A council car which is fitted with mobile CCTV has just completed a month’s full service keeping children safer outside schools with 80 fines handed out for dangerous parking.

The car is designed to deter people from parking on yellow ‘keep clear’ zigzag lines outside school gates in the borough. It is an offence to stop anywhere on such lines, punishable by a £70 fine. More than 80 penalty notices have been handed out since the car took to the streets in September.

Government legislation states CCTV can only be used to enforce certain traffic offences, such as illegal parking on the yellow zigzags, on red routes or travelling in bus lanes. It cannot be used to punish illegal parking on double yellow lines, or on white zigzags next to zebra or pelican crossings.

The car, which was already one of the council’s fleet of vehicles, has been kitted out with smart technology. Using Google Maps and GPS, it senses when the car has been driven into an area with yellow zigzag lines and starts recording. It stops when the car leaves the area, capturing the number plates of all those parked illegally while it is there. If, after monitoring the footage, an offence has been committed, penalty charge notices will be issued by post.

The car was deployed outside a few schools in June and July, but has been rolled out across the whole borough since the schools started back in September. Councillor Karen Shakespeare, cabinet member for environmental services, said:

“Illegal parking outside schools puts the lives of children at risk. The yellow zigzag lines are designed to keep the road clear so that children can see and be seen. People who flout the law and ignore the zigzags will be fined.

“The car is one of a range of measures designed to keep our roads safer and I am sure it will be welcomed by parents and the majority of law-abiding residents, who are as frustrated as we are at illegal parking.”