How APCOA Parking is supporting the national effort to beat COVID-19

Parking and traffic management remain key functions during the pandemic, says APCOA Parking director John Goodwin

The Coronavirus pandemic continues to present significant challenges across the UK. The lives of our people, our clients and our customers have been impacted in a number of ways, and to varying degrees.

Parking and traffic management is an important public service, providing benefits to the wider community by maintaining road safety and ensuring access to goods and services. During this challenging time for our country, this activity is critical as we support our emergency services and local authorities to ensure traffic is free-flowing and keep providing essential services. 

As a business, we have sought to identify how we can contribute to the national effort during these testing times. Working with our clients to offer free parking to NHS employees and Key workers is but one way we are able to offer assistance.

We would like to update you on some of the other ways APCOA and its people are offering our support to communities, local authorities and healthcare clients during the crisis.

Without effective monitoring activity, authorities will not be able to manage the highways effectively. APCOA continues to deploy our parking teams in support of this essential work, focusing on priority areas and controls, most especially around key areas of congestion and our NHS facilities.

Whilst many of our civil enforcement officers, security personnel and car park operatives continue with their primary duties on behalf of clients, many more have made themselves available to support councils and NHS trusts in the following ways:

• Working in food banks, receiving delivery of stocks and packaging up ready for distribution in food parcels
• Delivering food parcels to the vulnerable
• Patrolling public places like seafront/beach areas, parks, cemeteries and town centres, working alongside other council colleagues and the police to advise on social-distancing and to disperse larger groups
• Marshalling at restricted provision markets
• Relieving NHS staff of mundane duties such as guarding oxygen stores
• Helping councils with COVID-19 support calls
• Carrying out leaflet drops about COVID-19
• Supporting refuse collection services
• Opening and closing council facilities such as cemeteries
• Assisting in the set-up of COVID-19 drive-through testing stations
• Community litter picking

Those colleagues who continue to carry out parking and traffic management duties are focusing on priorities relevant to the current climate, such as safety and access for emergency and essential services, ensuring that key routes in towns and those around NHS facilities remain accessible. 

Most of our people – whether engaged on community support tasks, traffic management duties or in customer service – are reporting a collaborative spirit and positive feedback from members of the public. Unfortunately however, on occasion, our people are subjected to unacceptable levels of abuse as they go about their work. We are proud of our people, the service they provide and the way in which they have embraced new duties in support of clients and communities. We hope that they can continue to offer assistance without the threat of verbal or physical attacks.

APCOA continues to work with clients and community bodies to explore other ways in which we can offer help at this most difficult of times for our country.

John Goodwin is a director of APCOA Parking (UK)

APCOA Parking Group operates in 13 European countries. Besides on-street enforcement it also manages 1,800 city and shopping centre locations, 400 hotels, 150 hospitals and more than 60 European airports.