Policy instruments (4) - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 242

opportunities created by decriminalised parking described in the previous section.
For metropolitan authorities and the new urban unitaries created in 1997, councils
assuming DPE powers achieved unified control of charging policy and enforcement
over both on-street and public off-street spaces. Schemes are expected to be self-
financing but any surpluses can be used for other transport-related purposes (DTp
1995b).
Motorists' concerns that such schemes are being used as a source of revenue
generation by local authorities have been compounded by the decision of some
councils to introduce a charge for residents' permits within controlled parking zones.
However the level of charge is typically a very small fraction of the cost of renting a
private parking space in the same area. The London Borough of Richmond has gone
one step further in introducing graduated charges linked to the CO 2 emissions of the
vehicle concerned (i.e. as adopted for VED).
Achieving a coherent, workable and politically acceptable regime of parking charges
given the inevitably haphazard legacy of the amount and distribution of parking space
within any area represents a considerable challenge. (For a compendium of advice
and examples of best practice see IHT 2005.) In areas of two-tier local government
especially there is likely to be a conflict of objectives between the county council's
interest in parking as an instrument of demand management and the local council's
interest in maintaining the attractiveness of its commercial centres.
An added dimension arises with demand management strategies which include a
Park and Ride (P&R) component. For these to operate successfully it is essential that
the structure and level of parking charges is consistent between the three main choices
presented to the motorist, viz:
• on-street parking spaces in the city centre
• car parks in the city centre
• the combination of P&R car park and dedicated bus service.
In most places the bus service operates as a tendered contract to the authority
owning the P&R car park and this provides the means of determining the overall
amount paid by users (TAS 2007).
A further complication is the extent of private non-residential (PNR) space. This
is significant in two contexts. Firstly the amount of free parking space included in
out-of-town retail and leisure developments presents councils seeking to promote
traditional town centres with a conundrum. On the one hand they need to provide
efficient access for motorists who might otherwise be attracted to the out-of-town
sites; on the other hand using parking charges as part of a strategy to achieve this
would have a deterrent effect. Secondly the effectiveness of local authority action to
limit the number of public parking spaces and price them so as to deter commuters
is undermined if there is a large pool of private spaces attached to offices and other
workplaces which are made available free to employees. It was in this context that
the powers for authorities to propose Workplace Parking Levy (WPL) schemes were
included in the 2000 Act.
In practice the WPL concept has proved almost wholly unappealing. Only one
city - Nottingham - has pursued the idea of a WPL, and in a rather special set of
circumstances. It has been developed, not as an instrument of demand management in
itself, but as a means of funding extensions of the city's tram system as part of an overall
strategy for tackling congestion. In effect therefore the levy has been refashioned as a