Councillor Patrick Nicholson and Councillor Mrs Terri Beer presented the petition to the Committee and highlighted the following:

a)    The petition had been formally submitted to council in March 2023 following a decision made by Councillor Mark Shayer (Cabinet Member for Finance and Economy at that time) to review and modernise car parking;

b)    Consultation began in August 2022 and representations were made, including by Councillor Nicholson, but there was never a response or any engagement from the council following the consultation;

c)    Asked there be a recommendation to ask the council to publish the risk assessment that was conducted at the time, prior to implementation of the revised arrangements, because he did not believe it had been carried out, particularly in relation to the impact on the facilities around the car park, as well as impact on local schools and local residential areas;

d)    Asked that whilst such a risk assessment was carried out the current cabinet member, Councillor Mark Coker (Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning and Transport), suspend the current arrangements until such a time that there had been proper and adequate scrutiny of the risk assessments at a meeting of the Committee in 2024;

e)    The car park served one of the best and most successful shopping centres in Plymouth, Plympton Ridgeway, and it was vital to its continued success;

f)     Suggested that since the implementation of the decision, there had been an impact on the number of people accessing the Ridgeway shopping centre, as well as an impact on how people were accessing it;

g)    This decision had been done to the community by the, conservative at the time, administration, rather than being done in communication with;

h)    Nurses working at the nearby clinic were having to park in the main car park because the spaces at the clinic were being taken up by members of the public who did not want to have to park in the main car park and put their registration into the machine;

i)     The machines were often faulty, and complaints were being made by residents to Councillors Nicholson and Mrs Beer that they were being fined by the machines, but they had no way of proving that they could not enter their registration;

j)     When Councillor Mrs Beer had spoken to local business owners, the response on the new car park machines had been mixed;

k)    One of the worst issues was people who could not return to the car park same-day were then parking outside schools, in other car parks, such as a the local clinic, or parking on double yellows on the Ridgeway itself.

The Chair explained at the beginning of the item that the petitioner would get 5 minutes to speak, and then Councillor Coker would receive 5 minutes to speak. In his discretion as Chair, he allowed Councillor Mrs Beer to speak, and asked for a brief summary of what she had prepared.  

Councillor Mark Coker (Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning and Transport) then spoke on the matter, with Mike Artherton (Group Manager for Parking, Marine and Garage Services) in attendance to support:

l)     He reminded the Committee he had had no part of making the decision that had led to the petition;

m)  He was grateful to have the opportunity to come before Committee and to listen to Councillors Nicholson and Mrs Beer present the petition and feedback what they have heard from the community;

n)    Whatever the Committee recommended he would look at it in an open and transparent way and to present facts to support whatever decision was made.

In response to questions it was explained:

o)    The machines provided the car parking team with data and would alert if there was an issue/fault, and the latest data showed that there had been no recently  reported issues with the machines via the data, or via staff visiting the car parks, but asked that the public make the council aware if there were experiencing issues so they could be looked into;

p)    When the machines were implemented, the team did ensure that people were aware of the change and that there were members of staff in the car parks to help people in using the machines;

q)    Mike Artherton did not have data on faults with the machines since their installation, but explained that since the schemes across the city had been implemented, there had be no significant issues at any locations;

r)    Mike Artherton did not have any information to hand on fines that had been issued in that car park, or whether any appeals had been upheld or dismissed, but someone might receive a fine if they had exceeded the amount of time allocated to them, and in Plympton this had actually been increased from 2 hours to 3 hours free parking;

s)     A similar system had been in place in Crownhill district car park for some years, predominantly to ensure a high turnover of short stay parking for local businesses who thrive on that turnover of visitors;

t)     Councillor Mrs Beer claimed that the no return policy was 5 hours, but Mike Artherton later clarified this was in fact 2 hours as detailed in the briefing paper;

u)    The Councillors had submitted comments in the consultation as well as within the Conservative Group, as they were members at that time, but they had little to no interaction or response to concerns;

v)    In recent years the Councillors had not received any significant issues about cars parking there and not using shops, or at least to the level that warranted the level of intervention;

w)   It would not have been normal practice to have undertaken a risk assessment based on the changes that had been implemented, especially with similar changes having implemented across the city;

x)    The equality impact assessment was published as part of the cabinet decision  to both consult on the changes and to implement the changes on 10 November 2022;

y)    Some Councillors expressed that they had heard positive feedback on the car parking measures.

In summing up Councillors Nicholson and Mrs Beer added:

z)    There were no safe passages in the car park for people to use when walking to and from the parking machine;

aa)  If in the future the Council decided to implement charges to increase revenue income, made easier with having machines in place, it would have a significant impact on the district shopping centre.

In summing up Councillor Mark Coker added:

bb)Every car park has a risk assessment to allow it to function;

cc)  Similar parking systems had been introduced in areas such as Crownhill and Union Street with positive feedback received, as they created a churn of visitors;

dd)The claim of issues relating to access to spaces for those with disabled spaces in the area would be investigated;

ee)Most schemes usually took 12 months to ‘settle’ as people needed time to get used to new systems.

Councillor Darcy proposed that the Committee agreed to look at the item again in more detail with more information on fines issues and information on any appeals lodged in relation to fines, in February 2023, which was seconded by Councillor Gilmour.

For (9)

Councillors Allen, Blight, Darcy, Gilmour, Goslin, Mahony, Moore, Poyser and Tofan.

Abstain (1)

Councillor Ricketts.

Against (1)

Councillor Hendy.

Absent/Did Not Vote (1)

Councillor Stoneman.

Following a short discussion, the Committee agreed to:

1.   To look at the item again in more detail with more information on fines issues and information on any appeals lodged in relation to fines, in February 2023;

Councillor Goslin suggested that the data included details on whether fines had been issued because people had overstayed, or whether they had not entered their details.

The meeting was adjourned for a short break from 3.55pm to 4.05pm.