Communication Award: Hackney Council

British Parking Awards 2023

Extensive engagement and consultation with residents, businesses and stakeholders has refined the London Borough of Hackney’s parking strategy.

Hackney Council’s new Parking and Enforcement Plan (PEP) was adopted by the council’s cabinet in October 2022. The 5-year plan sets a new direction of travel for the borough, with a much stronger emphasis on improving air quality and reducing CO2 emissions. The PEP also re-imagines the use of kerb space to support sustainable and active travel, built around five key visions:

1. Supporting the creation of sustainable streets for everyone, by re-prioritising more kerbside space to support greening the borough, and sustainable transport
2. Providing high quality, customer-focussed services that respond to the needs of residents, businesses and visitors
3. Encouraging motorists to choose active travel and sustainable travel options, a switch to cleaner vehicles with a reduction in private vehicle ownership
4. Consolidating a fair, proportionate and transparent enforcement service to deliver high levels of compliance, and robustly tackle fraud
5. Delivering a consistent approach to parking products and services on all council-managed estates.

From the outset, one of Hackney’s main priorities was to maximise engagement with the public on its proposals, not only in terms of the number of respondents, but also in ensuring that it heard from as wide a range of people as possible by using a variety of outreach methods. The PEP consultation campaign focussed on encouraging residents to participate in a consultation that gave them the opportunity to guide decisions on parking-related policy for the next five years.

The council began by producing a comprehensive campaign brief, which set out the key campaign proposition, target audiences, timeframes, risks, evaluation measures and milestones, as well as the top line messages, and activities that it planned to deliver. The campaign objectives were:

• To educate customers about the Parking and Enforcement Plan consultation
• To have a high response rate for the consultation
• To build support for the council’s vision and objectives
• To receive public input for the recommendations, as considering public feedback is part of the PEP review process
• To raise awareness and buy-in for parking services, with a larger focus on air quality and sustainability.

The scope of the campaign was designed to achieve maximum engagement with key stakeholders using multiple communication channels, such as direct communication (letter, email, phone and meetings) and media (print, online and socials). The critical stakeholder groups included, but were not limited to, estate residents, disability groups, health and care organisations and council staff. Other groups consulted included the wider residential community, local businesses and visitors to the borough.

The campaign approach proved to be successful. While many boroughs see only a few hundred responses to strategic documents, Hackney’s communications approach saw over 8,000 people give their views, across a 13-week consultation in summer 2021, and a further three-week listening exercise in summer 2022, which contributed to a number of substantive changes in the finalised proposals.

The consultation led to substantive changes to the proposals that Hackney Council consulted on.

In total, of the 29 proposals that we sought views on 12 received support from over half the respondents, covering the following key areas:

• The introduction of a year-on-year increase of the diesel surcharge
• Proposed parking zone review process.
• The inclusion of estate parking zones, when consulting on on-street parking zones.
• Proposals to introduce two new parking permits; a car-sharing permit and a market trader permit.
• The extension of the community support permit to a wider cohort of organisations that provide essential care in the community.
• Introducing maximum stays in all-electric vehicle charging points, to make them accessible.
• Extending dispensation waivers to Hackney Housing estates, which supports residents with two free parking permits for weddings and up to ten for funerals.
• Plans to adopt a demand-led enforcement service and explore options for additional duties when civil enforcement officers whilst patrolling the Streets.
• Opening up permit holder parking bays to all Blue Badge holders.

Of the remaining 17 that did not receive majority support for the proposals three were removed from the final draft of the PEP, based on careful consideration of the feedback received.

Seven were amended to take into account feedback from the public.

Seven recommendations were taken forward despite a lack of public support, due to their importance in delivering the key objectives of reducing car use, reducing CO2 emissions, and improving local air quality.