THE Vale council will consider using a camera car to help enforce parking regulations in the county in future.

A recommendation from the environment and regeneration scrutiny committee was accepted by cabinet on Monday (December 4) as members were given an updated on civil parking enforcement.

Cabinet also agreed to explore whether the current workforce dealing with parking enforcement is adequate.

The suggestion of a camera car to assist officers in their duties was seen by all scrutiny committee members as an “excellent way forward” and, although subject to available resources, members felt that it should be considered for future use.

In April 2013, the Vale council and Bridgend council became responsible for on and off-street parking under the Civil Parking Enforcement (CPE) with enforcement officers given the power to issue penalty charge notices (PCNs)

There are no targets for the number of PCNs that a Civil Enforcement Officer must issue. All officers undergo comprehensive training and may only issue a PCN if they believe a contravention has occurred.

The two neighbouring councils operate a shared service arrangement which is led by Bridgend.

There are five dedicated enforcement officers covering the Vale and a total of 32,981 notices have been issued since 2013.

This year, between April and October, a total of 4,086 notices were issued across the Vale of which 534 were issued in Windsor Road, Penarth and 397 in Holton Road and Paget Road in Barry.

The scheme generated an income of £242,000 with costs including employee costs, premises, payments to Bridgend council, supplies and services and overheads totalling £241,534.

The £466 surplus made by the service in 2016/17 was being used to pay back the initial set up costs for CPE which totalled £281,000.

Of this, £213k was funded from the Visible Services reserve.

In response to a query from the scrutiny committee regarding the turnover of staff and whether the existing arrangements with Bridgend were adequate, the head of service reiterated that the parking strategy needed to be re-examined and there was an issue in relation to staff turnover which it was envisaged the pending car parking strategy would assist with.