Issue - meetings

ECS20035

Members were briefed on the Moving Traffic Contraventions report by the Interim Head of Shared Parking Services (Bromley and Bexley) and the LBB Assistant Director for Traffic and Parking. It was noted that the current responsibility for enforcing moving traffic conventions lay with the police, but the police usually only issued about three fixed penalty notices per year. By comparison, the neighbouring borough of Bexley had issued 14,000 fixed penalty notices during the same period.

The aim of the recommendations was to improve traffic flow and air quality. The Committee noted that if the recommendations were approved, the relevant procurement route would be established in 2021. The purpose of the report was for the Portfolio Holder to make recommendations to the Executive. The final decision would be made by the Executive or by the Leader.

The consensus was that this was a good report, however one Member expressed concern regarding the source of funding; this had been identified  as coming from the contingency budget; the Member recommended that the source of funding should be changed--so that the funding would come either from Invest to Save or from an alternative budget.

A Member noted the proposed 12 locations for the implementation of the first phase regarding enforcing moving traffic conventions. He expressed the view that Widmore Road and St Blaise should have been included in the first phase, as both these areas seemed to have more potential for traffic contraventions.  The Interim Head of Shared Parking Services (Bromley and Bexley) explained that that twelve locations were not fixed in stone, and that cameras could be moved to different locations as the need arose. She made it clear that the aim of enforcing any contraventions was to encourage people to drive properly and was not simply a means of enforcing financial penalties and revenue generation for the Council. To this end, in the initial phase of implementation, warning notices would be issued in the first instance to give people a chance to avoid being penalised until they got used to the new regulations.

There was a consensus amongst Members that the cameras should be installed where the need was greatest. It was noted that in terms of best compliance rates, this was normally 85%. This meant that there would be 15% of drivers that would never be fully compliant.

The timescales involved were explained, and that the target date for implementation was October 2021 for two reasons:

1.  Initially, permission to implement the recommendations would need to be obtained from London Councils.

2.  There was uncertainty as to the length of time required for the procurement process. This was because a decision would need to be made either to simply add new cameras to the existing network or to refresh the whole of the network .

A Member had asked what length of time needed to expire if a vehicle was caught in a yellow box, before enforcement action would be taken. The answer was that the camera would send images  ...  view the full minutes text for item 64