Minutes:
Roy Clark, Parking Services Manager, was present for this item and delivered a presentation outlining the work undertaken by his team. It was noted that the Transport and Projects Team effectively introduced the Borough’s parking restrictions and the Parking Services Team then enforced them. Parking enforcement formed a large portion, but not the entirety, of the work undertaken by the Team and was controlled strictly by various pieces of legislation. Enforcement was carried out by a mixture of foot patrols, vehicle patrols and CCTV monitored areas; patrols took place from 6am to 10pm Monday to Saturday, and 8am to 10pm on Sundays and Bank Holidays.
The key role of parking enforcement was to ensure road safety and to keep congestion clear, it was highlighted that if a driver was present, the enforcement officer would not initially issue a penalty charge notice and would ask them to move away from the area to remove the congestion. The Borough was broken up into either areas with a Parking Management Scheme (PMS) or unrestricted areas; particular areas of concern included: schools, footways, disabled parking areas, dropped kerbs and mini cab/ride hailing app vehicles. It was noted that since 1974 it had been an offence in London to park on the footway, unless where it was specifically stated that vehicles could be parked on the footway; outside of London, the opposite was the case.
Members were informed that the Parking Services Team also administered and processed parking appeals and residents/visitors parking permits, of which the Team issued around 16,000 residents parking permits per year. The Team also operated the Council’s 33 car parks, including all on-street pay and display areas. Further to this, the Team processed the older persons Brown Badge Scheme, of which there currently were around 13,500 brown badge permits on issue. It was noted that another London Borough had introduced a similar scheme after seeing the success of Hillingdon’s scheme.
The Committee discussed elements of Electric Vehicle (EV) charging points and infrastructure and noted that information such as, options for EV charging for residents with no off-street parking and the number of EV charging points that were in the Council’s car parks, would form part of the Committee’s review and information gathering sessions.
Although it was noted that permit charges had increased, and the Team had experienced complaints from residents about this, it had not materialised in a decreased uptake of parking permits. It was noted that, for each household, the first permit and 10 visitor vouchers were free.
By way of clarification, the Committee were informed that Hillingdon did not, and had never, offered any incentives for enforcement officers in issuing a certain quota of penalty charge notices. Further to this, it was written into the Council’s contract with the enforcement provider that no bonus or incentive scheme related to the issuing of penalty charge notices should exist. It was noted that this was often a public perception however it was untrue.
RESOLVED: That the Committee noted the officer’s verbal report.