Parking professionals need to keep networking

Not attending events or reading the latest news is a false economy

The Comprehensive Spending Review has led many local authorities to reassess how much they spend on all manner of items. One of the quickest savings to make is to stop attending conferences and seminars, or to cancel subscriptions to specialist magazines and organisations. Such moves obviously have a detrimental effect on publishers and conference organisers such as Parking Review and our counterparts at the British Parking Association (BPA) and Parking News. But it also has a very real negative impact on parking managers because it stifles their ability to share experience and learn about best practice.

This point was eloquently made at last month’s Parking Management 2010 conference by Ian Taylor, assistant head of technical and procurement services at Tendring District Council in Essex. He told delegates: “I have heard so many short-term knee-jerk reactions on the need to ‘maximise income’ since the public spending review came in. One regular comment is: ‘I can’t come to the event because my local authority has withdrawn our travel expenses or we can’t afford Parking Review anymore’.

“But staying connected is one of the most important things that we do. If we don’t know what each other are doing how can we pinch their ideas — sorry, how can we be innovative! It is important that we attend events and continue our organisation memberships.”

As the first chairman of the Institute of Parking Professionals (IPP) Taylor is very keen on workforce development. ”I believe this is the future, and if you are going to apply a smart management technique it has got to invest in your workforce. The future for parking enforcement lies in multi-skilled, well trained officers using the latest hi-tech equipment and able to make sound judgements based on community needs and benefits. In this way we can fulfil the government mantra of achieving more, better, for less.”

Ensuring all members of parking teams remain aware of the latest thinking in policy, practice and technology via magazines and events is an investment in effective and intelligent management. The 120 people gathered at Parking Management 2010 underlined that there is a real desire to share experience.

The Parking Review team hope to help the parking community continue networking throughout 2011.