General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

The Home Office is set to abolish the last few traffic wardens. They had long lost the job of doling out tickets to the drably named "civil enforcement officers", writes Gareth Rubin.

The traffic warden - long the subject of mockery and ire from disgruntled motorists up and down the land - will soon be no more. The Home Office is removing the functions of the final few wardens in England and Wales and rolling their work into that done by police staff volunteers.

The first police traffic wardens were created in 1960 under the Road Traffic Act but since local councils took over the punishment of illegal parking with their own civil enforcement officers, their numbers have fallen to just 18 in England and Wales. They were abolished in Scotland in 2014. The remaining traffic wardens are 10 in Sussex, five in Greater Manchester, and one each in Hampshire, Northamptonshire and West Yorkshire.