Watford Parking: 3 More Officers, 27% More Tickets

Three extra civil enforcement officers produced 27% more penalty charge notices than 2024, Watford Borough Council's own scrutiny annual report says.

Watford Borough Council ran a three-month trial that increased its civil enforcement officers from 18 to 21, and it produced 27% more penalty charge notices than 2024. The figure is in the council’s Scrutiny Annual Report 2025-26, published for the Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting on Wednesday 23 September.

The report is the council’s own account of what its scrutiny committees examined over the year. The parking numbers come from an update the committee took on enforcement capacity. There is no separate published paper for that item, so the annual report is the only place the figures appear.

What the trial changed

The report sets out four results from the three extra officers:

daily patrol coverage improved
enforcement around schools rose by 25%
penalty charge notices rose by 27% compared with 2024
requests from residents fell by 37%

The council also lists work that came with the expansion: school safety sessions, rotating signage outside schools, and joint patrols with police community support officers.

Two cautions on the 27%. The report does not say over which months the comparison runs, and it does not give the underlying number of tickets. It also does not say whether the three extra posts have been made permanent.

The four figures the council published for its parking enforcement trial. It did not publish the number of tickets behind the 27%.

The rest of the scrutiny year

The same report counts what the council’s two scrutiny committees did in 2025-26:

14 committee meetings, running to 22 hours
24 substantive topics scrutinised
18 non-executive councillors took part, and 6 portfolio holders attended
29 partners and stakeholders gave evidence
11 councillors received scrutiny training
199 views of the committee webcasts
no scrutiny task group was undertaken

Those last two are the ones worth pausing on. The council’s constitution provides for up to three time-limited task groups a year, the form of scrutiny that digs into a single subject and reports back. None ran. And 199 webcast views is the total for the year across all 14 meetings, in a borough of around 100,000 people.

The report gives a reason for neither.

What else the committees were told

Four findings in the report have not been reported elsewhere in this detail:

Watford General Hospital’s redevelopment has moved to “Wave 2”, with an expected timeframe of 2030 to 2032. The programme team and enabling works continue. That was told to the committee by West Herts Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
The Shopper Bus delivered 102 of its 104 planned trips and supported 552 users, with no complaints recorded. Its funding is secured to March 2028.
Nine full-time equivalent St Albans staff transferred to Watford under the expanded HR shared service, which the council says happened without disruption. Watford also shares Building Control and Planning Enforcement with St Albans, and HR with Three Rivers.
Homelessness approaches are arriving later. The Finance Scrutiny Committee was told more people now come to the council at the point of eviction, linked to private rented sector pressures and domestic abuse, which reduces the chance to prevent it. Two new officers have been appointed to triage, one specialising in domestic abuse and one on procuring private rented homes.

What it means for you

If you park in Watford, the practical change is that there are more officers on the street than there were, they are concentrated around schools, and the council’s own figures show more tickets being issued than in 2024. A penalty charge notice can be challenged; the process and the deadline are on the notice itself.

If you want to follow the council’s scrutiny work, the committee’s published work programme for 2026-27 gives the dates and the subjects:

21 October: Chime Housing, the new name for Watford Community Housing, on maintenance and repairs tracking, plus the council plan progress report for April to June 2026
18 November: an update on local government reorganisation, and Watford Leisure Centre
9 December: Beryl Bikes, including parking at the stands, and the councillor contact portal
28 January: green space and the climate emergency, including the River Colne, and the council’s use of AI
24 February: community safety

Tonight’s meeting also takes a fly-tipping update from a Veolia representative and the council’s Parks and Greenspace Development Lead. No paper has been published for that item, so the figures will be given verbally. The meeting is at 7pm in Rooms 201 and 202 of the Town Hall Annexe, and the contact for papers is democraticservices@watford.gov.uk.