Wednesday May 8th 2019
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
Midlothian Council is investigating whether it can give private parking wardens additional powers to issue fines to people caught dropping litter on not cleaning up after their dogs.
Councillors have asked for a report into the feasibility of increasing the powers of its parking attendants and environmental health officers to allow them to tackle more offences.
Councillor Kieran Munro brought a motion to council calling for research into the possibility of tackling people’s concerns about litter, dog fouling and problem parking, by creating a new role of Community Enforcement Officer.
The new officer could issue on the spot fines for all three offences and further investigation will be carried out into other additional roles which could be assigned to the post.
At a meeting of the full council this week the motion was unanimously backed by members.
Councillor John Hackett warned it may prove difficult to change the role of parking wardens as they are provided currently as part of a private contract.
However Councillor Andrew Hardie, who seconded the motion said: “Our duty as councillors is to try and come up with creative solutions to problems and we are purely asking for a paper to be brought to council to look at the aspects of the current people who issue fines for Midlothian Council
“Is there a way of cross working that so that someone issuing a fine for litter is also able to issue a fine for a car illegally parked and vice versa so we are getting as much value for money as we can and that the public can be assured we are doing the most we can with the limited resources available to us.”
A report on the feasibility of the move will be brought back to council for debate after the summer recess.
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