Parking Person of the Year: Karen Day

British Parking Awards 2023

Karen Day has been parking manager at Nottingham City Council since April 2018. She is responsible for the management of over 5,000 parking bays across the city, including three multi-storey car parks, 15 surface car parks and on-street bays.

Nottingham’s parking operation operates 24/7, generates £10.5m per annum from 2.2m transactions and Karen Day runs this successfully with just eight members of staff.

Day has worked in local government for 23 years, the first 18 of which were spent in adult social care where she was a business manager ensuring that the service delivery for social care met the needs of the city’s citizens. She has brought the experience and skillset accumulated in adult social care to parking services. Her colleagues say Day has a great ability to empathise with and understand the needs of customers and adapt the parking operation to ensure it is welcoming to all.

Since Day became parking manager, she has made the quality of the parking experience her main focus. The improvements she has made have resulted in all of Nottingham’s city centre car parks being awarded the Park Mark Safer Parking Award by the British Parking Association. Broad Marsh Car Park has now been awarded Park Mark Plus for its excellence when it comes to customer service and safety.

Inclusivity is a key belief for Day, who regularly meets with the Disability Improvements Group in Nottingham to understand how to make the parking service more accessible. The outcome of this has been that the city’s multi-storey car parks have received Disabled Parking Accreditation from the Disabled Motoring UK for the service provided to customers with accessibility issues.

In 2021 Karen Day’s leadership was recognised at the British Parking Awards with Nottingham City Council’s Parking Services team being joint recipients of the Positive Responses to the Pandemic award. The award recognised that the car parks remained open for critical workers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and Day and her team were on site to ensure smooth operation for these essential users. She was also instrumental in ensuring they were the first car parks in the UK to apply a coating to the parking machines which actively cleaned them of any bacteria to protect key workers.

In 2022, the Broad Marsh Car Park won Best New Car Park at the British Parking Awards and this is in no small part because of Day’s tireless efforts to prioritise customers from design, through the build and into operation.

Day managed to secure grant funding for a state-of-the-art wayfinding sensor system, 81 EV chargepoints, and 720 solar panels mounted on the roof to power the car park in the day. This work has resulted in a vast improvement to the overall parking provision across Nottingham, as well as ensuring they are fit-for-the-future as electric vehicles become more prevalent.

A key focus for Day this year has been the implementation of mobility hubs in Nottingham City Council’s community car parks in order to offer users access to a combination of travel services, helping interlink sustainable transport provision in the city and encouraging the uptake of alternative travel methods – putting communities at the heart of mobility solutions. The project provides further opportunities to work with local communities on co-designing the hubs, ensuring that they offer services which are accessible and encouraging for everyone; in turn providing confidence that the services provided will be utilised.

Day is keen to build on the relationships she has made in the industry and the local community. The focus of the parking team under Day’s stewardship has been on understanding rather than enforcement. She is keen to look after her customers from the moment they leave their house, through them parking and on to their destination.

An example of this is Day leading on the customer experience on event nights at the Motorpoint Arena. With huge changes to the road traffic network in the south of Nottingham, the return of live events and the opening of Broad Marsh car park all taking place recently, Day and her team have been out on the road network on event evenings doing everything from directing customers to timing traffic flows so that they can then discuss with traffic management colleagues and partners at the Motorpoint Arena how they can improve visitors’ all-round experience.

Day cares deeply about her staff and is an inspirational leader. She has developed her team continually over the last five years with many going on to be promoted either within Parking Services or Nottingham City Council. She is also conscious of the need for continual improvement, so has been undergoing training and coaching sessions from the Go M.A.D. Thinking organisation, bringing a different way of thinking and planning to the local
authority. Day has always shown an appetite for undertaking self-improvement to further her ability to help the council deliver its services better. From completing a degree in Public Services Management at Nottingham Trent University while working in Adult Social Care to the work she currently does with the British Parking Association (BPA), she is keen to understand best practice when it comes to service provision so she can implement this in Nottingham.

Since Day came into the parking industry she has found a real passion for it and now sees her long-term future as lying in the sector. She is keen to support others within the industry following her success in Nottingham and was recently elected a member of both the BPA Communications and External Affairs Board and the Business Services and Accreditations Board. She is delighted to be on these boards and provide her expertise to them.

