It's 50 golden years for the traffic warden

Fifty years ago, the first traffic wardens marched onto British streets. Hannah Webster looks at the work of the officers who plague motorists across the land.

They have been the bane of every motorist's life at some time or another.

Everyone knows someone who has been caught by one, or has been caught themselves, and many an argument has been had about their real motives.

Traffic wardens - or civil enforcement officers as they are now called - are enjoying their 50th year of existence this year since they were first introduced in Westminster in 1960, and the Black Country has had its fair share of parking mishaps and public outcry over parking tickets.

Ron Houghton, a paramedic recovering from a quadruple heart bypass, was threatened with a parking ticket when his car broke down on West Bromwich High Street in June last year and he had help to push it into a nearby disabled space.

The 60-year-old only managed to avoid the fine because the driver in the bay in front of him heard him talking to the traffic warden and volunteered to leave so Mr Houghton and some shopkeepers could push the car into the space in front which did not require a blue disabled badge.

More than a dozen cars were ticketed while people paid their respects at a Remembrance Sunday Service at the Cenotaph in Walsall last year, with many condemning the decision as "disgraceful". Walsall Council later said it would grant the appeals of anyone querying the tickets, but it will continue to charge for parking at this year's Remembrance services.

Other examples include motorist Lisa Williams, who returned to her car in March 2007 to find it had been shunted forward out of its parking bay and onto double yellow lines, so workmen could paint yellow lines along the rest of the road in Frederick Street, Wolverhampton.

She later found out she narrowly avoided a police community support officer issuing a ticket after workers in the office opposite, who had seen what happened, ran out to stop her. Council contractors Ringway Roadmarking later apologised to Miss Williams.

Killjoy traffic wardens also descended on West Park during a Wolves promotion party last year to slap tickets on supporters' cars.

A team of five wardens was sent to the park, where they targeted at least 50 cars parked on the grass verge around the perimeter fence.

The cars were parked illegally, but were not blocking any roads, and Wolverhampton Council was accused of organising an "entrapment" of fans, bringing in thousands of pounds of revenue from the £70 tickets.

It is often argued that the job of traffic wardens is less about parking management and more about squeezing more money out of the already-beleaguered motorist.

The Express & Star revealed last year that after the council took over parking enforcement from the police, more than 12,000 parking tickets were dished out in just six months.

Transport chief Tom Ansell told this newspaper he knew the decision to take over parking enforcement "wouldn't win any popularity contests", but that if motorists did not break the rules, they had nothing to worry about.

And Councillor Dennis Anson, a critic of the number of wardens which have been patrolling Walsall for the last year, reflects many motorists' views when he says that in the town wardens "hunt in packs". He said: "I have no sympathy with people who get tickets for parking on double yellow lines, but I am concerned with how many wardens we have now. We have gone right over the top."

Unfortunately, there are the few motorists so incensed by a ticket, or the way in which it has been handed out, that they lose their rag and resort to unjustified violence.

More than 50 parking wardens were attacked by motorists across the Black Country in a year, including instances of a warden being grabbed by the throat and one nearly being run over in 2008 in Wolverhampton.

There were 20 attacks in Sandwell, 18 in Wolverhampton, nine in Walsall and 12 in Dudley in the same period.

But although there is frustration about the use of traffic wardens, there are no signs of consolation in authorities choosing to stop using them, and regardless of how controversial they are, there is no denying that they deter many drivers from dumping their cars in inconsiderate places.

As a result, it is certainly looking like the wardens are here to stay.

Here's to the next 50 years . . .