Better Streets Award: City of Edinburgh Council, Project Centre, Marston Holdings and NSL

British Parking Awards 2024

The Transport Scotland Act (2019) introduced a pavement parking ban that aims to enhance roads’ inclusivity and accessibility. To plan for the national ban on pavement parking, City of Edinburgh Council approached Project Centre, along with NSL, a Marston Holdings company, to assist them in developing a pavement parking enforcement methodology.

To enhance the council’s understanding of pavement parking levels across the borough and to inform the following enforcement strategy, Project Centre developed a comprehensive road study, assigning a Red/Amber/Green (RAG) categorisation for each road based on pavement parking levels as described below:

• Red: Significant levels of pavement parking currently taking place and may need consideration of mitigation measures.
• Amber: Moderate levels of pavement parking currently taking place, however pavement parking could be prohibited with minimal impact.
• Green: No pavement parking taking place and pavement parking can be prohibited.

The council and consultant adopted a collaborative approach, which helped develop an innovative methodology. The assessment covered 5,185 roads in the City of Edinburgh Council area. This required multiple teams to complete assessments on time and within budget. The involvement of different staff introduced a risk of inconsistent assessment. The Project Centre team proactively recognised this issue and worked collaboratively to understand where the inconsistencies could occur and how to solve these. Ensuring that the RAG methodology was clear, objective and transferable significantly minimised subjectivity in the pavement parking assessment.

Based on Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and its granular assessment, Project Centre recommended mitigation measures to ensure roads’ accessibility (e.g. introduction of parking bays, footways widening, introduction of road markings and exemptions). Project Centre’s detailed visualisation drawings and reporting helped ensure the clear presentation of the pavement parking levels was communicated relevant stakeholders, funding bodies and the public.

The City of Edinburgh Council became the first Scottish local authority to enforce pavement parking, starting from January 2024. Parking enforcement in Edinburgh is undertaken by NSL, another Marston Holdings company. The council tasked NSL to enforce the pavement parking legislation in problematic areas identified by the assessment.

NSL communication and engagement officers worked with Project Centre and the council to develop informative flyers and public-facing letters, aimed at raising public awareness of pavement parking. The officers used Project Centre’s RAG classification to actively monitor the most affected streets, issuing 2,232 warning flyers and a further 504 targeted flyers in the prolific area.

As Edinburgh was the first local authority to enforce the ban, NSL’s officers completed a dedicated training programme designed and delivered by NSL Edinburgh’s in-house trainer, who also delivered the training to the city council parking team to provide guidance on the new legislation, as well as giving them the expertise to effectively enforce contraventions.

Following the presentation of the study by Project Centre and City of Edinburgh Council at the Transport Smart Class event held in Glasgow in December 2022, other Scottish local authorities shared their views and requested that Project Centre assess their road network using our transferable methodology.

Measurable outcomes and successes

The methodology provided multiple benefits to each local authority, including:

• A database of the worst-affected roads by pavement parking, which will future-proof and streamline further studies, monitoring and maintenance
• The identification of different traffic management features on the same road. These features would be specific to suit each segment’s circumstances
• A robust geographical information record, supporting the council with future monitoring of pavement parking and other traffic management measures
• A detailed visual output to ease public engagement as well as communication between relevant stakeholders
• Access to a holistic understanding of the pavement parking problem occurring in areas outside the local authority’s area, including lessons learnt from the desktop assessment and enforcement strategy.

City of Edinburgh engaged with Project Centre for the completion of this assessment were extremely satisfied with our new methodology. Throughout the project, we established a strong partnership with the council and other stakeholders, undertaking regular online and face-to-face meetings to discuss goals and best practices as well as developing a network to share the lessons learnt from other areas.

Gavin Sherriff, project manager and senior transport team leader for parking operations, City of Edinburgh Council, said: “Project Centre has demonstrated a well organised collaborative approach and developed a robust and innovative methodology. They are providing a friendly and professional service and are delivering the project on budget.”

NSL’s enforcement plan

The City of Edinburgh Council commissioned Project Centre’s sister company, NSL, to enforce the legislation in those problematic areas identified by the assessment.

As Edinburgh was the first local authority to enforce the ban, NSL’s officers completed a dedicated training programme designed and delivered by NSL Edinburgh’s in-house trainer Ross Gallier. He also delivered the training to city council parking team to provide guidance on the new legislation as well as giving them the expertise to effectively enforce contraventions.

Working collaboratively with Edinburgh since 2004, NSL understood the challenges of public engagement to drive behaviour change towards the new offences.

NSL communication and engagement officers worked collaboratively with Project Centre and the council to develop informative flyers and public-facing letters, aimed at raising public awareness of pavement parking. The officers used Project Centre’s RAG classification to actively monitor the most affected streets, issuing 2,232 warning flyers and a further 504 targeted flyers in the prolific area.

The enforcement phase commenced on 29 January, with initial findings showing promising results.

NSL said: “Our educational and collaborative approach is contributing towards positive behaviour change as well as minimising barriers to further enhance active travel and the roads’ inclusivity and accessibility. NSL’s records of daily parking contraventions notices (PCNs) associated with pavement parking contraventions have considerably reduced since the commencement of the enforcement phase which reflects positive behavioural change.

For example, an average of 17 PCNs were issued per day in February, 18 in March, 13 in April and 12 in May. Furthermore, the number of online complaints associated with pavement parking monitored by NSL has considerably reduced. An average of 39 complaints per day were recorded in February 24 in March, 20 in April and 19 in May.

Every local authority in Scotland can benefit from NSL’s specialised knowledge in pavement parking enforcement and this can help authorities to develop efficient enforcement strategies and/or provide training to the authorities’ enforcement teams.

Winner’s words

Scott Wallace (NSL): “Winning the Better Streets award is recognition of the collaborative approach taken by City of Edinburgh Council, Marston Holdings, Project Centre and NSL and to change people’s thinking about parking on pavements. The great work we’ve done has been a team effort.”

The British Parking Awards

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