Agenda item

9.1

Inspector Nik Dodsworth (South Yorkshire Police, Sheffield North West), Tracy Hendry (Road Safety Manager, Sheffield City Council) and Claire Crofts (Operations Manager, Enforcement, Sheffield City Council) were in attendance for this item.

9.2

Inspector Nik Dodsworth gave a presentation on ‘Solutions to Parking Issues’, and noted that parking issues were dealt with jointly by South Yorkshire Police and Sheffield City Council. The Police dealt with dangerous parking, and the Council were responsible for enforcing lower level contraventions, for example, parking on dropped kerbs. He explained that ‘Operation Parksafe’ had been a popular and effective scheme aimed at reducing road danger, but noted that the volume of incidents reported had taken valuable resources away from tackling other crimes. The reporting scheme had been fairly indiscriminate, and had, in some cases, led to summons being issued for the wrong offence, or cases pursued that were not in the public interest. The scheme was not able to carry on without additional staffing, training and funding, so had been discontinued. 

9.3

Tracy Hendry gave a brief overview of the work of the Road Safety Team around the South West of Sheffield. She explained that Sheffield City Council worked with partners to deliver a ‘Safe Aystems’ approach to road safety. She referred to the five ‘pillars’ to this approach: safe roads and road signs, safe road users, safe speeds, safe vehicles and post-crash response. She also noted the ‘Vision Zero’ approach to road safety management, based on the belief that no death or serious injury was acceptable on roads, and a combination of education of key groups, engineering schemes and enforcement measures were utilised in this approach.

9.4

Claire Crofts explained that the Civil Enforcement Officer team patrolled many areas throughout sheffield, including main arterial routes at peak times. She advised that incorrectly parked vehicles could be reported via Parking Services for breaching parking restrictions (https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/parking/report-incorrectly-parked-vehicle), or to the police if they are breaching legal restrictions. She added that, in some circumstances, vehicles could be towed away.