RESPONSIBILITY for issuing fines to people parking illegally in Craven is likely to be taken out of the hands of police and transferred to Craven District Council.

The council has agreed to decriminalise parking and instead of inviting the police to patrol places like Skipton market setts, a number of wardens will be employed by the council to do the job.

Income from penalty charges will go direct to Craven District Council and be used to offset the cost of the wardens - when the police do the job the money goes to central government.

Eventually the scheme could be self-financing.

Chairman of the community services committee Coun Paul English said that currently one part-time traffic warden was expected to cover the whole of Craven.

He said illegal parking was a problem across the district and needed sorting out.

Under the current scheme the council could employ more wardens to patrol the area but any money raised through fines would go to Central Government and the council would still have to pay their wages.

If parking was decriminalised the council could employ the wardens directly and raise funds from fines at the same time.

Ideally Coun English would eventually like to see one warden for South Craven, one for Skipton and one for North Craven.

He hopes the scheme will be in place during 2003.

The idea was raised by the police who knew of a similar scheme running successfully in Harrogate, which raises approximately £450,000 a year.

In a report to Craven's community services committee, chief engineer at Harrogate Borough Council Paul Ryan said: "We are pleased at the impact the scheme has had this far, both on improvements to the traffic management in general and in the positive way in which the public have perceived the enforcements."

Coun English added that decriminalisation of parking would also help with the setting up and policing of residents only parking schemes which have been included in Skipton's Traffic Management Strategy.

Residents only parking will only work if it is policed and Coun English hopes that if this is done well there will be no need to charge residents for permits.

If parking were decriminalised there would be no change in any of the current parking restrictions or regulations and the council's role would be to ensure that the existing restrictions are obeyed.

In a report to members, Craven's head of operations Greg Robinson said: "Illegal parking remains an issue with the district and creates both additional congestion and access problems for services.

"There are well documented problems in Skipton High Street and some of the smaller streets in Skipton town centre.

"There are other areas of Craven such as on 'school keep clear markings' with illegal parking and the scheme would effectively police areas within the district to reduce such incidents.

"Enforcement of parking regulations would be carried out by uniformed parking attendants."

Before the decriminalisation is introduced a credible bid has to be prepared and sent to the Secretary of State. This cannot be carried out in-house and potential costs are expected to be as high as £10,000.