Welcome to Warwickshire County Council

Comprehensive surveys were carried out during November 2004. In Warwick and Kenilworth, all Limited Waiting areas were surveyed along with most streets in the town centres. In Leamington, a large number of streets in the town centre and Residents’ Parking Zones were surveyed and the results factored in order to take account of the streets which were not actually surveyed. All Warwick District Council public car parks were surveyed in all three towns.

The essence of DPE is that on and off-street parking regulations are enforced effectively in order to reduce the number of illegal parking events. The main illegal events are: over-staying in on-street permitted parking areas; yellow-line violations; or parking without a valid ticket in off-street car parks. Under DPE, in on-street permitted parking areas, events will either be reduced to within (or just over) the legal length of stay or be displaced to other locations. Yellow lines violations will either be suppressed completely, displaced to legal parking locations, or continue as illegal events. Most events of parking in car parks without a valid ticket will either become legal through purchase of a ticket or be displaced.

Analysis of the survey data has provided information about the number and types of legal and illegal parking events on-street and has enabled quantified predictions to be made concerning the likely effects of better enforcement under DPE. A number of assumptions (about the behaviour of drivers in the new regime) have been made in forecasting the likely changes in the parking situation.

For the three towns the results of the surveys and analysis lead to the following overall conclusions. In Kenilworth, there is some on-street Limited Waiting in the town centre and High Street area with most of the main shopping areas having ‘No Waiting at any time’ restrictions. A few areas in the centre, plus most of the streets further out are unrestricted and these have spare capacity to accommodate parking which becomes less congested with distance from the centre. The car parks also have spare capacity. Kenilworth does not suffer a current shortage of overall parking capacity, although there are localised ‘hot spots’. The level of illegal parking is modest and therefore it is not anticipated that the introduction of DPE will have significant implications for the parking stock in the town. It is noticeable that the off-street car parks are well used for both long and short-stay parking even though there are free on-street spaces slightly further from the centre.

In Leamington and Warwick, the existing situation is more complex although the issues and implications of introducing DPE are similar for both towns. The surveys show that there is a considerable level of over-staying in on-street permitted parking locations in both the town centres and existing Residents’ Parking Zones together with some yellow line offences. For the purposes of forecasting future on-street parking demand it has been assumed that over-stays of more than 4 hours will be displaced (these are probably commuter or other long-stay parking events). This will free up considerable space in the existing 30 minute, 1 hour and 2 hour Limited Waiting areas which will allow some of the shorter (but still illegal) over-stay events in the 30 minute and 1 hour spaces to re-locate to legal parking places within the 2 hour limited waiting areas. There will therefore be a shuffling effect among short-stay events as drivers become legal by choosing to park in more appropriate Limited Waiting areas where spaces will be available. Similarly, short-stay on-street illegal events (yellow lines violations) will re-locate to legal Limited Waiting areas and long-stay illegal parking will be displaced.

A second effect of displacing long-stay events away from the Limited Waiting areas may well be the transfer of short-stay events out of the off-street car parks to more convenient, free, on-street locations. This will release spaces in the off-street car parks. The analysis suggests that these newly freed up car park spaces, plus the existing spare capacity, will be sufficient to absorb all the long-stay events displaced from Limited Waiting areas and yellow lines. Therefore, in terms of total capacity, there is sufficient space to accommodate all of the displaced parking events under DPE within the existing stock of permitted parking areas and car parks.

This can be illustrated by considering the parking situation at midday in Leamington. The situation varies hour-by-hour and is of course based on the day of the survey only. However, the following scenario can be taken to broadly demonstrate the situation that applies in both Leamington and Warwick.

The total capacity in the on-street permitted parking areas of Leamington town centre (Limited Waiting) was 948 spaces. In these spaces were parked 888 vehicles, of which 407 were legally parked ie; were within the time limit. The other 481 vehicles had over-stayed the time limit or were illegally parked. Under DPE, most of the 481 illegal vehicles will be displaced; those over-staying for shorter periods in 30 minute and 1 hour Limited Waiting spaces will displace to 2 hour Limited Waiting spaces and those over-staying for short periods in the 2 hour limit are assumed to reduce their stay to 2½ hours. All vehicles overstaying in any of the Limited Waiting spaces by longer periods (>4 hours) will be displaced away from the on-street permitted parking areas completely. The analysis shows that 35 vehicles will relocate to other Limited Waiting spaces leaving 446 to be completely displaced (refer to Table L3).

