A shake-up in who employs the district's traffic wardens is going to add an extra £45,000 on to South Hams Council's wage bill as the council is forced to employ additional staff.

But the council expects to get that back – and more – with the £52,000 worth of parking tickets they will hand out.

South Hams Council used to operate 11 traffic wardens – these days called civil enforcement officers – who were responsible for enforcing parking restrictions on the roads as well as in council-run car parks .

It now has just four left – with one post vacant – after Devon County Council decided to take back responsibility for the roadside parking as of April 1 last week.

The South Hams Council executive has just decided to take on an extra two civil enforcement officers to fill in the gaps left by the shake up – at £22,447 per job.

But councillors were told that that will more than easily be covered by the expected income from parking fines – which is estimated at £26,000 an officer.

A report to the executive declared: 'While the above proposals represent an additional two full time equivalent posts, the financial impact is reduced because the income generated by civil enforcement officers equates to approximately £26,000 per post against the total employee cost, including shift allowance on on-costs, of £22,447.'

The report added: 'This cost neutral position will be closely monitored and annually reviewed so, should civil enforcement officers cease to sustain a cost neutral position, the resource can be reduced until a cost neutral position has been re-established.'

South Hams Council has been responsible for policing parking on the roads along with its car parks since the police handed the job to the county council six years ago – and county handed it to the district.

Now the county council has decided to take back the responsibility and create its own countywide traffic warden service – with 45 officers transferring from the various district councils.

The county council is hoping the move will save money on its own budget of something like £400,000.

The county council's cabinet spokesman for highways, Cllr Stuart Hughes said: 'It will probably be difficult to notice any difference in the service on the ground, but the civil enforcement officers working on behalf of the county council will only be covering on-street parking.'

'These changes offer the greatest opportunity to reduce operational costs and to provide much better value for money for Devon residents.'

A South Hams Council a spokesman said: 'The back-office team and the civil enforcement officers have more than enough work to continue with.

'The loss of frontline and back-office staff is proportionate to the workload lost, although we have lost some economies of scale.

'The team also hopes to now be able to dedicate more time to working with the various towns and communities on projects which we have previously struggled to accommodate.'