Schedule 3 to the Road Traffic Act 1991 makes provision for the designation of permitted parking areas and special parking areas. Paragraph 1(1) gives the National Assembly for Wales (“the National Assembly”) the power to designate the whole or any part of the area of a county council or county borough council in Wales as a permitted parking area following an application by the local authority. Paragraph 2(1) gives a similar power in relation to special parking areas.

This Order is made following an application by Gwynedd Council (“the local authority”) and statutory consultation with the Chief Constable of North Wales Police and the Council on Tribunals.

The effect of this Order is to designate as a permitted parking area and a special parking area the whole of the county of Gwynedd except the entire length of the A55, including its on and off slip roads (“the parking area”). Once the Order is in force, various parking offences within the parking area are decriminalised. Enforcement ceases to be the responsibility of the police and becomes the responsibility of the local authority. Parking attendants employed by the local authority (or employed as parking attendants by a person with whom the local authority has made arrangements) are given the power to place penalty charge notices on vehicles contravening parking regulations and may, in appropriate cases, authorise the towing away or immobilisation of vehicles.

By virtue of the Order, penalty charges in the parking area are to be set by the local authority having regard to guidance given by the National Assembly. They are recoverable by the local authority as civil debts. Provision is made for the making of representations to the local authority in the event of the imposition of a penalty charge or the towing away or immobilisation of a vehicle. Adjudication in the event of disputes is to be dealt with by parking adjudicators appointed by a joint committee set up in pursuance of arrangements entered into under section 101(5) of the Local Government Act 1972.