Category: Parking Services

The minutes of the last Parking Services session are up on the Council’s website here. A couple of people asked me for these so here they are.

They include a list of the issues raised by the public. I can see the final report being a bit long!

Having arranged to go on holiday a couple of days after our second panel meeting on 11th September I have only now had the chance to reflect on our session.

It was something like herding cats as a lot of people came with some pretty narrow issues they wanted to discuss at length in front of as many people as possible. The Gazette reported that 50 people turned up which I think was close to the mark. 50 cats is a lot of cats.

It was clear from the meeting that there is much discontent, especially amongst the business community, with the state of parking and loading in Ealing. Although some of the causes of this discontent are outside the scope of our panel, for instance the law itself and policy decisions like how do we use road space, we have recorded the gist of what was said and this will form a valuable input to our work. Thanks to all of those who came.

We had hoped to split the audience down into smaller groups to allow more people the opportunity to speak in the given time. We settled for two groups. The policy group was larger and noticeably more voluble. The service group which I participated in covered a wide range of issues productively as we had hoped.

It was all very well Patrick Kennedy from Ealing Chamber of Commerce telling the Gazette that “Action speaks louder than words” but this panel was never going to look at loading arrangements as he would have known if he had cared to read the papers. One reason we had hoped to divide the group was to avoid large amounts of time being hijacked by particular individuals with axes to grind, especially where we were not seeking to tackle that particular issue in the first place!

The Gazette report stated that “No one was brave enough to appear from the contractor APCOA, …” This is unfair. Two APCOA staff did attend and hear what was said. But the contractor and its representatives were neither invited nor expected to speak. The Council is big enough I think to face up to public criticism without putting its suppliers up to take the punishment on its behalf.

I hope that we will get an equally good attendance for our third meeting on 15th November even if it is a bit nerve wracking! At that meeting we will focus exclusively on the finances of Parking Services.

We got some press coverage in both the Gazette and Ealing Times.

I was pleased that the Gazette published a letter (click to enlarge) from me last Friday promoting the Parking Services Specialist Scrutiny Panel, next meeting on Tuesday. It was nice to see a photo of me with my crack parking attendant buddies Michael and John – what eager politico is sorry to see their photo in the paper?

I was somewhat miffed to be trumped by LibDem councillor Malcolm. His timing is very good. It would look a little less like gratuitous point scoring if he had actually managed to send me a copy of his report. It is not as if I am hard to contact by e-mail. I have written to him tonight to ask him to send me a copy.

On Wednesday I spent the afternoon with two of Ealing’s parking attendants. As a part of the Parking Services Specialist Scrutiny Panel some of the panel members are doing some “mystery shopping” and activities such as ride alongs to get a first hand feel of what it is like to be on the receiving end of this service. I spent two hour with two of the parking attendants and then we met up with Lucy Proctor from the Gazette. I was impressed with the two guys I met – Michael Lester a 7 year veteran and John Thomson who has done 4 years. Michael in particular had a great manner so it does not surprise me that he has only felt under physical threat from the public once in his 7 year service.

I clipped this picture from Friday’s Gazette. Michael is on the left and John on the right with Lucy in the middle and my face mercifully obscured.

There is a real problem with the pay and display machines in Southall. Something like 8 out of 10 of the ones we looked at were not working. This is not a case of the council being dilatory. Someone is systematically interfering with these machines – either so that they can park for free or to come back later for change. The guys handled this situation well and did not even think of ticketing people in these circumstances. They spent some time telling people how they should put a note in their windscreen and re-assuring them.

On another pay and display bay we saw a van with its wheels fully on the adjacent double yellow line. I would have thought that this deserved a ticket, but no. We did give out some tickets. A guy in the Herbert Road multi-storey car park had parked at an angle across two bays – a fair cop in my view. Another guy in a CPZ with no voucher – another fair cop. The guy came back and was philosophical about his ticket. At the end of the beat there was some parking on the Broadway that ended at 4pm to allow traffic to flow out of town. Too many users had not checked the plate before parking and the machine is too dumb to stop giving out tickets. A couple of PCNs were issued here and this caused a couple of “interactions” with the public. This was a tough one. The sign was entirely clear – no parking after 4pm, no ifs, no buts. On the other hand the public think that if the machine gives out a ticket they have an out.

