School safety projects win British Parking Awards

Parking Review's annual competition celebrates best practice and innovative thinking

Parking projects that seek to make the lives of children safer and easier where among the winners at the British Parking Awards 2017, which took place on Friday 10 March.

Kent County Council won the Front Line Award for its Responsible Parking Squad initiative. The council has devised a toolkit of materials and techniques that can be used by pupils at secondary schools to tackle the problem of dangerous parking and driving, especially during the school run.

The London Borough of Wandsworth received the Parking in the Community Award for the WAND Card scheme. The card enables parents of children with disabilities and special needs access a wide range of services and activities across the borough. The scheme now provides parking concessions when parents are taking their children to school, libraries, leisure venues and a number of museums across the borough.

The British Parking Awards were launched by Parking Review magazine in 2002 to recognise achievement and best practice in the design and management of parking.

The nature of parking means that the awards have categories recognising the built environment, technology, traffic management and facilities management. The awards also recognise the work of a varied workforce that encompasses parking managers, patrol and customer service staff, car park designers, construction workers and technologists. 

British Parking Awards 2017: The winners

• The Intelligent Parking Award – Traffic Penalty Tribunal for Fast Online Appeals Management (FOAM)
• Special Jury Award – Nottingham City Council for the Workplace Parking Levy
• Parking Partnerships Award – Westminster City Council and Zipcar
• Exceptional Customer Service Award – B4, Birmingham
• The Parking Futures Award - JustPark
• Best New Car Park – Rose Lane, Norwich
• Best Car Park Refurbishment (joint winners) – Wolverhampton Civic Centre Car Park and Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth
• Best Surface Car Park – Mayflower West Car Park and Coach Station, Plymouth
• Special Jury Award - Authorised Vehicle Area, Heathrow Airport and APCOA Parking
• Young Parking Professional Award – Ryan Williams, quantity surveyor, USL StructureCare
• Parking in the Community Award – London Borough of Wandsworth for the WAND Card
• The Front Line Award – Kent County Council for The Responsible Parking Squad
• Parking Team of the Year – Shared Parking Service: Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham
• Parking Person of the Year – Bob Bruce, customer service assistant, NCP
• The Inspiration Award – Vanessa Fyles-Legg, customer service assistant and coach driver, APCOA Parking at Exeter Airport
• The Lifetime Achievement Award – Caroline Sheppard
• The Parking & Property Prize – Guiliano Mingardo, lecturer in transport economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Local government teams were successful on several fronts. The Shared Parking Service operated by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham was named the Parking Team of the Year. The Parking Partnership Award was presented to Westminster City Council and car-share club Zipcar for providing drivers in London with the opportunity to experience electric vehicles.

In the arena of parking and transport policy the awards recognised Nottingham City Council’s workplace parking levy scheme, which raises funds to support public transport and workplace travel planning. Over the past four WPL has raised over £34m for projects such extending the city's supertram network. h parking levy concept is now being seriously considered by a number of other local authorities.

Innovative technological approaches presented with awards included sharing economy pioneer JustPark for its work on dynamic pricing models for parking. Traffic Penalty Tribunal’s new FOAM online appeals service. The tribunal’s chief adjudicator, Caroline Sheppard, received a Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her work establishing fair and accessible adjudication systems for parking over the past three decades.

The design, building and maintenance of car parks were recognised in a set of awards for structures. Norwich City Council’s Rose Lane multi-storey, which is the linchpin of an urban regeneration scheme, was named Best New Car Park. Wolverhampton City Council’s Civic Centre and Land Securities’ Gunwharf Quays retail car park in Portsmouth shared the refurbishment prize. The Young Professional of the Year trophy was presented to Ryan Williams, a quantity surveyor at car park refurbishment specialist USL StructureCare.

Plymouth City Council’s new Mayflower West Car Park and Coach Station was named best surface car park, while Heathrow Airport and APCOA Parking received a special award for creating a dedicated waiting area for minicabs which had been causing problems when parked up in residential roads.

The inaugural Parking & Property Prize was presented to Guiliano Mingardo, an academic from Erasmus University Rotterdam, who is one of Europe’s leading experts on the relationship between driving, parking, retail and the vitality of town centres.

Customer service was a key theme recognised across a number of categories. The new B4 Car Park in Birmingham won the Exceptional Customer Service Award for the range and quality of services it provides to drivers, motorcyclists and cyclists. Customer service assistants were also trophy winners. Veteran NCP employee Bob Bruce was named Parking Person of the Year for his commitment to improving the quality of drivers’ experiences and mentoring his colleagues.

Vanessa Fyles-Legg, who works for APCOA Parking at Exeter Airport, received the Inspiration Award in recognition of her talent for looking after the travelling public while also fighting the side effects of on-going cancer treatments. Fittingly, thoes attending the event donated over £1,500 to cancer charity Marie Curie.

Mark Moran, editor of Parking Review and chair of the judging panel, said: “With winners selected by a jury of their peers, the British Parking Parking Awards logo and trophy have become a respected and coveted mark of excellence among parking professionals.”

www.britishparkingawards.co.uk