| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Strange New Road Markings on Uxbridge Road | |
| Posted by: | Chris Veasey | |
| Date/Time: | 05/02/10 22:43:00 |
| Not quite as simple as that. The major change in the Thatcher era, at least in London, was to relieve the Police of responsibility for parking ennforcement other than on the Strategic Road Network, entailing decriminalisation of non-SRN parking infringement. In London the non-SRN enforcement powers and duty were IMPOSED on the London local authorities (ie the boroughs plus the two so-called 'cities'). This went hand-in-hand with the power - and encouragement - to the LLAs to contract out the actual enforcement to private firms. Take it from me, the parking enforcement system in London before that was a sick joke, with the Police exercisibnt thgeir right to extort money from the LLAs to pay for an enforcement service they largely failed to deliver, other than when and where it suited them to. And there was nothing the LA's could do about it except fume. So it's not just cost to be considered, it's effectiveness (as well as of course cost-effectiveness). The old-style Police Traffic Warden enforcement system was supremely ineffective in practice. Nor was it always entirely the Polices' fault - freezing Traffic Warden recruitment was a favourite tool of the Westminster govt (through the Secretary of State) at times of economic crisis (endemic in the 1970s). And to be fair to the Met Police, it was their own in-depth Inquiry into the Traffic Warden Service (report published circa 1987) which started the ball rolling towards that eventual change. |