The displacement of the 446 long-stay vehicles from the permitted parking, plus a residue of spaces that were never occupied at all, means that there will be a total of 411 short-stay spaces available in the permitted parking areas. At the same time, in the off-street car parks, out of a total capacity of 1848, 536 spaces were free, 419 vehicles were staying for less than 2 hours and 893 vehicles were long-stay. It is likely that some of the short-stay vehicles in the car parks will re-locate to the more convenient, spaces that are now available on-street meaning that there will be up to 955 spaces available in the car parks (refer to Table L4). The car parks could therefore absorb all of the long-stay vehicles displaced from permitted parking areas and still have up to 509 spaces available for short-stay use by shoppers and other short-stay visitors. The proposed introduction of on street parking charges is unlikely to alter this redistributive effect significantly since the proximity of the on street spaces to the shops will continue to attract demand from shoppers.

It cannot be assumed, however, that displaced vehicles will necessarily re-locate to off-street car parks. Drivers will be deterred by the parking charges and, although there is sufficient capacity overall, some car parks may be oversubscribed while others are in less convenient locations or disliked for other reasons. This will mean that drivers will be looking for alternative parking locations and many streets that lie in an annular ring outside the existing Residents’ Zones will experience demand for parking by newly displaced vehicles which choose to park on-street free of charge and walk slightly further into town. Many of these streets already experience severe parking pressure and this is likely to get worse. The demand for parking will therefore extend further out from the town centre and affect areas that currently have spare capacity.

In the existing Residents’ Parking Zones, surveys showed that there were 286 illegal parking events at 1200 which will be displaced by the introduction of DPE. Under the midday scenario, a total of 346 spaces will then be available in the existing Residents’ Zones, providing more capacity for short-stay visitors and shoppers, and for the residents themselves. The overall consequence for residents therefore, will be to ease parking pressure in the existing Residents’ Zones but increase pressure further out (refer to Table L5).

The possible extension of the Residents’ Scheme to new areas just outside the existing zones would relieve parking pressure on the streets included and make life easier for those residents. However, there is only sufficient off-street car park capacity to accommodate some of the newly displaced long-stay vehicles that currently park in these uncontrolled areas in addition to those displaced from the permitted parking areas, existing Residents’ Zones and yellow lines as discussed above. The implementation of more Residents’ Zones would therefore ease problems for residents but lead to an overall imbalance in the supply and demand for long-stay parking. This can be illustrated by using the midday scenario. Introducing new Residents’ Zones to the streets identified as possible RPS areas outside the existing Zones would displace a further 704 vehicles but leave 945 spaces free in these streets (refer to Table L7). The 955 spaces in the off-street car parks is not sufficient to absorb all of the displaced long-stay vehicles and the overall balance between parking supply and demand would be tilted to one where demand for long-stay spaces far exceeds supply while there will be a huge number of vacant short-stay spaces created within the existing and new Residents’ Parking Zones.

A possible solution would be to allow a degree of long-stay parking within the Residents Zones. However, this would need to be assessed and administered on a street-by-street basis to make sure that only spare capacity over and above the peak resident’s demand was available for long-stay use or the benefits to residents would be negated. The creation of a permit parking zone for each street or separate distinct areas of long stay pay and display would be necessary to prevent all long-stay permit holders trying to park in those streets closest to the town centre thereby recreating the existing problems.

The above analysis of the parking regime in Leamington post DPE shows that in theory the long-stay parking cannot be accommodated in the off-street car parks, requiring a significant proportion to park in on-street parking areas further from the centre. Some of these long stay parking events will choose not to pay for off street car parking and either change mode or park on street outside the controlled area.

Experience of other schemes has shown that suppression of demand, displacement to off-street car parks and displacement to more remote free on-street locations will occur in proportions of 10%, 20% and 70% respectively. In Leamington and Warwick the approximate numbers of vehicles in each of these categories would be as follows:-ton

1) For the existing Residents’ Parking Zones and limited waiting
In Leamington In Warwick

· Suppressed 73 15
· Off-Street displacement 146 30
· On-Street displacement 513 108

2) For all of the possible additional Residents’ Parking Areas identified by WCC and WDC
In Leamington In Warwick

· Suppressed 70 13
· Off-Street displacement 141 27
· On-Street displacement 493 95

The total forecast displacement into the off-street car parks can therefore be accommodated within the available space provided that the estimated 20% figure for those who choose to pay is correct.

This is the crucial issue in determining the final balance between parking demand and spaces and the extent to which parking will migrate to unrestricted areas. This will depend on a combination of factors including car park tariffs, drivers’ origins and destinations, personal factors, publicity, signing and parking management and so on. It may be that no further action will be required or only limited interventions, however this decision can only be made after DPE has been introduced and the affects have been monitored.