Bailiffs with powers to remove personal possessions could be employed by the borough council in a bid to recover £250,000 in unpaid parking fines.

Hertsmere Borough Council is owed around £400,000 in parking fines, but it recently decided to write off £134,000 of this because of the amount of time since the offence.

Some councillors feel private bailiffs should help to collect the remaining fines, because the council's parking department does not have the resources to chase up all of the offenders.

Legislation allows the council to hire bailiffs to seize property to settle outstanding fines, or to apply for cash to be taken out of offenders' salaries.

Councillor Frank Ward, chairman of the community and corporate services overview and scrutiny committee, said he believed private debt collectors should be employed.

"It would overstretch the people available in the council to engage in what really is a retrospective exercise to recover outstanding fines," he said.

He supported the idea of taking property from offenders. "I don't see why, if someone has not paid a fine, the council should not exercise its rights to recover that debt."

Councillor John Graham, vice-chairman of the council's executive committee, said he felt the seizure of possessions would be an extreme step.

But he added: "We are in discussions with the legal department at Hertsmere about employing a firm of debt collecting people to help us to do this," he said.

The council has six years to collect its fines, from the date of the offence, and it is considering increasing the charge from £60 to £90 for people who do not pay quickly.

Although the parking fines unit was recently reorganised, Mr Ward has called for changes to the collection system in order to speed up the recovery of outstanding debts.

Legal action will be taken against some offenders, but the council is eager to find a more cost effective way to collect the fines it is owed.

Private debt collecting firms are being invited to submit quotes for the collection of the outstanding fines, and a decision is set to be taken at the end of September.

August 21, 2002 14:30