A PARKING REPORT FOR WINCHESTER CITY

COUNCIL APRIL 2008-MARCH 2009

Winchester Parking Report 2008/09

Example of artwork commissioned and being installed on the Tower street car park
refurbishment project

16 of Winchester’s car parks have received Parkmark safer parking accreditation to date.

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Introduction

The parking service operated by Winchester City Council covers an area of

250 square miles. Winchester itself is a heritage city attracting an estimated 4
million visitors each year creating obvious traffic and parking issues in a city
which was never originally designed to manage large numbers of vehicles
through some of its narrow streets.

The 2001 census indicates that the number of people commuting into
Winchester each day is 26,648 (many of these by car), whilst the number
commuting out was 16,602. Many of those commuting in work at some of the
major employers such as the Hospital or Hampshire County Council and also
includes both students and staff at Winchester University, the majority of
inbound commuters come from the south of the city.

In addition Winchester has a vibrant shopping centre and as previously stated

a high number of visitor numbers, all of this means that a robust parking and
enforcement policy needs to be in place to balance the needs of workers,
visitors and residents and aid the free flow of traffic whilst taking into account
the need to maintain the economic vitality of Winchester and its District.

The Council serves a population of approximately 110,000 residents however,

only 33% of theses residents live within the city, the major towns outside of
the city are:

Bishops Waltham (pop 6700)

Denmead (pop 6500)
New Alresford (pop 5000)
Wickham (pop 5000)

(Population figures taken from the 2001 census)

These market towns require the same care and consideration with regards to
parking and enforcement as does Winchester city itself.

Parking Services in Winchester

Winchester was the first local authority outside of London to adopt decriminalised
parking enforcement in May 1996.

The section covers a wide range of duties; all services apart from the monitoring of
CCTV systems which the section has overall responsibility for are undertaken “in
house”.

Amongst the responsibilities which are covered are:

• Enforcement

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 • Management of car parks
• First line repairs to payment machines and equipment
• Back office processing and appeals
• Front office customer interface/payments
• Permits and waivers/dispensations
• Concessionary travel.
• Park and Ride

The section is part of the operations group in Winchester City Council and works
closely with colleagues as part of the Access and Infrastructure division.

A copy of the sections structure chart as at Nov 2009 can be found as Appendix 1.

The Council follows parking best practice and is committed to the ethos of section 6
of the 2004 Traffic Management Act as introduced on 31st March 2008, both
Statutory and Operational guidance are followed as set down within the Act.

The section has clear policies which conform to both national standards and local
policies, a local traffic management policy has been developed from Hampshire
County Council for whom Winchester act as agent

WINCHESTER CITY COUNCIL TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT POLICY

VERSION 1.0 – 9th September 2009
Winchester City Council now act as agent on behalf of Hampshire County
Council, the highway authority, for various traffic related issues within the
Winchester district. The City Council does not have a set traffic management
policy but follows the policies and guidance of the County Council.
The County have produced their own guidance notes which reflect national
Government policy and advice as published by the Department for Transport
and the Highways Agency. This includes various documents, both statutory
(Acts and Regulations) as well as advisory leaflets and guidance notes. WCC
therefore also follows this approach.
The principal Acts relating to traffic management issues are:-
• Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984
• Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002
• Transport Act 2000
• Highways Act 1980

Winchester’s team of Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs) undertake their

duties in a firm but fair manner and conform to what is considered to be best
national practice in areas such as observational times for parking
contraventions.

The section has its own dedicated area within the Winchester city council
website www.winchester.gov follow links for transport and streets and parking.

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The website gives details of all council car parks including pricing structures
and number of disabled parking places.

The Council also seeks new ways to supply further or improved information to
customers, the latest project being the design and distribution of an
information leaflet for disabled users of the Council parking provision.

At Winchester we believe in educating the motorist, the image above appears as an insert in
all of our PCN carriers

Quality and Standards

As often seen as the public face of the Council, all enforcement staff or other
parking service staff who interact with the public are expected to adhere to the
Council code of conduct for standards and behaviour. All staff are expected to
be trained and have a suitable level of knowledge to undertake their job role
which will therefore help to maintain the reputation of a Council that provides
a professional level of customer service.

