Hounslow Plans Increase in Number of Parking Attendants
Body worn cameras to be warn after number of attacks by angry motorists
Hounslow Council is considering a plan for a significant increase in the number of Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs) or parking attendant in the borough to increase the effectiveness of policing parking violations.
At the same time they would be issuing body worn cameras to the staff giving out PCNs after a number of incidents in which they have been assaulted or abused by angry motorists. These devices have already been introduced in a number of other London boroughs after similar incidents.
The report recommending the increase says the move is necessary because the number of Controlled Parking Zones (CPZs) in the borough have increased significantly over the last five years but the number of CEOs has not risen at the same rate. There have been 14 new CPZs introduced since the signing of the contract with SERCO to carry out enforcement. There have been a number of complaints about non-enforcement across the borough particularly around schools.
Table from Hounslow Council report
Currently, the existing CEOs, who are employed by SERCO, are issuing PCNs at the rate of 1.5 an hour and council officers expect that this may fall slightly as more staff are employed but there will still be a surplus if they continue to issue tickets at a rate of 1.1-1.3 an hour. The report does not state how many extra CEOs would be employed but does say that the increase in the number of CPZs has been 34% over the past five years with no corresponding increase in enforcement officers.
The introduction of 40 body worn cameras will incur an initial cost of £33,470 including an annual cost of £3,500 for the cloud hosted server. The advantages of the cloud based solution mean that there is no requirement to buy and maintain additional desk tops PCs and additional storage space with the associated ongoing maintenance costs.
The proposal is to ask SERCO to deploy additional CEOs and an Automatic Number Plate Recognition vehicle. It will be considered by Councillor Hanif Khan, Cabinet Member for Transport and Corporate Property, who will take a
decision using his delegated authority on the matter on Monday, 3 September.
August 24, 2018