Sheffield drivers “flouting parking rules outside city centre”

Coun David Barker, who represents Richmond ward, spoke about the problem at a meeting of Sheffield City Council’s waste and street scene committee last Friday (February 14). The committee was discussing proposed changes to parking enforcement rules, including for dropped kerbs outside house driveways, raised carriageways and car club permit holder bays.

Coun Barker said: “Double yellow lines are just ignored where I live. People don’t just park half on the footpath, they can drive down the footpath in front of a block of houses just to park in front of their house because they know nothing’s going to happen.

Get a bespoke headline round-up and breaking updates when you sign up to The Star’s free emails

“In the absence of additional enforcement resources, are we at a point where we might consider giving other council officers enforcement powers, particularly those working in localities, or extending the technology out of the city centre to help us pick up on these issues?

“Because out of the city centre, people in a lot of the areas we represent just do what they want, so it’s not going to be enforced.”

Reporting

Council assistant director for street scene services Ben Brailsford said there have been efforts to make it easier for members of the public to report parking issues that they see. He said people can call or email the council parking services team direct.

A new online reporting tool allows people to add photos as well. He said that the council website outlines which issues can be reported to the council and which are police issues.

“We very much want to receive those reports, we try to make it as easy as possible for people to do that and we really welcome if people would send those those reports,” said Mr Brailsford. He said the council sends officers out to all reports that it can take action on.

He said that reports allow the council to see where it should focus its resources.

A council task and finish group consisting of members of the committee and of the transport, regeneration and climate policy is looking at lots of parking issues such as the use of technology to enforce rules, said Mr Brailsford.

He said that only someone trained and designated as a council civil enforcement officer can issue a penalty notice.

Matchdays

Hillsborough ward Coun Christine Gilligan Kubo said there is a problem on football club matchdays. “You can report what you like on matchdays, there’s very few traffic officers around and when they come back to look at it on a non-matchday there’s no problem, so I just think we do need to think how we enforce on matchdays.”

Mr Brailsford said that matchdays at both Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United grounds bring issues. “There are extra resources put on and people do enforce on matchdays, I’ll be very, very clear.”

He promised to look at the issue and said it should be included in the task and finish group discussions. Task and finish groups involve councillors and aim to look at key issues over a limited timeframe in order to come up with solutions.

Consultations are taking place with city food delivery companies to look at issues around drivers parking to pick up deliveries around food outlets.