ILLEGAL parking in Newport will be clamped down on if responsibility for the issue is handed over to the city council, a meeting has heard.

Newport City Council's Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee discussed plans to hand over responsibility for tackling illegal parking from police to council officers at a meeting yesterday.

Gwent Police has said it will stop enforcing parking restrictions in April 2018 in an effort to focus on more serious crime, and Newport City Council is considering introducing decriminalised parking, through which responsibility for cracking down on drivers flaunting on-road restrictions or parking on double-yellow lines is taken over by the authority.

Under the plans, police would maintain powers to tackle dangerous and obstructive parking.

The scheme would cost around £1.39million to set up and is then predicted to make a small profit, which would be spent on parking schemes.

Councillors on the committee were asked to recommend to council whether it should adopt the scheme. However the committee voted to adjourn the decision for a further meeting, due to the need for more details and because of the unavailability of a police officer to discuss the issue.

Paul Jones, head of Streetscene and city services, told councillors illegal parking would be expected to "drop significantly" under greater levels of enforcement.

He said the plans would help tackle "long-standing parking problem areas" in the city.

Cllr Miqdad Al-Nuaimi (Stow Hill, Labour), urged the committee to support the plans.

He said: "If we don't do anything we are failing our city, our community and its people. The report is pointing to a solution."

However Cllr Matthew Evans (Allt-yr-yn, Conservative) said action is needed to tackle illegal parking, but called for more details about the scheme. He said the report into the scheme did not sufficiently discuss alternatives to the proposal, or its disadvantages.

Cllr Charles Ferris (Allt-yr-yn, Conservative) questioned the costings of the scheme. He asked how many parking tickets per day would need to be issued to make it cost-effective.

Cllr Chris Evans (Rogerstone, Newport Independent Party) said it was important that the scheme could be flexible and pointed to a successful model in Pembrokeshire.

He said it is likely the scheme will go-ahead.

Chairman of the committee John Guy (Alway, Labour) said it was difficult to make a decision without a police officer present.