Technical delays hit ‘spy car’ crackdown on illegal school parking

Details of the plan, using a car equipped with automatic number plate recognition cameras, first emerged in August and Barnsley Council formally publicised the vehicle in October.

But now the Yorkshire Post has learned there “are still some technical issues to be resolved” and no date for the introduction of the vehicle is yet available.

Barnsley Council was given £25,000 to buy the equipment, to be installed in a car it already owned, from Congestion Reward Funding allocated by the Government to South Yorkshire.

The car is meant to operate by recording those who break parking rules near schools, so they can be later identified through number plate records and fined by post.

Outside school drop-off and pick-up times, the car is expected to be used in other areas, such as to catch those abusing bus-stop restrictions and parking in clear-ways.

A report to be considered by the council’s ruling cabinet on Wednesday states the parking enforcement team’s current efforts to enforce parking restrictions near schools have been hampered by the visibility of the vehicles used by parking wardens.

It states: “Our experience has been that when the mobile patrol vehicle is in sight, offenders quickly move their vehicles away from the restrictions.”

When the ANPR car does go operational, money raised from the fines issued as a result of its work will be fed back into the finances of the council’s parking services department.

Last year that department made a profit of around £600, but in its first three years of operation, from 2005, it made significant losses. Last year, the department had ten and a half civil parking enforcement officers, compared to 15 when the council took over parking enforcement work.

Also last year, the authority issued the lowest number of parking tickets since it took on responsibility from old fashioned traffic wardens.

During 2010/11, the council issued 7,079 tickets, compared to 10,791 in the department’s most active year, 2008/9.