Background

The Road Traffic Act 1991 introduced provisions enabling the decriminalisation of most non-endorsable parking offences in London and permitted similar arrangements to be introduced elsewhere in the UK by secondary legislation. Currently, 23 local authorities in Scotland operate Decriminalised Parking Enforcement (DPE) regimes in their areas. DPE is a regime that enables a local authority to enforce its own parking policies, including the issuing of Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) to motorists breaching parking controls in specified areas. The underlying objective of DPE operation is to achieve 100% compliance with parking controls, ideally resulting in no penalty charges being issued.

In areas with DPE, stationary traffic offences cease to be criminal offences enforced by the police and instead become civil penalties imposed by local authorities. Enforcement of certain parking offences, such as obstructive or dangerous parking, remains the responsibility of Police Scotland.

As of 11 December 2023, new parking prohibitions have been introduced under the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019. These prohibitions include pavement parking, double parking, and parking at dropped kerbs. Importantly, local authorities do not require DPE powers to enforce these specific prohibitions.

Scottish Government position on DPE

The Scottish Government’s position is that DPE powers should contribute to a local authority’s overall transport objectives and thereby contribute to National and Regional Transport Strategies. Parking policies are an essential part of a local authority’s traffic management strategy and should be designed to manage the traffic network effectively, improving or maintaining traffic flow and reducing congestion. This improves road safety and the local environment and encourages, where appropriate, increased use of more sustainable and healthy forms of travel.

The integration of enforcement powers and parking policy should enhance local authority accountability to its residents for overall parking policy, as well as enabling better monitoring of the effectiveness and value of parking controls to ensure that such parking policy is responsive to public needs.

Local authorities with DPE powers

There are 23 local authorities in Scotland that have acquired DPE powers, and these are listed in Table 1. The remaining local authorities, also listed in the table, are either actively working towards DPE or are authorities who have decided that enforcement powers are not necessary at this time or are not desired for reasons such as cost of implementation. However, it should be noted that all local authorities, regardless of DPE status, are empowered to enforce the new prohibitions on pavement parking, double parking, and parking at dropped kerbs under the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019.