Issue - meetings

Further to minutes 657 of 14 October 2014 and 142 of 9 February 2016, to review various options for payment in District Council car parks, including pay on foot and various cashless options.

RESOLVED

(1)  That the options for Parking Payment as set out in Appendix 1 (Table 1) be approved for implementation, with debit, credit and contactless payment machines for all car parks in the City and at least one machine in each rural car park being available by 2018.

(2)  Having reviewed the Pay on Foot scheme at the Avenue de Chartres car park (Appendix 1, Section 2), that further work on the Pay on Foot system should be deferred.

(3)  That the Head of Commercial Services be authorised to give appropriate notice of any revised changes to parking payment methods pursuant to the Off-street Parking Places (Consolidation) Order 2016 and the Road Traffic Act 1984.

(4)  That up to £100,000 be brought forward from the Asset Replacement Fund to 2016/17 in order to give effect to resolution (1) above.

The Cabinet considered the report circulated with the agenda (copy attached to the official minutes).

In the absence of Mrs Keegan, Mr Dignum introduced the report. He explained that the Council owned and managed 29 car parks, with over 90 payment machines and in 2014-15 sold one million car park tickets and around 2,000 season tickets.

The purpose of the proposals in the report were to ensure that:

·         The parking payment options offered were what customers wanted;

·         These payment options could be offered at reasonable cost to the Council;

·         The car parks were customer-friendly and met their needs, for example helping customers find their cars on return;

·         The maximum potential of the car parks was attained by increasing the number of spaces available where possible.

It was therefore planned that

·         All City car parks would be able to take debit/credit cards, including contactless, by 2018.

·         All machines that could take credit and debit cards would also take contactless payments.

·         Payment by phone would be offered by the year-end. This would allow people to top up remotely if they stayed longer than they intended. They would be able to receive a text message saying their time was up, to avoid paying the penalty charge.

·         The larger car parks would be zoned to help customers find their car on their return.

·         Additional spaces would be added in Little London and Northgate Car parks.

Table 1 in Appendix 1 (page 34) set out an assessment of each car park and the payment methods proposed and other improvements planned for each.

The additional pay and display machines which accept credit / debit card paymentwould yield a saving to the Council by reducing the coin collections required.

19 new machines were being introduced currently and all would accept credit and debit cards. A tender exercise was to be undertaken in the next few months for the purchasing of further pay and display machines. Then further machines could be replaced during this financial year using the capital funding in the Parking Services budget. Sufficient funds would be brought forward from later years to ensure every paying car park in the District had at least one machine able to take credit and debit cards and every machine in the City would have that facility by 2018.

Whilst the Pay on Foot method of parking at the Avenue de Chartres car park had allowed customers more flexibility in terms of when they returned to their vehicle, there had been no net increase in the income received. This experience had suggested that there was unlikely to be a financial payback or return on investment.

He, therefore, recommended that extending the Pay on Foot system should be deferred and recommendation 2.2 amended accordingly.

He and the Cabinet Member had agreed that the priority this year was to widen the range of payment methods and extend the number of machines able to take credit and debit cards. The proposed payment by phone method of parking would assist with providing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 185