Agenda item

The Council operates separate 2-hour parking schemes in Littlehampton and Bognor Regis with aim of supporting town centre footfall, though there is a lack of robust evidence to link such schemes with footfall. The current 2-hour parking schemes in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton town centres both expire at the end of 2024. This report sets out proposals to continue 2-hour parking schemes in each town centre beyond 2024, following recommendations by the Free Parking Scheme Review Working Party.

[15 Minutes]

 

          Upon the invitation of the Chair, the Group Head of Technical Services presented the report. At its meeting on 7 September 2023, the Environment Committee resolved to establish a Working Party to comprehensively review the free parking schemes and report its recommendations to the Committee. The membership of the Working Party was made up of the Chair of the Environment Committee plus four other members of the Committee, two named representatives from each of Littlehampton and Bognor Regis Town Councils, a named representative of the Bognor Regis Business Improvement District (BID) and a named representative of Littlehampton traders. At the first meeting of the Working Party members received an Officer presentation on the current scheme, including limitations, and also agreed the Terms of Reference and Objectives of the Working Party. Members of the Working Party had been asked to submit proposals for discussion at the second meeting. A wide range of ideas had been submitted by two members, which were appraised, debated and shortlisted at the second meeting. The Working Party had recognised the significant advantages of a virtual disc over a physical disc, however recognised some people may not be ready for this transition, so recommended the physical disc should remain available at a higher price than the virtual disc, which would help to incentivise the transition.

 

          At the third meeting, the Working Party made a recommendation to the Environment Committee which was ‘A single disc that covers both Bognor Regis and Littlehampton town centre car parks, using Option B, a hybrid scheme of both physical and virtual discs, with the virtual discs costing less for the end users to purchase than the physical discs. The costs of these to be decided by the Environment Committee, guided by the outcome of public consultation.’

 

          As requested at the final meeting of the Working Party, public consultation had been carried out, which had received 338 responses. The mean average response to the question around what people felt represented good value was £8.44 for the virtual disc, and £9.74 for the physical disc, however there were three high responses which distorted this. The median average had therefore also been calculated which was £3 for both virtual and physical discs.

 

          The recommendation to Committee was that the virtual disc continue to be £3, but the physical disc be priced at £10. This took into account the consultation responses, but that people may have understated what they considered to be good value; that the disc would now cover two towns, whereas they only covered one under the current scheme; the recommendation of the Working Party that there be price differential sufficient to encourage buyer behaviour towards the app; it also took account of the high production and admin costs of the physical discs, and the need to attenuate the parking revenue losses the Council incurs. The scheme remained exceptional value.

 

          The Group Head of Technical Services explained to Members that despite a number of research papers being produced in the UK, there was a lack of robust evidence linking car park charging levels with town centre footfall. The cost of the scheme, based on the very limited usage data held, indicated a cost to the Council of £1.2m each year for the scheme, however there was a low level of confidence in that figure due to the limited volume of usage data.

 

          The recommendations were proposed by Councillor Worne and seconded by Councillor Wiltshire.

 

          The Chair opened for debate, and Councillor Oppler explained that although he respected the Officers, he disagreed with the report. He felt the scheme that had run until the end of December 2023 had been very successful, and it had been a well used scheme. He said that to charge £10 for the physical disc would be a 250% increase. He read out a statement that he had been provided with from Councillor Bob Waterhouse, a Bognor Regis Town Councillor that was a member of the Working Party. This statement rejected the indicated cost to the Council of the scheme of £1.2m, which it stated were unrealistically high. Councillor Oppler explained he welcomed the idea of having one disc that covered both towns, and he also supported having the physical card disc and the app in parallel. He then proposed amendments to the Officer recommendations as follows (additions shown in bold, deletions in strikethrough):

 

 

a.    To delegate authority to the Group Head of Technical Services to implement a single 2-hour free town centre parking disc scheme to incorporate both Littlehampton and Bognor Regis town centres, with the scheme to be administered in both Littlehampton and Bognor Regis by Arun District Council.

 

b.    To agree the differential pricing for virtual and physical parking discs, whereby the virtual parking disc is cheaper than the physical counterpart to encourage transition to the virtual scheme.

 

c.     To agree the retail price points for both the virtual and physical parking discs for 2025 from the options in 4.19. The recommended retail price for the virtual disc is £4 and £6 for the physical disc. Both price points should be fixed for a period of three years. Thereafter decisions on the scheme are to be included within the Council’s annual budget setting process, as with other tariffs.

 

d.    To delegate authority to the Group Head of Technical Services to make any necessary changes to the Council’s Parking Orders and to take any other actions necessary to enable the scheme to take effect.

 

e.    Card discs should be supplied to traders on a strictly sale or return basis.

 

f.      The clause to use the disc only once per day should be removed.

 

 

          The amendment was seconded by Councillor Huntley.

 

          The Group Head of Technical Services explained that the cost estimates were based on 50k sales per annum and that those be used once per month. There was however, a 4% actual usage sample size, and consultation responses indicated the usage may be even more frequent than this, which would mean the cost to the Council was in fact higher. He advised that a lower cost for the cardboard disc would mean a further loss of revenue, and less of an incentive for people to transfer from the cardboard disc to the app, and he reiterated that the cardboard discs were difficult to enforce and did not provide usage data. The amendment allowing use of the disc more than once per day, would make it even more difficult to enforce. He felt it important that the Council retained it’s flexibility with the budget setting process and were able to review that on an annual basis.

