10 Minute Leeway

It is reported that the Government will announce today that it will order local authorities to give 10 minutes leeway for those who overstay on council car parks.  This really isn't much of a surprise as the proposal has been trailed for quite some time and the intentions of government were made clear last year in its response to the Transport Committee's report on Local authority parking enforcement.  Although originally the government intended to order a 5 minute grace period.

The need for such a rule is unknown at present, I am not aware how many PCN's (Penalty Charge Notices, or parking tickets) nationally are issued for this particular transgression.  This Government in 2010 removed any central monitoring of local authority statistics on car parking (and litter!) which in my view was a clear retrograde step in obtaining data on trends and patterns.  Instead one is forced to rely on the Freedom of Information Act and to make applications to the 350+ local authorities to gain any great insight.

It is thus hard to assess the extent of the overstay problem.  Some local authorities do, in their annual reports, breakdown the number of PCN's issued by the nature of the transgression.  From a brief perusal of some of these reports there is some variation, in Brighton less than 1% of PCN's issued were for overstay (10 PCNs in 2012/13) whereas South Gloucestershire runs at about 10% (595 PCNs in 2012/13).  Of course the extent to which the local authority uses barrier entries for its car parks will have an effect on this problem.  Indeed perhaps this new proposal is something of a nudge to local authorities towards using barrier entry systems (or who knows complete privatisation).

In fact looking at this as an incentive scheme it should incentivise drivers away from barrier exit car parks unless local authorities operate differential fees for barrier exit.  Put simply you get more time for your money in non-barrier car parks (assuming price parity).  Thus we have a nudge in one direction that is countered by an incentive in the other (although barrier exit does generally allow a period of grace to leave the car park so perhaps this will counter the incentive (although not in cases of minimum parking assuming price parity)).  Perhaps local authorities will hold off on barrier car parks until they have some data on the effect of the incentive.

Looking at a number of local authority annual reports that actually breakdown the number of penalty notices by type, about 10% of all PCNs seems to be the general figure for overstay.  Of course this still doesn't help to explain why the 10 minute grace period may be necessary since all overstays (5 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 hours or n hours) are lumped within this one category.  So do we need the extra 10 minutes? Possibly, possibly not there is no evidence either way.

Despite the lack of evidence my personal opinion is that this proposal should probably be welcomed as a necessary injection of common sense into a sometimes inflexible system.  I have no doubt that certain drivers in future will be railing against the inflexibility of issuing a notice when they are 11 minutes late, but one has to draw the line somewhere.

There are no doubt concerns that local authorities will have, more so those who run an efficient operation with sensitivity to supply and demand.  In effect the 10 minute grace period is a price reduction, outside large cities this may not have much effect, but in large cities then there is potential for a clear impact on traffic management priorities, particularly in short stay car parks and meter parking.

As the regulations have yet to be published it is unknown whether the 10 minute grace period applies to on street parking, particularly short stay meter parking.  Take for instance in the City of London where parking is £4 per hour.  The 10 minute grace period means it will now be £4 per 70 minutes, or 5.7p per minute (currently 6.6p per minute).  In Islington the maximum is £6 per hour at the new rate that will be 8.6p per minute (currently 10p per minute).

Islington also offer stays as short as 5 minutes (40p), with these parking spaces allowing a 10 minute grace period is equivalent to offering a buy one get two free deal.  Surely the announcement won't apply to these transactions (here the price drop is from 8p per minute (current) to 2.6p per minute (new)).

In the time it has taken to write the blog the announcement has been published and it would seem that all pay and display and free parking bays are included, thus good luck Islington!

The question now for those authorities that do operate on a supply and demand service that is sensitive to pricing changes is whether they will seek to increase the initial cost to offset any potential traffic management issues as a result of this announcement.  For example will Islington increase its top price to £7 per hour to maintain the status quo (assuming that the relationship between pricing and demand is linear, which is by no means a safe assumption).

The announcement once again trots out the nonsense phrase 'war on motorists', if it is a war then clearly the motorists have been winning for quite some time.   Parking is never free the only question is who pays, with rhetoric that talks of the 'war on motorists' those who end up paying unfairly are those who do not have cars (the general tax payer).  In other words talk of a 'war on motorists' could easily be described as a 'subsidy for motorists' or 'a war on non motorists'.  As a motorist myself I enjoy this subsidy, but I do recognize it is a subsidy paid for by everyone.

With the growing influence of polluter pays principles in public environmental policy (and sentencing policy) and the stress on responsibilisation across great swathes of public policy one does wonder why motoring seems exempt from this.  Any exception to this rule really needs to have some basis in reality, at present there isn't the evidence to suggest a skirmish let alone a battle and certainly not a war on motorists.  Yes running a vehicle is expensive but so are many other activities that don't require (and don't receive) a subsidy.  I enjoy playing the piano and lessons are expensive, but I don't believe there is a war on pianists (we'd probably lose anyway because we have to look after our fingers!).

The above analogy may not be perfect but it does highlight one particular solution for some local authorities, withdraw from providing public car parks and let the private sector take over.  As a motorist I would not welcome such a move and as a citizen I do believe that provision of parking is a social service that authorities should provide, particularly to disabled drivers (which is why I think this decision by Stoke on Trent City Council is nasty and an egregious injustice to the more vulnerable members of society.  Perhaps this is an example of a local authority firing an opening volley on a certain section of motoring society, after all they do justify the charges on the basis of maximizing income).

In any event the move should be cautiously welcomed as a common sense reflection of the essentially minor nature of a parking transgression in the most minor circumstances. Although this may be a common sense solution we shouldn't think it won't have some negative consequences, what those are will no doubt play out over the coming months.