Communities in west Suffolk seeking to use accredited council wardens to control traffic at local events may be faced with a charge.

Since changes came into place preventing police officers from managing traffic at events such as parades and street parties, communities have had to come up with other ways to handle this aspect of their social calendars.

In March last year, community wardens in Sudbury completed a county-wide Community Safety Accreditation Scheme giving them greater powers to deal with low-level crime and anti-social behaviour. Since then, they have managed traffic at events such as the Remembrance Day Parade in Long Melford and the Sudbury Fun Run, but they have now become inundated with requests.

So the town council has come up with a policy that involves making a charge for the wardens’ services in certain cases.

Jacqui Howells, deputy town clerk, said: “Since police stopped doing marshalling at events and providing road management, they have been telling people to come to the town council because our wardens are accredited.

“This is fine if the event is in Sudbury, but the town’s ratepayers shouldn’t be paying for services in other towns or villages.

“If it was a charity event in Sudbury during normal working hours, then providing it doesn’t compromise their other duties we would provide wardens free of charge.

“But if it’s outside of working hours, they would be on overtime and we have decided that we need to make a reasonable charge for their services, with an appropriate discount for charitable organisations. It was felt that other towns and villages shouldn’t expect our wardens to perform these duties free of charge.”

Town warden Bradley Smith said they had provided their services for the recent town carnival and had been asked to marshall for the River Stour Trust’s Sudbury to the Sea event tomorrow.

He added: “Private companies charge a lot of money for traffic management services and doing things like putting out cones. We won’t be charging anywhere near as much as they do.”