St. Helier Residents’ Parking: reduction in cost of permits

STATES OF JERSEY

Lodged au Greffe on 5th April 2005
by the Connétable of St. Helier

STATES GREFFE

PROPOSITION

THE STATES are asked to decide whether they are of opinion -

to request the Environment and Public Services Committee to revoke the Road Traffic (Saint Helier) (Amendment No. 14) (Jersey) Order 2003, and to make a new Order setting the annual cost of a Residents’ Parking Permit at £200 with effect from 1st May 2005.

CONNÉTABLE OF ST. HELIER

REPORT

The Road Traffic (Saint Helier) (Amendment No. 14) (Jersey) Order 2003 which came into force on 28th October 2003 increased the cost of a permit in the Stopford Road/ St. Mark’s Road Residents’ Parking Zone (RPZ) to £150 for a 6-month period, or £300 per annum. During the previous trial period the fee had been set at £150 per annum. 1st May 2005 is the date set for the next renewal of permits in the zone, i.e., persons applying for a permit to use the RPZ would pay £200 for the period of one year until 30th April 2006.

Since 1st November 2004, the Parish of St. Helier has been administering the RPZ under the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Environment and Public Services Committee and the Constable of St. Helier. The Parish receives all of the income from the permits but reimburses the Committee for the ‘extra’ costs of Parking Control Officers’ patrols in the zone, i.e., for patrols which provide cover over and above that which is provided by the Committee in town streets that do not form part of an RPZ. The Parish provides patrols in the evenings and weekends thanks to the good offices of its Honorary Police force.

The Parish of St. Helier wishes to honour pledges made by local elected members to the residents of the area that a reduced permit fee would be implemented as soon as possible. During its first 6 months of administering the RPZ the Parish has been able to cost the operation accurately, and it is confident that setting the permit fee at an annual cost of £200 will allow it to recover its administration costs, will make an adequate contribution towards policing costs, and will contribute to the costs of ongoing consultation and reviews of this and other RPZs in the town area.

It is important to note that the proposed fee does not take into account any ‘lost income’ to the States Parking Trading Account in respect of reduced sale of paycards and season tickets for the States’ maintained off-street car parks. The Parish does not believe that town residents should be penalised through significantly higher on-street parking costs than apply to residents in other parishes that park on-street. Clearly the Environment and Public Services Committee has the ability to compensate for such ‘lost income’ – and the Committee has in recent years produced a variety of computations as to the magnitude of the loss – now that the States has given the Committee the vires to increase off-street parking charges above inflation; the Committee could also reduce its costs by the use of technology in car parks to reduce the need for patrolling.

As has been stated, the Parish of St. Helier currently reimburses the Committee for the presence of PCOs during the working day. Split responsibility for patrolling the zone is not efficient and the Parish intends to renegotiate the Memorandum of Understanding so that from 1st November 2005 the Parish will become fully responsible for this. The Parish believes that it is reasonable to give the Committee 6 months’ notice of its intention in this regard so that any staffing adjustments necessary can be made.

The Parish has conducted a consultation exercise that has indicated strong support for new RPZs in the town area, and it is in the process of recruiting an RPZ coordinator (a post created through compensatory staff savings) to progress the new zones in conjunction with Working Groups involving interested residents. It is likely that the Parish will wish to assume responsibility for the patrolling of such new zones as are brought forward by the Committee for designation under further Road Traffic Orders. As has been the case in the first RPZ, a careful balance will need to be struck in the provision of new RPZs between the parking requirements of residents and the needs of businesses, shoppers, visitors’ service companies and so on.

The Parish of St. Helier is currently involved in constructive discussions with the Environment and Public Services Committee over the whole range of its common services, and is hopeful that issues surrounding the provision of parking control and the allocation of revenue streams involved in parking provision and enforcement will be resolved during the course of the year ahead.

Financial and manpower implications

There are no robust figures to show what impact the current provision of 136 permits for the existing RPZ is having on paycard and season ticket purchases and, therefore, what financial implications the scheme may be having on the Parking Trading Fund managed by the Environment and Public Services Committee. Clearly there is bound to be some reduction in the need local residents have to pay for on-street or off-street parking in the vicinity of the RPZ. However, any calculation of lost income would need to take into account the following –

1. The majority of the off-street parking in the zone was free (2-hour disk parking) prior to the creation of the RPZ, and the zone includes some scratch-card areas for visitors which are now charged.

2. Persons with a permit to park in the RPZ are not guaranteed a parking space; if the zone is full they have to park elsewhere, and may, therefore, end up paying to park.

3. If the Parish of St. Helier is successful in its bid to take over responsibility for parking patrols within the RPZ from November 2005, the States will have the opportunity to decrease its staffing levels, which should lead to manpower savings.