Havant Borough Council has today become the latest local authority to choose Cobalt to undertake the twenty four hour a day telephone processing of its parking ticket payments. Havant, in Hampshire, has chosen to deploy the Cobalt service as part of their move to decriminalised parking enforcement that starts today, Monday 4th April.

"We are delighted to help Havant and its citizens " said Cobalt Sales Manager Martin Milsum. "We entirely appreciate that taking on the powers of RTA 1991 normally trebles the amount of work that a parking department has to face."

This service launch follows several months of discussions and planning. Havant's new fine structure, which is concurrently introduced, prices a standard Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) at £60, with payment reduced to £30 if made within 14 days of issue.

Havant is typical of many smaller UK local authorities that are now taking on the powers of RTA 91. As a result of constraints on police budgets, considerably less attention is given to parking enforcement by the police (all income from parking fines currently passing to central government, rather than contributing to the overheads of the police). With traffic volumes increasing this can create traffic chaos in even the smallest of towns. By taking on the powers of the 1991 Act , a process known as decrimilaisation (or DPE), the local authority or its County can retain the income from fines, which it can then use both to fund the enforcement programme, and help local transport initiatives that keep things flowing smoothly.

Cobalt is the market leading provider of automated payment services that support the work of local authority parking departments across the UK.