All enforcement staff are expected to wear the uniform which is provided and
which clearly identifies them as being a CEO.

All parking and back office staff have received formal training in parking
enforcement or the Traffic Management Act and its requirements, many staff
have undertaken and passed their NVQ level 2 in controlling parking areas, all
staff have received training in managing difficult customers.

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Other training is undertaken on an adhoc basis when identified, in the 2008/09
financial year; all staff in parking services received some specific type of
training to help them to undertake their post more efficiently.

Winchester City Council, takes its responsibilities towards training and

communication seriously, all staff are made aware of the Council core brief
which is cascaded down from the Corporate Management Team on a monthly
basis for upward feedback, in addition a weekly newsletter is sent out to all
staff electronically (City voice) regular staff meetings take place within each
section.

All procedures relating to the operation of parking services in Winchester are

set down in our quality manual and conform to BS EN ISO 9001:2008, these
procedures are subject to regular audits and a 6 monthly external assessment
by BSI inspectors.

Customer Services

Parking information is provided to customers in a number of ways, these can

be by:

• Our website.
• The Council’s magazine for residents ‘Perspectives’.
• Information leaflets in the parking front office.
• Via Penalty charge notice carriers which contain information on why we
do parking enforcement and details of our park and ride service.
• Notice boards of tariffs etc in Council car parks.

Communication however is a two way thing; customers are able to make

contact with the parking office in a number of ways:

• Via the parking inbox

• By telephone
• Letter
• Personal visit
• Also by the Council suggestion scheme
• Through the Council customer service centre.

To improve the service offered to customers, Winchester parking service

strives to bring in improvements using available technology, in the last year a
trial of paying for parking by mobile phone was undertaken, this gives the
customer additional options for payment and an optional reminder as to the
expiry of their parking session, the trial has been deemed to be a success and
expressions of interest are being sought for an extension of the scheme and a
provider for a longer term contract.

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 Location usage to date %

1 7560 Cattle Market 5931 10%

2 7561*Coach Park 1365 2%
3 7562 Gladstone St 7203 13%
4 7563 St.Peters 2694 5%
5 7564 Worthy Lane 6359 11%
6 7565 Tower St 31763 55%
7566** Colebrook
7 St 2131 4%
total 57446 100%

The table above represents the amounts of transactions in the car parks
involved the scheme since its inception in April 2008, a steady rise in user
numbers has been ongoing month by month.

A business process review has recently been undertaken to explore ways to

further enhance the ways for the service to continue to be improved for the
benefit of our customers, options that are subject to further discussion include

• Expansion of the ability to purchase residents permits on line

• Virtual permits
• Introduction of 2 part season tickets to replace some top up cards for
park and ride.
• Citizens Gateway for 3sixty-Online portal for pcn processing.
• Chip and pin payment for parking is being progressed for introduction
in the 2010/11 financial year

The opening of Winchesters new park and ride in April 2010 will increase the
number of park and ride spaces available from 780 to over 1600 spaces and
will include a new linked bus service using Dennis Dart enviro 300 buses built
to euro 5 emissions standard serving additional customer areas of the
Hospital, Hampshire County Council and the University will help to alleviate
some traffic congestion in the centre of the city which will in turn have an
ongoing benefit for the air quality levels.

The maintenance and expansion of the “Parkmark” safer parking scheme in

16 of Winchesters car parks.

A project to relocate parking services to the main officers of Winchester city

council has been completed which will offer enhanced customer service
facilities in its location within the Winchester customer service centre.

The completion of refurbishment works to Tower street car park which will
provide better facilities for those people using the top end of the city.

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We consider that all of these continuing improvements will go some way to
meeting or exceeding our customer requirements.

Performance

In line with the TMA 2004, Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs) do not work to
set targets for the production of penalty charge notices and receive no
financial rewards of any kind for issuing additional tickets.

Each member of the enforcement team is allocated an area to cover either on

foot, by car or on a powered two wheeler each day, all enforcement staff
receive a daily briefing on special events or item of note before commencing
shift.

CEOs work shift patterns Mon-Sat inclusive between 8am and 10pm and
some enforcement work is also undertaken on Sundays.

