The Head of Environment and Leisure introduced the Parking Services Annual Report as set-out in the agenda papers.

The Chair invited Members to ask questions and points raised included:

·         Welcomed the report which made it clear that Civil Enforcement Officers (CEO) could only enforce areas that were subject to a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO), not parking on pavements which was a Police matter;

·         what did the Council do when the CEOs reported a yellow or red incident?;

·         considered the Council’s website in respect of parking services needed to be tidied-up, particularly the section about how many steps there were from each car park to the town centre; 

·         thanked the officer for a comprehensive report;

·         the report clarified some of the grey areas for Ward Members in particular pavement parking;

·         it would be useful for the Committee to see the report on an annual basis;

·         would like to see more information on car park enforcement time differences and the logic behind them;

·         would like to see more information on the types of enforcement and what they were and a breakdown of Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs);

·         there needed to be better enforcement in respect of disabled parking bays;

·         the report helped to highlight how different parts of the Council had worked and merged to produce a favourable outcome for residents such as the Electric Vehicle (EV) charge points across the borough and the Community Committee should consider linking the work of both the Community Committee and Environment Committee for the benefit of residents and in particular air pollution levels;

·         it was very important for the Committee to consider how beneficial the positive work of the coalition was in respect of EV Charging points in car parks which would improve air pollution levels;

·         would like to see more deployment of CEOs in rural areas as parking on double yellow lines in Church Lane, Newington was an issue;

·         interesting to note that the areas of high PCNs in Queenborough and Halfway were within areas with high take-away premises; and

·         what had been the cause of loss of income from pay and display in the previous year?.

In response the Head of Environment and Leisure confirmed that the Council reported every red and yellow incident to the Police and had regular follow-up meetings with the contractor to support the staff.  With regard to pavement parking, the Government had advised there would be national consultation,  but a timeframe had not yet been released.  He hoped that the report would provide a blue-print for Members when responding to local residents concerns in respect of parking enforcement.  The Head of Environment and Leisure explained the different time zones for each Resident Parking Scheme and the roads were subject to their own TRO which considered the impact of the night-time economy and commuters.   Amendments to TROs were considered at the Swale Joint Transportation Board, and any changes to them was a lengthy process due to the consultations that needed to be undertaken.  The Head of Environment and Leisure referred to Appendix 2 (Heat maps) of the report, which showed that the CEOs spent roughly 70% of their time patrolling the streets and 30% patrolling the car parks, however 70% of the PCNs issued were in car parks and 30% on-street.  He said most disabled bays were subject to a TRO, however some were advisory, so could not be enforced.  The Council had bought 15,000 hours of on-street or off-street activity from the enforcement contractor and Swale Borough Council (SBC) controlled which times they should operate.  If a particular issue was identified in an area, whether it be late at night or early in the morning, the CEOs would be asked to target those areas. 

The Head of Environment and Leisure said the Council was proud of the work to include EV chargers within its car parks and had over 30 EV charging bays across the Borough.  He explained that the Council had lost a huge amount of income from car parks during the Covid-19 Pandemic and that was the reason for the lower income in 2021-22, plus in 2022/23 there was the first tariff increase which accounted for the remainder of the additional income.

Resolved:

(1)      That the Parking Services Annual Report be published on the Council’s website.