Park life C O U N T D OWN C ON UND R UM Kelvin Reynolds tries to get the numbers to add up and make sense of the quandaries that written policies and political statements can bring for our sector as the time ticks on to the next general election M oving traffic enforcement powers have now been extended to 52 local authorities outside of London. Interestingly, only a few of them are so far actively enforcing. Obviously, it takes time to get organised, and there is much to do at the preparation stage, ensuring that all the engineering and education in the form of checking lines, signs, and orders for accuracy, and proper communications to tell people what is happening is in place before compliance monitoring and any enforcement activity can begin. Derby City Council is a front runner and, so far, the focus has predominantly been on school streets and a handful of critical junctions.1 Early results are promising, for many reasons. First, its proving effective: compliance is improving. Second, the number of penalty charges being issued could not be claimed to be indicative of a war on the motorist. In fact, the opposite is true. The conundrum is that deployment of additional enforcement resources costs money, and yet the initial, and justifiable, use of warning notices leads to improved compliance with little or no income. So, how do you fund those additional enforcement resources? Could this be the challenge faced by many of the other local authorities with the new powers? Can they afford to do the enforcement needed to improve compliance without increasing the number of penalty charges, therefore having no income to fund the scheme? Government U-turn? Paradoxically, in London, where moving traffic enforcement has been in existence for nearly 20 years, proposals to expand ultra-low emission zones is creating a lot of political hot air. Moreover, the present government, The conundrum is that deployment of additional enforcement resources costs money, and yet the initial, and justifiable, use of warning notices leads to improved compliance with little or no income 47 PN Sept 2023 pp46-48 Park Life.indd 47 24/08/2023 11:12