on the white zig-zag lines at crossings! I have seen them park on corners blocking the view of people trying to leave a junction, and I have seen them block people in because they believed they had priority over them.
This happens quite regularly in Brierley Hill and Stourbridge.
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Some only seem to get as far as ‘permitted to park on double yellow lines’ and no further.
Some of the worst obstructions are by blue badge holders.
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Don’t park in the wrong place – don’t get ticket. Simples.
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I would love to see them ticket my car (Again) lol.
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If you don’t want to get a ticket don’t park illegally…it’s not rocket science!!
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If you don’t want a ticket, don’t park illegally..simples!
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WHY DONT TRAFFIC WARDENS GET A LIFE AND A PROPER JOB INSTEAD OF INTIMIDATING PEOPLE HAVNT THEY GOT NOTHING ELSE BETTER TO DO WITH THIER TIME
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Well basically no, they don’t have anything better to do. Its called a job.
And if you don’t park illegally then they cannot intimidate you.
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I have noticed one thing since Walsall started using these wardens. Its a whole lot easier to park in town with a blue badge. Saw more than 4 disabled spaces in town centre at two different times on Saturday morning.
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The easy way for these wardens to hit their targets is to stand outside schools between 8.30 and 9.00/ 3.30 and 4.00 – book all the illegal parkers! (mid you knowing the intelligence of some of these people – they would only be there on Saturdays…)
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Totaly agree, same as the mobile phone drivers!!!! These are real trargets that need to be contoled.
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It’s a shame we cannot ignore police or council parking tickets.
On the other hand, you can ignore any parking ticket given by any company if you have parked on private land, just rip up the ticket, ignore and letters sent to you in the post, and never ever contact or pay anything. They are scamming you, do not pay!
I recently received a ticket while parked at the Waterfront in Brierly Hill. After receiving my letters, with “fines” (they mean unsolicited invoices) in the hundreds of pounds, and then a threat to go to court. They soon stopped with their illegal threats.
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It seems fair enough that people parking on double-yellows should be ticketed, as they really can cause obstructions for everyone. However, common sense should prevail about people overstaying pay-and-display car parking.
A few weeks ago, I parked in Wolverhampton on a Saturday morning and was literally TWO minutes late returning to the car, which was parked in a parking bay on a side road. There were THREE traffic wardens standing round my car, with a pad out and pen poised ready to write the ticket. To be fair, they told me I was in time and didn’t give me a ticket but to have three of them standing there waiting, presumably, for it to be five minutes over time, felt very intimidating. I wouldn’t have minded but there were no other cars in the parking bays (perhaps I now know why!) and there must have been a dozen free spaces. It’s put me off parking there since.
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Sounds like they did use some common sense about you overstaying.
You paid for a certain time.
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What you was going to get three tickets for one offence?
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i think it is ashame tickets cannot be given to people standing talking in the middle of town who cause everyone else to have to walk round them!! or to people who take pushchairs into town on a saturday, or old people who are down town just getting in the way!!! lets increase the powers of civil enforcement officers!!!!!!!!!
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Maybe the old people are just doing their shopping!!!! Maybe you get in their way. Why should a parent with a pushchair not go into town on a Saturday? why dont you go some other day instead? If someone bumps into someone in town and stops for a chat so be it, walk round them stop moaning.
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No problem with walking round them. Its when they block a shop entrance, or block an aisle so they can have a natter that I get annoyed.
And the dirty looks they give me when I try and push a wheelchair past them and ask them to move……
You’d think I was assaulting them or something.
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We all moan about the Wardens but how many of us ever stop to think about the seemingly endless ‘miles’ of double-yellow lines that have been inflicted on us by our Councils?
How many of us actually stop to think about the excesses of our Councils, most of whom seem to have set ridiculous ‘targets’ for their road-marking gangs? No one will ever convince me that even 50% of current restrictions are justified.
Next time you are out and about take a critical look at some of those double-yellows. More often than not you’ll find that they are completely unnecessary. Perhaps we’re all approaching this ‘scam’ from the wrong direction.
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