Fenland District Council
Council’s £75k cut price bid to tackle illegal parking across Fenland towns
Progress on CPE project has been paused
Council chiefs are looking at fresh ways to tackle illegal parking across all 4 market towns in Fenland after being forced to ‘pause’ the introduction of civil parking enforcement (CPE). A new plan to bring in enforcement to regulate parking in council owned car parks is being considered.
The expectation, says officers, is that “whilst this would not offer enforcement of on-street highway areas, this would enable off-street parking areas owned by FDC to be regulated and enforced.
“Which in turn would free up parking spaces to reduce the number of on-street parking contraventions.
“The estimated cost of this proposal is considered to be in the region of £75,000.”
Fenland Council manages 20 public car parks within Chatteris, Manea, March, Whittlesey and Wisbech.
Although all are free to use, the council says “users must comply with our terms and conditions of use or may face a penalty under our relevant parking places order.
“Parking enforcement patrols take place on March Market Place and fixed penalty notices apply”.
One option might be for the council to restrict the time cars can park for free. At the moment users have 24 hours free parking.
Councillors will hear on Monday that rising costs of introducing CPE to Fenland has been “paused until such time as additional funding has been sought or agreed”.
Portfolio holder and deputy leader Cllr Jan French says in her report to council that “it is estimated that the current budget shortfall is in the region of £500,000 but this figure is likely to increase with time by the annual CPI rate”.
At the May council meeting she reported that FDC had received confirmation from the county council about the extent of correcting signs and lines across all four towns.
On street parking enforcement remains a police matter. Fenland police recently posed this question: “How many tickets do you think we issued to cars parked obstructively or illegally in Wisbech town centre in one day? If you guessed 13, you would be correct!” The force added: “There are plenty of areas for to park around Wisbech that won’t result in you returning to a ticket from us, so we urge you to utilise these instead, even if it means having to walk a little further to your destination.”
“Collectively, 294 signing defects were found to exist along with 743 lining defects,” she said.
“The target cost (estimated cost which could go up or down) for the signing and lining works amounted to £592,393.33 which also included a 10% contingency allowance.
“Based on minimal civil enforcement officer deployment, the annual revenue deficit to FDC for the administration and operational running of CPE was estimated at £45,469.20 per year.
“This excludes any costs associated with administering waiver, dispensations, suspensions and permits which would be conditional of the county council agency agreement”
Cllr French said that whilst the contribution of funding from the Combined Authority now had an extended deadline of December 2025, “the CPE project cannot be delivered unless the estimated funding shortfall in the region of £500,000 is found from the FDC purse.
“Currently progress on the CPE project has been paused until such time as additional funding is found or committed”.
One area where the need to tackle bad parking has been on March Marketplace where council will hear on Monday where “additional enforcement work is taking place to raise awareness of the parking order following the recent improvement works.
“Sadly, we have had to issue 11 parking fines to cars who were found to be parking illegally”.
In May she reported that the council had “sadly had to issue 6 parking fines to cars who were found to be parking illegally”.