All staff receive a yearly full appraisal which is reviewed on a 6 monthly basis
where performance, attendance, section objectives, complaints and personal
development and training requirements are discussed, goals are reviewed
and set for the next period.

Enforcement staff are monitored by their own team leader.

The back office teams are managed by the Office manager who carries out
annual and 6 monthly appraisals and deals with any day to day work issues.

Members of staff are at times allocated special projects to become involved

in; this helps to install a sense of ownership.

Civil Parking Enforcement (CPE) was introduced into Winchester on 31st

March 2008, Winchester already worked fulfilling most of the requirements of
CPE prior to its inception and therefore apart from much of the paperwork not
a great deal of additional work has been required, however all staff fully
support it’s introduction and understand the reasons for the change.

Winchester is not unlike many other towns and cities in the problems that
parking can raise, the increasing number of vehicles on the road “fighting” for
kerb space creates a problem, this can lead to congestion and have a
profound impact on air quality levels, and it can also affect the wellbeing of a
local economic centre. If we take New Alresford as an example, a busy
market town with limited parking in it’s centre, some occasions were occurring
whereby little space existed for shoppers, therefore a new car park providing
a much needed additional 70 parking spaces has been constructed within the
grounds of Perins School.

However Winchester parking service does also have some problems, it has
been acknowledged for some time that the city due partly to it’s close
proximity to the M3 and congestion on some radial routes and is a designated

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air quality management area and does have an air quality issue, the new park
and ride site opening on 19th April 2010 does go some way to resolving this.

Winchester as previously described does cover a large area, and staff

resource does at times become stretched to cover all of the District, a
reduction in 2 members of staff in early 2009 due to the requirement to make
savings has stretched resource, this is coupled with the introduction of
additional waiting restrictions to patrol and the new car park at Perins, further
pressures will come on line with the requirement to patrol the new 800 spaces
park and ride in April 2009.

As a two tier authority, Winchester City Council has little direct control over
the maintenance of signs and lines on the public highway which it has to
enforce, due to this, although the parking enforcement section does notify the
County Council, there are a number of locations where enforcement does not
take place as the enforcement team to not consider the restrictions to be
clear.

This is in line with operational guidance.

Winchester does benchmark with neighbouring authorities of a similar size to

gauge its performance.
The benchmark group involves Eastleigh, Test Valley, Fareham and Havant,
who all cover a similar type of area and are similar in terms of operational
size.

Data is not available for Test Valley for the financial year 08/09 as they have
only recently joined the group
This benchmarking exercise compares the number of PCNs by the different
authorities and then produces figures for the numbers paid and the number of
appeals which have been accepted by the authority.

Each year an annual report is also produced by the Parking and Traffic
Appeals Tribunal. The latest information available on Winchester’s
performance shows cases taken to the Adjudication Service are minimal, as
Winchester city council strives to resolve all appeals before this point.

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The table below shows the number of cases received by the tribunal service,
and the outcome of those cases.

Incidentally, the case ‘awaiting decision’ was refused by the adjudicator thus
changing the percentage figure to 37%.

Appeals PCN’s Rate Not Allowed by Total Refused by Awaiting

Rec’d issued of Contested Adjudicator allowed Adjudicator decision
appeal by council including incl. out of Incl.
per not time and other
PCN contested withdrawn decided
by by appellant
council
8 14,204 0.06% 2 3 5 2 1
25% 38% 63% 25% 13%

Officers in the “back office” do consider all cases on there merits and will take
into account mitigating circumstances such as medical evidence or the validity
of a traffic regulation order before deciding on the outcome of a
representation.

They will also review the ticket itself and any notes made from the civil
enforcement officer when issuing to ensure that no mistakes have been
made.

A number of cases may be noted by the tribunal as no contests by the

Council, this may appear to some that the penalty charge may have for
example have been issued incorrectly or the councils case is weak or lacks
substance, however in these cases it is often a fact that while the case is
waiting to be heard the appellant supplies additional evidence and therefore
the Council decides not to pursue further or uses its powers of discretion.

