PARKING enforcement on our roads is to be carried out by a private company by April.

Enforcement of on-street parking in the district is currently done on behalf of Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) by Stroud District Council (SDC) which issues tickets, deals with queries and manages appeals.

However, in March 2011, GCC decided to end these arrangements and selected APCOA Parking UK Ltd to cover the county’s roads to achieve greater flexibility and consistency, which will potentially make £400,000 of savings a year.

The ending of the current agreement means SDC will lose approximately £100,000 in income from on-street car parking enforcement.

At its executive meeting on December 20, SDC voted to adopt a new model to reduce the cost of enforcement of its car parks, or off-street parking, by £74,040 to help meet the deficit.

The new model would require three new officers to be hired by the end of April to cover the district council’s car parks.

All current enforcement officers will be transferred over to the new service provider and can apply for the off-parking roles with the council.

SDC estimates that around 70 per cent of current enforcement officer time is spent on on-street parking.

Jim Daniels, parking manager at Gloucestershire County Council, said: "We are delighted to work with APCOA, which scored highest on both quality and cost of service.

"This arrangement will lead to a more consistent approach to parking enforcement in the county and it will give taxpayers better value for money."

From 2011-12, SDC earned £630,460 from its car parks and while most car parks in the south of the district are free there is usually a charge after a certain amount of time.