Enforcement of parking rules is being stepped up after the City of Hamilton hired five new people to check on vehicles.

The new parking enforcement officers have replaced traffic wardens and have been given lawful power to issue tickets.

“At the City of Hamilton, we set the parking rules, so it just made sense for us to enforce them,” explained city CEO Dwayne Caines.

“Our intention with these new hires is to ensure that everyone has good access to parking in the city. It’s a small city – everyone is competing for space – so we want to ensure that parking bays turn over as they should and that specially designated bays such as loading zones, city resident parking, disabled parking, taxi parking and one-hour parking are used for the functions and populations for which they were intended.

“The idea is not to ticket people indiscriminately; we want to use the visibility of these officers to change people’s behaviours and dissuade bad parking habits,” said Mr Caines.

He added: “The officers are not here to be punitive but, rather, to make the public aware of any bad parking practices and to enforce parking in the City.

“For example, if there is someone double parked in the street and still in their vehicle, officers will simply ask them to move along. They will only write a ticket if that individual does not move after being told to do so. Also, if signs or road markings are not clear, they will not issue tickets.”

The officers will be in regular communication with businesses regarding any parking challenges they might be having, the city said.

The new enforcement officers underwent two weeks of training with the Bermuda Police Service, as well as conflict resolution training and instruction regarding the legal requirements of ticket writing.

The officers can be identified by their blue City of Hamilton uniforms.

A city spokeswoman said: “As a reminder to the public, all vehicles (including motorcycles) are not allowed to park on the sidewalks. This means that cleaning companies, construction companies and security companies are not permitted to park on the sidewalks.”