£250k enforcement camera car plans put on hold

Alec Doyle, local democracy reporter

Councillors have asked for a detailed report on the benefits of investing over £250,000 in a new camera car for its enforcement team to ensure the expenditure would deliver value for money.

Wrexham County Borough Council’s Homes and Environment Scrutiny Committee said within three months it wanted to see the fine details of the costs and projected revenues, coupled with details of additional staff enhancements to strengthen its small enforcement team to make sure the authority was getting value for money.

According to a proposal from the authority’s Environment and Technical Department, The purchase of a new electric car and the associated camera equipment would be £85,000. Staff to operate the camera car would cost £150,000 per year while maintenance costs wold add another £20,000 per annum.

Initial estimates are that the car would generate £140,000 per year in penalty notice revenue.

Crucially the department argued it would also free up existing officers to spend more time investigating reports of parking offences and environmental offences – such as dog fouling – outside Wrexham city centre.

Last year Wrexham Council spent £361,926 on it’s enforcement activity. the revenue through pay and display and fixed penalties that was recovered was £406,171.

While the committee raised concerns that recommending investment in a car and additional staff may not be affordable, Council Leader Mark Pritchard remained unconcerned.

“I strongly believe it will pay for itself,” he said.

The committee however wanted more detail.

A few years ago we had 10 officers and three backroom staff, now we have more responsibility and have just six enforcement officers and two backroom staff,” said Jo Rodgers, Wrexham’s Enforcement Services Coordinator.

Budget savings

Aske by Cllr Mike Morris whether that was a recruitment issue or a budget issue she was clear.

“The reduction was down to budget savings,” she said.

Cllr Morris then suggested that for the authority to improve enforcement it needed to provide more money.

“We will need to revisit the budget on that then,” he said. ” My idea is we pursue camera car, have a fully costed report on that and the staff enhancements within three months and if we can’t do anything on that financially we’re not going to change anything.”

The committee also made a recommendation that clearer guidance on the weight of evidence needed for a prosecution be made available.

Councillors were concerned that over the last two-and-a-half years there were over 11,000 penalty charge notices issued for parking offences across Wrexham but in the same time only six for dog fouling.

“Could be perceived that we are prioritising parking over dog fouling,” suggested Cllr John Phillips.

Ms Rodgers said they did prioritise parking, as requested by councillors when the service was brought back in house in 2018.

“Despite this every dog fouling report we receive is analysed,” she said. If there is two or more in a single area we carry out an investigation.

“People are often not prepared to be a witness however and we need that for a successful prosecution unless we catch a dog in the act.

“Reports have also gone down and that may be because people are perhaps not reporting as much as they perceive there is a lack of action.”

Penalty notices

Councillors supported a move to write to the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for North Wales seek support from Police Community Support Officers to issue penalty notices, as this jointly falls within their remit.

The committee will reconsider the proposals in three months when the case for investment is made more clear.