Michael and John were exemplary. They are both very experienced and I am sure that there are many less experienced parking attendants at work in Ealing. I met one of them. Abdul was coming to the end of his second day on the job after his two weeks training. He felt confident that he had been well trained but the other guys were keeping an eye on him which was re-assuring.

Panel meetings

The second meeting of the panel will focus on customers’ experience of Parking Services – hence the work described above. The session will also involve council officers and give members of the public the chance to share their experiences. If you are interested in attending then please get in touch with Chris Cheyne at cheynec@ealing.gov.uk or on (020) 8825 6568. A maximum of 100 people will be admitted to the meeting. The meeting will take place a 7pm on 11th September.

For the third meeting on 15th November we will focus exclusively on the finances of Parking Services and try to address the often raised issue that Parking Services is just there to squeeze money out of drivers. No doubt the agenda for the subsequent meetings will be driven by whatever feedback we get from the public at the earlier meetings.

Anyway if you are interested in this topic here are the dates:

• Tuesday 11th September 2007
• Thursday 15th November 2007
• Thursday 10th January 2008
• Wednesday 5th March 2008

All the meetings take place at 7pm at the Town Hall.

Please note that at these meetings we will be raising and discussing general problems and principles, not the specifics of any particular penalty charge notice.

Reference: Fort Lauderdale area traffic attorney.

This is a quick note to Northfield residents.

Do you have a crossover? Have you asked the council to enforce it?

If so can I park my car across it one day and get it towed?

The idea is to do some testing of the council’s services as a part of the work of the Parking Services Specialist Scrutiny Panel. If you would like to help please e-mail me at phil AT philtaylor DOT org DOT uk (replace capitalised words with symbols and leave out spaces to get proper e-mail address – I get plagued with spam if I just put my e-mail address on the website).

Thanks.

Today the council has issued a press release giving details of some of the work that will be done in advance of the next meeting of the Parking Services Specialist Scrutiny Panel.

In order to get some insight as to how Parking Services treats its “customers” councillors will be getting their cars towed, riding along with parking attendants and applying for visitors vouchers, to name a few.

It will be interesting to see to what extent local media will pick this story up – they are quick to criticise in this area, often rightly. Hopefully they will be equally interested in the council trying to scrutinise its own service.

The first meeting of this panel was held on 5th July. At this meeting we did not do much more than agree our terms of reference and work programme. We also had an introductory presentation from the service head, Philip Burns. The only member of the public to attend was Eric Leach from West Ealing Neighbours (you can read his report of the meeting here).

The second meeting will focus on customers’ experience of Parking Services. The mystery shopper work will make sure that the councillors leading the workshops have hands on experience. The sessions will also involve council officers and give members of the public the chance to share their experiences. If you are interested in attending then please get in touch with Chris Cheyne at cheynec@ealing.gov.uk or on (020) 8825 6568. A maximum of 100 people will be admitted to the meeting. The meeting will take place a 7pm in the Queen’s Hall on 11th September.

For the third meeting on 15th November we will focus exclusively on the finances of Parking Services and try to address the often raised issue that Parking Services is just there to squeeze money out of drivers. No doubt the agenda for the subsequent meetings will be driven by whatever feedback we get from the public at the earlier meetings.

Anyway if you are interested in this topic here are the dates:

• Tuesday 11th September 2007
• Thursday 15th November 2007
• Thursday 10th January 2008
• Wednesday 5th March 2008

All the meetings take place at 7pm at the Town Hall.

Please note that at these meetings we will be raising and discussing general problems and principles, not the specifics of any particular penalty charge notice.

