West End traffic wardens to be cut by 20% as CCTV takes over

The army of traffic wardens patrolling the West End in search of parking offenders is to be cut by one fifth.

Westminster council will save £1million a year by employing fewer parking attendants, it confirmed today. Instead, it will rely on an expanding network of CCTV cameras to catch drivers flouting the rules.

The council believes the cameras are a more accurate way to monitor parking and the move will help to reduce attacks on wardens by motorists angry at being given a parking ticket.

Westminster aims to reduce the number of attendants from 400 to about 320 by next year and has not ruled out further cuts. It says it will not make any staff redundant but will not replace attendants when they leave - there is high turnover in the department.

At the same time, it plans to increase its network of wireless CCTV cameras from 30 to 2,000 by the middle of next year. Each new device costs £5,000.

The council, which currently deploys an average of 250 attendants on the streets at any one time, first piloted the use of the cameras to monitor drivers last year. The devices, sited at congestion hot spots, can detect when vehicles are parked illegally or entering yellow box junctions and bus lanes unlawfully.

Fines are posted to offenders. Danny Chalkley, cabinet member for economic development and transport, said: "The use of wireless CCTV for parking is yet another enlightened parking measure and will improve traffic flows in the heart of London.

"CCTV will get more parking tickets right first time, which will mean fewer appeals. By reducing the number of parking attendants by a fifth on the street, as well as using cameras, we believe there will be fewer challenges by motorists."

He added: "Is this the end of the parking attendant? Probably not. Although we are reducing the number on the street, we foresee a continuing role for parking attendants working in tandem with CCTV cameras."

Motoring campaigners claimed that relying on cameras would mean drivers' mitigating circumstances not being taken into account when fines were handed out.

Captain Gatso, of anti-speed camera group Motorists Against Detection, said: "With cameras there's even less room for negotiation and it will just lead to an increase in the number of spurious tickets."