Sheffield Council have unveiled a new system to make buying Pay and Display tickets after they have revealed they have had to hand out tens of thousands of fines. In
the past financial year, 46,974 parking tickets were issued and another
19,651 fines imposed on motorists who drove in bus lanes. The council
is managing to collect around 70 per cent of the fines.
In
a report to a scrutiny committee meeting, an officer said "The main
objectives are to make parking enforcement more transparent so
motorists understand the process better and consider they are being
treated in a fair and consistent manner when they are issued with a
notice for parking illegally. There are several providers of
the mobile phone technology and this payment method would largely
resolve the problem faced by drivers who have insufficient coins. It
has been successfully introduced in a number of other cities with a
take-up of between 15 and 30 per cent of overall payments."
The
council took over responsibility for enforcement of most parking
restrictions in 2005. Penalty charge notices on illegally parked
vehicles fund the enforcement work and any money left over is used on
parking and transport projects. Council chiefs are considering
whether to fine drivers who park across dropped kerbs, on grass verges
or with wheels on the pavement. | 