One aim of the introduction of CPE in 2008 is to ultimately reduce the number
of PCNs issued to a nil figure, in Winchester the number of PCNs issued
between 2007/8 and 2008/9 actually rose, this can be partly attributed to
reduced absence levels, however despite the number of tickets increasing,
revenue decreased by some £25,000, it is accepted that this is largely due to
the introduction of differential charging as part of the implementation of the
TMA whereby the majority of tickets issued in Winchester fall into the lower
band for PCNs.

At the time this report is being compiled it is estimated that the number of
tickets issued by Winchester city council will this year fall to around 13,000
with a further decrease in revenue produced by a further £20,000, this is
partly due to a reduction in size of the enforcement team.

Winchester further hopes to reduce the amount of penalties issued by the

opening of its new South of Winchester park and ride service in April 2010,

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this will provide further low cost all day parking outside of the city, in addition
the hope is to reduce congestion, improve air quality and serve parts of the
city including some of the major employers more effectively.

CEO’s however as well as being a tool to manage poor and inconsiderate

parking also deal with other issues when going about their duties, including
assisting members of the public, managing car parks and being generally a
uniformed presence on street, reporting issues such as abandoned vehicles
and damaged/dangerous street furniture to the councils environmental team
and carrying out bay suspensions.

Winchester does not operate any clamping or removal operations and have
no plans to undertake such operations in the future.

Statistical Information

PCNs Issued

Number of PCNs issued at the higher rate 5,489

Number of PCNs issued at the lower rate 8,704
Number of regulation 9 PCNs issued 14,160
Number of regulation 10 PCNs issued 33
Number of PCNs issued on street 7,563
Number of PCNs issued off street 6,630

PCNs Paid

Number of PCNs paid 11,024

Number of PCNs paid at discount 9,399

Unfortunately in a number of cases the person who receives the penalty

charge makes no attempt to settle the debt, in these instances many cases
end up going through the county court process to recovery agents acting on
our behalf.

Marstons undertake this process for us, between April 2008 and March 2009
304 warrants were issued, of these 146 were traceable and paid this is a
recovery rate of 48% which is above the national average.

16% were paid at the initial letter stage and 57% after the first visit by a
recovery officer.

The average amount paid for a warrant during this period was £119,77.

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% of informal rep dismissals 12.62%
% of PCNs paid at full rate pre NTO 2.13%
% of PCNs paid at full rate post NOR 5.40%
% of PCNs paid at full rate post appeal 0.01%
% of PCNs paid at charge certificate 1.74%
% of PCNs paid at reduced rate without challenge 81.71%
% of PCNs paid at reduced rate following challenge 18.29%

PCNs Challenged

Number of PCNs against which an informal or formal representation was

made. 4,446

Number of PCNs cancelled as a result of an informal or formal challenge

2,269

% of PCNs where informal reps are made 27.35%

Number of NTOs issued 2,511

% of representations that were allowed as a result of the Council exercising

discretion 6.11%

% of PCNs cancelled at any stage 15.99%

Number of PCNs written off for other reasons, (CEO error, unable to trace
driver etc) 569

Financial Information

Total income on parking account 08/09 £4,950,509

Total Expenditure on parking account 08/09 £3,713,397

Income by source

Income from PCNs and waivers £383,903

Income from residents and visitors permits £231,496
Income from car parks including season tickets £4,242,875

Expenditure

Cost of parking enforcement £680,590

Expenditure on car parks £2,789,215.

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Copies of this report have been sent to:

The Department for Transport

Traffic Penalty Tribunal for England and Wales.
www.winchester.gov.uk

Mr Richard James Hein

Parking and Concessionary Travel Manager

Winchester City Council.

3rd December 2009.

Some of Winchesters CEOs receiving training awards from Winchester’s Mayor

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 APPENDIX A

WCC Parking Office – Staffing Structure Diagram

Head of Access and
Infrastructure

Operations Administration
Parking &
Concessionary
Travel Manager

Assistant Parking &

Concessionary
Travel Manager

Senior Team Equipment & Office Manager Accounts & Appeals Officer
Leader Operations Officer Finance Officer

Team Leader Team Leader Admin. Asst.

(P/T)

5 Civil Enforcement 5 Civil 5 Civil 7 Administrative Assistants

Officers Enforcement Enforcement (5 Full-time, 2 x Part/Time)
Officers Officers

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