Government suggests new parking discussions for businesses

The Future of Parking in the UK

Late last year, Community Secretary Eric Pickles, announced plans to boost British business by supporting the high streets. A billion pound package is intended to create growth and jobs and get the economy up and running again. As part of this deal, Mr Pickles announced that he would be setting up a consultation to look at the UK’s parking problems. We look at what he intends to do and how it will help local businesses on the high street.

The Problem

We are a small, ancient island and many of our cities have developed organically over centuries, rather than having been designed for current purposes. This leaves us with narrow, crowded streets in some areas, and accessible, safe and affordable parking is at a premium. There have been many strategies laid out over the years to alleviate this problem. After WW II, town planners aimed to rebuild Britain and design cities which were light and airy, with space for drivers and pedestrians alike. Whether these new towns were the long term solution to the problem or simply caused a whole new set of societal issues is a debate for another day.

However, the situation as it stands, whatever the causes, is that with the advent of out-of-town shopping centres and supermarkets offering free and plentiful parking for their customers, city centre locations, for which accessibility, availability and cost are all issues, simply can’t compete. The consultation document under discussion at the moment aims to “… change the balance of how parking is enforced with the aim of ensuring that parking strategies complement and enhance the attractiveness of our high streets and town centres…”

The implications in this are clear: current parking strategies, which are managed by individual local authorities, have been mismanaged in the past and have penalised both drivers and business owners. There’s no doubt that local authorities raise a substantial contribution to their coffers through their parking strategies which, in the light of government funding freezes and cuts, is a welcome contribution to local services. It is claimed that in the UK, local authorities made £1.6 billion in 2005 alone from public parking fines. It is also undoubtedly a difficult achievement to strike a balance between those who need safe, regular access to local businesses, such as delivery drivers, those who wish to visit to shop and those who would like to see less traffic in town centres.

What Are the Proposals?

The Federation of Small Businesses is calling for ‘sensible’ parking policies which assist independent businesses, allowing them to thrive and encourage regeneration in many of our towns and cities. Their document, ‘Parking: Policies for Sustainable Communities’ outlines four main proposals: Parking should not be used primarily as a revenue-making vehicle but rather should be seen as an essential service; local authorities’ parking policy should be an integral part of a local transport strategy; parking policies must be location-specific and not part of a one-fits-all strategy; finally, other alternatives to town and city centre parking, such as park and ride schemes, should be encouraged.

These recommendations have been seen as the basis for the Government’s recent consultation document and in particular, they wish to be seen to be reacting to controversy about parking fines by freezing parking penalty charge levels, at least until the next general election. They have also said that they now require all local authorities to be transparent in reporting where exactly the money raised from parking fines is spent.

Other proposals will encourage parking strategies to be reasonable, fair and not to punish local business. Parking spaces are, clearly, at a premium within town and city centres, but more is needed to be done to develop further, well designed spaces. In addition, consultation is being sought on the controversial area of local authorities’ use of CCTV as a method of on-street parking enforcement. In some areas, CCTV is used not only to film motorists using bus lanes, but also to prevent dangerous parking in and around schools, for example. Certainly, discussions will continue in this area. Double-yellow lines, which have been contentious for many years, will also be reviewed. One further proposal is a ‘grace’ period whereby a driver is not penalised for overstaying in their parking space for a short period of time after the period has expired.

Whether all these proposals coalesce into positive action remains to be seen. However, the long-overdue discussion about breathing new life into our towns and cities through sensible policies has at last begun. We await the results of the consultation process with interest.

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This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ayeisha Thomas-Smith .