Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Strategic Parking Project Manager.

At the request of the committee, councillors considered a report of the Strategic Parking Project Manager, which provided a review of the impact of the changes to parking charges agreed by Cabinet in November 2021 and provided detail of further work undertaken in Parking Services.

The committee considered the issues arising from the report and during discussion, the following areas were covered:

·       Discussion around the length and width of parking bays and the ability of vehicles to fit inside the lines of parking bays

·       Provision for motorhome parking

·       New pay and display machines to be installed in stages and completed by early 2024.  It was noted that the new machines would have flexible payment options and would provide data on usage of car parks

·       Discussion on ways to make paying for parking as easy as possible including opportunities to use Automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR) in council owned car parks

·       On-street parking was to be covered in a forthcoming review

·       Signage in car parks

·       Issues around maintenance of car parks

·       Costs of residents parking permits.

The Chairman noted further action required:

·       Consideration to be given to the size of parking bays and whether size of bays was sufficient

·       Review of ‘on-street’ parking – clarification of reporting for the review

·       Investigation of opportunities for car park maintenance to be undertaken by town councils with grounds staff (to include reimbursement for works)

·       Future report to be provided to the committee on the use of car parks, using data from the new machines to be installed.  Have the new charges had an impact on the use of car parks?

·       Support the lobbying of Government to change the terms to allow councils to use ANPR in council owned car parks.

The Chairman noted that he would discuss issues around the cost of residents parking permits separately with the portfolio holder.

The Chairman thanked officers for the report and discussion at the meeting.