 

          The Director of Growth explained that locking in the cost of the discs for three years would take away all flexibility of Committee with regards to this, and as nobody could predict the budget pressures the Council would be under, he strongly encouraged Members not to support this element of the amendment. He urged Members to keep in mind that this scheme was in existence, was unique to Arun, and should be celebrated. Regarding the removal of recommendation d, he explained that this was not a strategic decision, and was not something he felt the Committee would need to be involved in.

 

          The proposer of the amendment was allowed to speak again, and said he felt that reviewing the scheme had been a painful process and the scheme had worked very well for several years prior to this point. He felt his amendments would support both towns and the traders.

 

          The Group Head of Finance and Section 151 Officer warned against fixing the fees for three years, as this would reduce budget setting flexibility, and he felt this would be a decision that may need to be taken by the Policy & Finance Committee. He reminded Members of the overall financial position of the Council, and that additional forgone income would reduce the ability to reduce the existing structural budget deficit, and may mean services in other areas would need to be cut or staff would need to be made redundant.

 

          The Director of Growth requested that the amendment be altered to make a recommendation to the Policy & Finance Committee that they agree to fix the price point for three years. He also re-emphasised that he felt recommendation d should remain, as the intention of this was so that the actual parking orders could be updated to allow the changes to the scheme to be implemented.

 

          Concern was expressed that the Working Party had spent a lot of time working through the options and drawing up recommendations to the Committee, and it was felt the amendments undermined this process. The Group Head of Technical Services followed this by explaining some of the suggested amendments had been carefully considered by the Working Party, including being able to use the disc more than once per day, and had concluded they should not be included as the final recommendations.

 

          The seconder to the amendment stated that he felt the extreme differential between £3 for the app and £10 for the physical disc was unfair, and he felt this would particularly impact the elderly population within the District. He felt quite a lot of people currently shopped in Bognor Regis or Littlehampton town centres because of the scheme. He thought that revisiting the pricing every year was tedious. Other Members expressed similar views, while some stated they were concerned about fixing the costs for three years.

 

 

          With the agreement of the Committee, the Chair announced a 10 minute adjournment of the meeting.

 

 

          Upon resumption of the meeting, Councillor Oppler agreed to alter his recommendations, taking into account the course of the debate and advice from Officers and these were read out by Officers and confirmed to be the following (additions shown in bold, deletions in strikethrough):

 

a.     To delegate authority to the Group Head of Technical Services to implement a single 2-hour free town centre parking disc scheme to incorporate both Littlehampton and Bognor Regis town centres, with the scheme to be administered in both Littlehampton and Bognor Regis by Arun District Council.

 

b.     To agree the differential pricing for virtual and physical parking discs, whereby the virtual parking disc is cheaper than the physical counterpart to encourage transition to the virtual scheme.

 

c.       To agree the retail price points for both the virtual and physical parking discs for 2025 from the options in 4.19. The recommended retail price for the virtual disc is £4 and £6 for the physical disc. Thereafter decisions on the scheme are to be included within the Council’s annual budget setting process, as with other tariffs.

 

d.    To delegate authority to the Group Head of Technical Services to make any necessary changes to the Council’s Parking Orders and to take any other actions necessary to enable the scheme to take effect.

 

e.    Card discs should be supplied to traders on a strictly sale or return basis.

 

f.       To recommend to the Policy and Finance Committee that the retail price point (set out in c. above) should be fixed for a period of three years.

 

g.    To recommend to the Policy and Finance Committee that the clause to use the disc and app only once per day should be removed.

 

 

          These amendments were read out twice in full. The Committee confirmed they understood the amendments and voted upon them separately, with each one being confirmed as CARRIED.

 

The Chair then returned to the substantive and it was agreed that no further debate was required.

 

The Committee

 

RESOLVED that

 

a.      Authority be delegated to the Group Head of Technical Services to implement a single 2-hour free town centre parking disc scheme to incorporate both Littlehampton and Bognor Regis town centres, with the scheme to be administered in both Littlehampton and Bognor Regis by Arun District Council.

 

b.      Differential pricing be agreed for virtual and physical parking discs, whereby the virtual parking disc is cheaper than the physical counterpart to encourage transition to the virtual scheme.

 

c.       The retail price points for both the virtual and physical parking discs for 2025 from the options in 4.19 be agreed, with the retail price for the virtual disc being £4 and £6 for the physical disc.

 

d.      Authority be delegated to the Group Head of Technical Services to make any necessary changes to the Council’s Parking Orders and to take any other actions necessary to enable the scheme to take effect.

 

e.     Card discs should be supplied to traders on a strictly sale or return basis.

 

RECOMMEND TO THE POLICY & FINANCE COMMITTEE that

 

f.        The retail price point (set out in c. above) should be fixed for a period of three years.

 

g.      The clause to use the disc and app only once per day should be removed.