Traffic wardens and Parking attendants throughout the country do a valuable job for their communities.

Their primary job is to enforce parking regulations, as set out by the local authority, and as such keep the roads clear from illegal and dangerous parking.

It is a sad fact that while making our roads safer they themselves are placed in danger.

Many attendants throughout the country are issued with police-style stab-proof vests in an attempt to ensure their safety.

Indeed, a recent Unison report discovered 90 per cent of parking attendants and traffic wardens had suffered some form of violent incident at work in the past 12 months, with almost 20 per cent being attacked or threatened on a weekly basis.

How best to tackle this problem? One answer must be for local authorities taking up decriminalised parking enforcement (DPE) powers to project a loud, clear and consistent message to its population - that parking attendants keep the roads clear and safe for the greater good of the wider community.

The local media will play their role in this, too, and I note The Argus appears to have forgotten its role in whipping up public scorn towards parking attendants in the months prior to the front-page headline "Knife peril on parking control" (September 16).

A good example of trying to make the public aware of the need for properly enforced parking regulations was seen when London first introduced DPE. An advertising campaign was launched that showed

a picture of an ambulance unable to get down a road because of illegally parked cars. Beneath was the caption "Maybe that ambulance is coming for your child".

-Simon Burgess, marketing and PR manager, British Parking Association