Parking Restrictions and Enforcement

The Traffic Management (Northern Ireland) Order 2005 enables Roads Service to take over the enforcement of most parking restrictions from the police, including yellow lines, urban clearways, bus lanes, limited waiting parking places and pay and display bays.

Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) are processed by Roads Service through the civil justice system, rather than the criminal justice system. This system of parking enforcement is known as Decriminalised Parking Enforcement (DPE).

The enforcement is to be operated by Roads Service’s contractor, NCP Services Ltd (NCP). NCP have teams of Traffic Attendants who patrol the streets and car parks to ensure vehicles have not been parked in contravention of the traffic and parking regulations. Any vehicles found in contravention of the regulations will be issued with a PCN. Roads Service will retain the administration of the enforcement operation i.e. the processing of all PCNs, dealing with payments and answering appeals.

The only objective of the new scheme is to reduce the number of illegally parked vehicles on our roads. This in turn will reduce traffic congestion, improve road safety and improve accessibility for all road-users, including Blue Badges holders.

Traffic Attendants will concentrate solely on parking enforcement to help achieve our main objective - reduce the number of illegally parked vehicles. We don’t want to give out tickets but if we have to we will.

If you get a parking ticket - which will officially be known as a PENALTY CHARGE NOTICE or PCN - you will be required to pay £60. However if you pay within 14 days of getting the ticket a 50% discount will apply and you will only have to pay £30. This discount is offered because early payments reduce administration costs for Roads Service.

There are no new offences and no new no-parking zones, but we will be putting a lot more effort into keeping the streets clear of vehicles parked in contravention of the restrictions. This will bring about many positive changes including:

• Helping traffic to flow more freely;
• Helping buses keep to their timetable;
• Assisting delivery vehicles;
• Allowing pedestrians to feel safer crossing the road without illegally parked cars causing obstruction.
• Keeping parking places reserved for Blue Badge holders for those who need to use them.

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