MOTORISTS have been warned to expect a huge rise in the number of parking tickets dished out when councils take control of police enforcement.

Councils in East Lancashire are set to take control of enforcement which will see more wardens patrolling the streets and more fines handed out to drivers.

Blackburn with Darwen Council said it wanted to run its own scheme which would have to be self-financed by cash from parking fines.

Councillor Andy Kay, the council's executive member for regeneration, warned that things would be very different when his authority takes control of parking in October.

He said: "At the moment there are just one or two parking wardens who hardly ever hand out tickets.

"We will be telling people during the run-up to the hand-over that parking will be enforced a lot more rigorously."

On July 4, Lancashire County Council will start enforcing parking in Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale and Pendle and has drafted in a company to slap more tickets on vehicles as responsibility moves away from police traffic wardens.

At a meeting of Burnley Council's executive committee this week, councillors gave their backing to County Hall plans to allow National Car Parks (NCP) to take control of enforcement.

Blackburn with Darwen has also introduced charges for parking in town-centre streets.

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

Portsmouth City Council took over parking 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.

A spokesman for the county council today said: "If two or three people are on patrol, they will find more vehicles and issue more tickets than if just one person is patrolling, so the number of tickets issued will obviously be higher. But it's not a target, it's just a theoretical model. "

Drivers' organisations have concerns about de-criminalised parking. Nigel Humphries, of the Association of British Drivers, said: "It is just a revenue raiser and we think it is absolutely disgusting.

"In a normal democracy MPs or the Lords set the laws, police enforce them and the Treasury takes the fines.

"Here the councils do all three, which totally undermines our democracy."