Day is also keen to promote the male-dominated industry to women and is an active member and advocate of the Women in Parking network.
Karen Day’s commitment creation of an exemplary parking operation and continued motivation to seek improvements for her customers and citizens has built a really strong business in Parking Services, one that delivers much needed income to the council while also providing a quality, inclusive, service to its users.

Testimonials

Emma Lafbery, senior parking business officer, Nottingham City Council
Karen Day is an outstanding professional who consistently ensures a seamless and enjoyable parking experience. Karen’s attention to detail and strong organisational abilities shows in every aspect of her work.Karen goes above and beyond as a manager, she leads by example and makes every individual feel valued and respected.

During COVID-19 Karen regularly communicated with the team, to keep us informed about any changes to work arrangements, safety protocols and any Nottingham City Council updates. Karen created a supportive and empathetic environment for anyone who was struggling during the pandemic.
Karen is on the two boards of the British Parking Association. Her dedication, professionalism, and remarkable ability to create an outstanding parking manager makes her an invaluable asset to any organisation. I am grateful for Karen’s help and the positive impact she has on her team.

Shaun Foster, engineer, Parking Services, Nottingham City Council
Karen Day is a committed, positive and supportive manager, with a vast knowledge of the parking sector. Karen has developed the team and made our department a very responsive, diverse and self-sufficient department. This has been achieved by supporting staff in further development and training. Over the last 18 months staff have trained in ground works, line marking, IOSH and IPAFF.

We can now deal with any car park issues such as pothole repair, refreshing faded or damaged parking bays, installing and removing parking equipment.
Karen helped lead the successful revamp of the new Broad Marsh car park in the heart of Nottingham. This car park has the most EV parking in Nottingham, which is helping the council work towards lower carbon emissions. Karen supported staff during COVID and made safety a priority, implementing working from home for staff that could, safe distancing, PPE and reduced hours for staff that could not work from home.

I am inspired by Karen’s leadership and look forward to future plans, progress and development of our parking department.

Iain Selbie, director, Apex Parking
Apex Parking has successfully worked with Karen over a number of years and seen firsthand not only her passion within her role, but continual aspiration for personal and professional growth, and through that improve the performance of her team and service line. Her appointment to the BPA board a clear indication of her commitment to support and improve our industry.

Karen’s leadership is progressive in several areas:

• Not content with the status quo, Karen commissioned and actively sought to be challenged by the private sector to strengthen internal council processes, enhance performance and deliver best value. This is a bold decision to take external analysis and criticism to improve, and not something often actively sought in either the private or public sectors, but done with a clear focus on improvement.
• Early adoption of technology. Through the existing parking equipment provider, Nottingham City Council, under Karen’s leadership, is significantly expanding its product offering and ability to grow, maintain and improve the overall customer offering and relationship. Through ANPR autopay and other products, Nottingham is the forefront of this strategy in the local authority spaces, which is very much driven by Karen.

Nottingham Panthers Ice Hockey
Nottingham Panthers IHC has worked with the team at Nottingham Parking Services for several years. Nottingham City Parking Service is our ‘go to’ provider for all our parking needs. The official parking provider to the Nottingham Panthers.

We have always found working with Karen and team so professional and efficient. Our first team members have been extremely well taken care of and the parking is the best in Nottingham, modern clean and very safe. No problem is too big or small for the management and staff. They are a credit to our great city they’re always willing to offer constructive and informative advice to help with our logistical problems

Working alongside us the staff always have a can-do attitude and are always ready to help us should we need assistance.

HM Land Registry
Karen is a wonder. She is the most hardworking, dedicated, headstrong woman I have ever had the pleasure of coming across.

When organising an office fundraising event, I approached Karen to ask if there was any way that Nottingham City Council Parking would be able to support our event. Karen couldn’t have been more understanding, helpful and supportive. She gave the whole of Nottingham office discounted parking for that day to increase and promote attendance to the event.

Karen also asked two of the employees to attend the event to show support for our fundraising event. It was advised that although there was a discount for parking, that they wanted the money saved to be donated to the fundraising. Overall we raised over £1,000. Alongside this, Karen also advertised the fundraising event within her office, promoting it within their office newsletter.