Library Corner Traffic Warden – Town Council Meeting
Library Corner Traffic Warden – Town Council Meeting
13th June 2024
13th June 2024
16th July 2024
16th July 2024
As reported on the front page of The St Ives Times & Echo No 5835 on Friday, June 28th, 2024, at the 13th June meeting “St Ives Town Council looks to provide Library Corner traffic warden as transport plan stalls”
A motion “’That St Ives Town Council take up top £10,000 from reserves to pay for traffic control staff to be posted at Library Corner for the main summer season,’ …unanimously adopted.”
There are no minutes yet available on The Town Council website here, but we recommend watching the video, which shows Andrew Mitchell’s motion & the ensuing debate. Watch the whole meeting here, but the relevant segment is from 11:05:40 to 1:45:38.
We have extracted verbatim the relevant information for Downlong here.
Cllr Mitchell’s motion/proposal, summarised by The Town Clerk, as best we can transcribe it from the video without minutes (1:44:00), was: “To seek a contractor to deliver a service for this summer period, the summer holidays only, to involve the direction of traffic in the town, to improve safety, and request that officers seek proposals from suitably qualified contractors* to deliver that service with a budget envelope of £10,000 to be taken from general reserves and with the duration and the details to be determined in accordance with the budget proposals and that we will aim to seek contributions from BID but not withstanding the availability of those contributions you proceed in any event.”
The motion & discussion was entirely in regards to safety at and directing traffic around Library Corner in order to improve the flow of traffic & was in no way related to the enforcement of the LTE or restriction of journeys into it.
* It was the Town Clerk’s view that in order to direct traffic in the highway such a person would need (10 weeks) Community Safety Accreditation Schemes (CSAS) training. (Find out more from the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) guidance here. Which states: “CSAS provides for people involved in the provision of overt community safety services to engage more closely with forces at strategic and tactical level and to exercise a limited range of powers designed to enable them to assist the police in tackling incivilities and anti social behaviour.”)
CSAS gives such officers powers as follows: “Power to control traffic for purposes other than escorting a load of exceptional dimensions: The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 enables accredited persons to be given powers to direct traffic (for purposes other than escorting loads of exceptional dimensions) based on the powers constables have under sections 35 and 37 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.”
The Road Traffic Act 1988, Section 35 (available here) states:
“Drivers to comply with traffic directions.
(1) Where a constable [or traffic officer] is for the time being engaged in the regulation of traffic in a road, a person driving or propelling a vehicle who neglects or refuses—
(a) to stop the vehicle, or
(b) to make it proceed in, or keep to, a particular line of traffic, when directed to do so by the constable in the execution of his duty [or the traffic officer (as the case may be)] is guilty of an offence.”