Enforcement agencies will soon be given legal powers to enforce parking/no parking notices issued by local councils, home affairs minister Byron Camilleri said on Tuesday. 

Permits issued by the councils are commonly used to reserve parking spaces for cranes and skips, warning motorists to keep away.

But in July last year, a court ruled that Transport Malta did not have the right to transfer the responsibility of issuing parking permits to local councils and it ordered LESA to refund a €200 fine to a man whose car had been towed.

That decision had rendered the permits issued by local authorities useless, with LESA unable to fine contraveners.   

Replying to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Mark Anthony Sammut, the minister said a legal notice was being prepared to remedy the situation. It will be issued in the coming days.    

In January a resident spoke with Times of Malta about how she was sent from one agency to another when she found a parked car in a place reserved for a crane she had ordered to unload building materials. 

“When I called the police, they told me they couldn’t call the car owners due to a new policy,” Julia Papkova told Times of Malta. 

“They advised me to call the council, who told me to phone LESA. When I called LESA, I was informed that they didn’t have the phone numbers of the car owners and that I should call the police, sending me back to square one,” the Gzira resident said.