Councillor calls for a review of enforcement officers

Rory Sheehan – Local Democracy Reporter

A councillor has called for scrutiny of the authority’s enforcement team in its handling of parking issues and dog fouling.

At a meeting of Flintshire Council’s environment scrutiny committee, Buckley Pentrobin Cllr Mike Peers (Ind) suggested it was time to take a closer look at the roles and responsibilities of enforcement officers.

It comes after he claims he was denied a visit from enforcement officers earlier this year to deal with a problem in his ward.

Without going into detail about what the specific issue was, Cllr Peers said he did not think it was ‘good enough’ to have his request refused.

Refused

Cllr Peers said: “I’d like to propose that we look at enforcement.

“It doesn’t appear to be happening.

“We had a local issue back in February, over six months ago, where I made a specific request for enforcement action and I was refused.

“As a council member, I was refused – they said we can’t do it. Fine, I left it.

“I know we’re going to pick it up during the school parking (task and finish group) so I think it’s overdue for a review around its terms of reference and also the status of the staffing as well.”

He added: “I think if there is a specific requirement for it and it’s turned down, I don’t think that’s good enough, I think we need to look at this in some detail.”

Earlier this year the role of enforcement came under the microscope as councillors looked to get to grips with problem parking outside the county’s schools.

As they went about setting up a task and finish group involving two scrutiny committees (environment and education), at the time members were told the council has 10 enforcement officers who also cover other infractions such as dog fouling and fly-tipping.

This was emphasised at this month’s environment scrutiny meeting by chief officer for Streetscene Katie Wilby who asked Cllr Peers if there was a specific element of enforcement councillors wished to look at.

She added that officers cover a range of duties across council departments aside from Streetscene such as planning, with duties including parking enforcement and dog fouling to litter, side-waste and fly-tipping.

Cllr Peers said he particularly wanted to focus on parking enforcement and dog fouling.

Members of the scrutiny committee agreed to put the issue on their agenda to be looked at, with a report to be produced for a future meeting.