BURNLEY Council has backed plans to crack down on illegal parking when it takes over responsibility from police traffic wardens later this year.

The handover, which has already happened in some parts of the country, is expected to happen in Burnley on July 4.

Last year the council agreed in principle to form a partnership with Lancashire County Council to look at the decriminalisation of parking.

And at a meeting of the council's Executive Committee members confirmed their support for county hall's decision to give the contract for parking enforcement to National Car Parks (NCP).

The move means that from July the responsibility for enforcing on-street parking restrictions moves from the police traffic wardens -- although there have been none on patrol in Burnley for some time -- to local authority parking attendants. Under the new system those not paying their fines will be dealt with in civil proceedings at the county court, rather than criminal proceedings in the magistrates court.

Fines for parking illegally will result in a fine of £60, with a 50 per cent discount if the fine is paid within 14 days.

Speaking at the meeting David Brown, director of the development services at the Town Hall, said the scheme was designed to improve parking problems in the borough.

He added: "This is not a scheme designed to increase revenue for the council and the county council. The staff from NCP who will be issuing the tickets will not be paid on the basis of how many tickets they give out either."

But de-criminalised parking has caused controversy in other parts of the country since it was introduced in the late 1990s.

Portsmouth City Council took over responsibility from the police in 1999. In the following year, the number of wardens went up from 12 to 51 and the tickets issued from 16,500 to 40,000, bringing in the council an extra £1.7million a year.