Turn 50% of car parks into housing, says John Siraut

There are surplus spaces in car parks that could be put to better use as land for housing, argues John Siraut, Director, Economics at Jacobs.

At Intelligent City Mobility he will challenge the premise that free parking is good for towns and cities. “For some reason we have allowed a significant proportion of our public open space, also known as roads, to be taken over by a small number of people – motorists – to abandon large metal objects on them – cars/vans – usually for free,” he says. “Those roads were built at great expense to allow vehicles to travel up and down them, by clogging them up with parked vehicles we have slowed traffic down at an estimated cost of £200m to road users.”

Siraut estimates there are around 30m off-street parking places in the UK, most of which are provided free of charge. “They take up around 30,000 hectares. If they were all charged for we could perhaps free up 50% of them, giving enough room for 375,000 urgently needed homes, at present average build densities, or to grow enough wheat for 150m loaves of bread a year. The real cost of free parking is a lot less homes and a lot less food.”

Siraut accepts that many drivers will do what they can to avoid paying for parking. “I certainly do and I am quite happy to drive a few streets further along to where I know it’s free. There is the (in)famous quote from Donald Shoup’s book The High Cost of Free Parking equating paying for parking to paying for sex, and suggesting that with a bit of effort we can avoid paying for either.

“But, like any good or service that is free to the user, we tend to misuse and over-consume it, which leads to greater costs to society as a whole.”

Siraut sees a connection between parking and plastic bags. “We get through around 8bn plastic bags a year, many of which end up blowing round the streets and entering the water system, causing significant environmental damage. The introduction of a small charge has seen an 80% fall in their use in Scotland. The same rules apply to parking.” 

John Siraut will be exploring if free parking can save the High Street at Intelligent City Mobility