Colchester Positive Parking Strategy

Public off-street car parks are managed by local authorities. These are the district, borough or city councils.

Where it has been de-criminalised, the local highway authority will patrol and enforce waiting and loading restrictions on roads. This is known as Civil Parking Enforcement (CPE).

The authority responsible for the parking area may delegate management of the parking, and suitable enforcement, to a third party acting on its behalf.

In Colchester, both on and off-street parking management and enforcement duties are carried out by the North Essex Parking Partnership (NEPP), an independent local government service.

The local highway authority, Essex County Council, have by agreement, delegated their enforcement of on-street parking in the northern part of the county to NEPP. The NEPP operational service brings together all on-street parking enforcement and operations for Braintree, Colchester, Epping Forest, Harlow, Tendring and Uttlesford Councils.

A number of local authorities in that area have also put agreements in place for NEPP to deliver their off-street car park enforcement services. NEPP provides off-street car parking services in the districts, borough or city of Braintree, Colchester, Harlow and Uttlesford.

In the areas that it operates, NEPP is responsible for the administration of the parking restrictions, the management and maintenance of parking schemes, the Civil Enforcement Officers (“traffic wardens”); the enforcement process and workload associated with the challenges to, and payments of, parking penalties (“parking fines”).

The operational activities of NEPP are governed by a Joint Partnership Committee (JPC). set up by Essex County Council. The committee consists of elected members from the County Council and each of the boroughs and districts that make up the Partnership. Various operational issues are delegated to officers of the operational service on a day-to-day basis by the JPC. The NEPP JPC meets four times a year, with its AGM in June.

Essex County Council has also delegated its powers to make parking Traffic Regulation Orders (parking restrictions/permissions such as “yellow lines” and parking bays and permit areas) to the NEPP. The NEPP JPC has a sub-committee to oversee this function. It meets three times a year to discuss cases.

NEPP maintains a Reserve Fund built from any surpluses that accumulate from its operation. This fund is used to deliver up to six small scale on-street parking schemes (such as yellow lines) in the City Area each year. The allocation of the funding is made each October by the Joint Committee.

The process for making representations for a new scheme can be made online by applying for a new parking or waiting restriction.