Providing a great parking service

Newcastle City Council is investing in technology and its workforce

The Newcastle parking service team play an important role in keeping the city moving, both in terms of traffic flow and in supporting our economic objectives. As the director responsible for most of the operational services delivered in our city, I know only too well the pressures we face to get around the city expediently, safely and efficiently. Maintaining the balance between ‘public safety and wellbeing’ and ‘commercial viability’ is challenging. Parking services plays a critical role in maintaining that balance.

We support the pursuit of providing a safe environment for those living in, working in or visiting our city through the enforcement of restrictions at pedestrian crossings, school crossings and at bus stops. We also ensure that those with mobility problems have access to amenities through our popular Shopmobility service based within the Eldon Square shopping centre, as well as dealing with Blue Badge misuse and protecting disabled parking spaces for Blue Badge holders.

We support residents with their living arrangements through the administration and enforcement of resident parking schemes. We aim to provide safe and secure car parking at affordable rates to ensure that Newcastle continues to be a vibrant and accessible working city. We all need to excel in our efforts to tackle the issues of climate change and air quality whilst supporting the city’s economy.

We are implementing innovative parking solutions including car share options and electric vehicle reserved bays with charging facilities. These are just the beginning. We know we will need many more than the 56 electric vehicle bays already available. We are exploring ways of expanding our park & ride facilities. Four million tickets were purchased at our parking bays in 2017-18. Of these, 165,000 were paid for using card, so we are looking at extending this facility across our estate. Our new ‘check-in, check-out’ system is proving popular with users, who just have to enter their registration numbers and then pay by card when using our multi-storeys. This has reduced the number of penalty charge notices we are issuing, and drivers benefit from paying for the exact amount of time that they are parked.

We are soon to implement a pilot using parking sensors on our Helix site, working with Newcastle University. The pilot will provide drivers with parking availability information and payment options through digital means.

For people coming to the city, the first impression they get may well be where they park, so we strive to keep our litter bin estate in excellent condition, with our maintenance teams doing daily and weekly inspections, clearing rubbish, maintaining our facilities and doing so what we can to make them look their best.
All our multi-storey car parks have a principal inspection every six years that covers all structural and technical elements. All our surface car parks undergo a six monthly maintenance inspection. Investment in our properties has included lift upgrades, new handrails and stair nosings to ensure that we comply with equalities legislation, along with ensuring that signage and lighting is maintained to high standards. New developments within the car parks are our digital screens, which are used to display important information such as closing times for drivers as they access our car parks.

We have been successful in gaining the Park Mark Safer Parking Scheme award for 26 of our car parks. This award, which is assessed by the police, illustrates our commitment to safeguarding the safety and security of all vehicles and motorists using our network of car parks, by working with partners, to continue to develop initiatives to reduce crime and disorder through CCTV and increased patrols.

There is no doubt, however, that things will have to change to meet the future challenges we face while keeping the city accessible to motorists. The council is undertaking a package of major highway improvements across the city in order to improve bus journey times and offer more priority for people on foot and bike or in buses or taxis. It is vital that Newcastle remains accessible for drivers – for deliveries, the use of our amenities, to enjoy our popular shopping centres, including Eldon Square and the historic Grainger Market, to enjoy our night time economy and, above all, to demonstrate our ability and accessibility to host a range of world class, large-scale cultural, musical and sporting events.

We will ensure that people can still access anything they want to if they choose to travel by car, but depending on from where they are travelling to and from, the routes people take may have to change to accommodate more priority for public transport. These challenges are not unique to Newcastle and we don’t have all the answers, which is why we very much welcome working with parking providers and other cities to achieve common goals of parking services and traffic management excellence. The council’s values are “proud, fair and ambitious”.

High quality, customer-focussed services can only be delivered by great staff who represent our values and behaviours. Over the past 18 months the parking services team have been part of a transformation programme, which has included reviewing parking orders and permit schemes, refreshing governance and assurance, reviewing end-to-end processes, providing new training opportunities and introducing new tools and technologies.

The parking services staff have engaged by participating in focus group activity to inform our future approach. They have shared their personal views about what is good, what is not so good and what would enable them to do their job in a better way.

Their suggestions are informing and enabling improvements to be made, including a new City Park Permit offer for business users, the creation of an employee forum and the appointment of Values Champions, which allows our staff to have a say in how the service is run. We have also seen the creation of a new ‘learning zone’ at the Percy Street car park which provides online training for all staff. We have seen over 600 learners since it opened in February 2019. Good employee relations are key to an empowered, motivated and high performing workforce. In the last few months we have seen some extraordinary examples of parking services staff going the extra mile. These include:

• A member of staff, waiting for a customer, way beyond car park closure for the breakdown recovery service, enabling the motorist to have their car fixed and drive home that evening.
• Two members assisting a distressed parent with urgent medication for their daughter who was in the Royal Theatre. Customer feedback the next day was that a stressful situation has been extremely well supported by parking services staff.
• A staff member using pen and paper notes to communicate with a deaf person to explain why she had received a PCN and how to appeal. The officer asked the person if this was the best way to communicate, and she agreed.
• On numerous occasions items lost in the car parks are handed to the police. On one occasion a wallet containing over £1,000 in cash was found. The wallet was immediately taken in person by the officer who handed it to the police. The wallet was reunited with its owner, who was extremely grateful to have it returned and who took the time to write a thank you letter.

This is why, for me, our most important asset is our staff.

Christine Herriot is director of operations and regulatory services at Newcastle City Council