The council’s Parking Services organisation has started enforcement by CCTV outside Ealing Broadway station. This has given rise to much negative comment in the Gazette and the Ealing Today forum.

Last week the Gazette had a page 2 headline “£80 for 3 seconds’ parking”. This week it has printed four letters on the subject and there was another article on page 7 with the heading “CCTV ‘spycam’ angers drivers” along with their tendentious GONE PARKING MAD! logo.

Meanwhile there are two separate threads of comments on the Ealing Today forum:

• Penalty parking fine
• Ealing Broadway Station dropoffs….warning…

I wrote to the Gazette last week to remind people that it was an offence to stop in bus stop clearways, ie those bus stops with a thick yellow line next to the pavement, and to invite people to get involved with the current scrutiny panel which is looking into Parking Services but the Gazette has chosen not to print my letter. Now I fully accept that as a councillor I don’t have a God given right to get my letters published, especially if they are tedious or long-winded. I thought it might be useful to point out that stopping in a bus stop clearway is an offence, something that the Gazette’s article refused to do – I guess it undermined the line they wanted to take. I thought it might be useful to promote the Parking Services Specialist Scrutiny Panel but clearly the Gazette wants to carp and wind people up and giving people the chance to raise their concerns with the council does not fit into its agenda.

In its reporting the Gazette is being misleading. For instance, this week they say people “have been caught out stopping for a matter of seconds by the stops”. Either they have stopped on the bus stops – offence – or they have not – no offence. Although some people don’t like these cameras at least you know where you are with them. You get to see the picture. Again there is no discussion in the articles of what offences may have been committed. No advice to the public.

Here is some public service information from me as the Gazette sullenly refuses to take this role on:

The drop off situation at Ealing Broadway is a mess and your councillors are aware of it and it will be dealt with.

The access road is private property. I understand the police have asked them to keep it coned off for security reasons.

We can debate the proper place of bus and pedestrian access as against car access but the fact remains that there are a bus stop and a pedestrian crossing directly in front of the station which have been given priority. It is an offence to park on either of these. The Highway Code says:

Rule 167: You MUST NOT park on a crossing or in the area covered by the zig-zag lines.
Rule 215: You MUST NOT stop or park on a Bus Stop Clearway within its hours of operation.

There are yellow lines opposite the station which you can use for dropping off. Picking up and dropping off is fine on yellow lines EVEN WHEN LOADING RESTRICTIONS APPLY.

The Highway Code is online here.

The council is aware that there are questions about Parking Services and as a result the Parking Services Specialist Scrutiny Panel has been set up to look at some of these. I am chairing it so I am learning a lot about parking right now.

There will be four meetings on:

• Tuesday 11th September 2007
• Thursday 15th November 2007
• Thursday 10th January 2008
• Wednesday 5th March 2008

All meetings are open to the public and will be held at 7pm at the Town Hall. Please note we will not be looking at the specifics of individual cases.

For more information follow this link.

Parking Services have had some coverage both last Friday and this. Last Friday council leader Jason Stacey highlighted in his weekly message how the new Parking Services enforcement contract has led to a 20% fall in the number of PCNs being issued in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year. Today the Ealing & Acton Gazette is covering the problem of the £6 million hole in the parking finances caused by overstating of income in previous financial years. No actual money has been lost in this transaction, instead the council has admitted that £6 million of income they thought they would collect cannot in fact be collected, but the effect is that the council has £6 million less than it though it had. This is yet another hangover from the poor financial management of the previous administration.

I have been asked to chair a scrutiny panel looking into Parking Services. No doubt it will be of interest to many Ealing residents. So far the officers have not been great at promoting the dates for these meetings. If you follow this link you could work it out by going into each month in turn! If you follow this link there is not much info. Altogether pretty rubbish.

Anyway if you are interested in this topic here are the dates:

• Thursday 5th July 2007
• Tuesday 11th September 2007
• Thursday 15th November 2007
• Thursday 10th January 2008
• Wednesday 5th March 2008

All the meetings take place at 7pm at the Town Hall.