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Losing the human touch


Parking News editor Sarah Juggins is rueing the demise of a national treasure


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all me old fashioned, but I fi nd something reassuring about the sight of a civil enforcement offi cer (CEO) patrolling the streets, or a car


park attendant taking your money when you park in a public car park. Whether it is the social intercourse that


springs from such an encounter or just the security of knowing that there is a person in uniform watching over your vehicle, the presence of a CEO is a strangely comforting one.


attendant at each parking site. But you can’t ask a machine what time the café closes or where is a good place to picnic. And having spent a day with a CEO in


Southend, I can vouch for the fact that questions about directions, advice on good places to park or where the nearest cash point is are far more frequent conversation topics than anything related to parking contraventions. T e CEO had a good relationship with all the local tradesmen, who knew where, and for how long, they could park. I saw a minibus full of middle-


The cost of one person checking ticket machines at a number of sites is vastly more cost-effective than one attendant at each parking site


So it is with some dismay that I read


about an increasing number of parking facilities where the attendant is being replaced by machinery. T e UK’s national parks are the latest to have car parks that will now only have ticketing machines rather than a constant human presence. And on a recent visit to a remote beach I was shocked to fi nd the wooden hut that used to house the attendant had gone and a series of shiny machines were in place. It is obviously a fi nancial and effi ciency


measure. T e cost of one person checking ticket machines at a number of sites is vastly more cost-eff ective than one


www.britishparking.co.uk


aged women fl irt with him as they asked for directions and he had good natured banter with the driver of a sports car. T ere were other, unpleasant incidents.


It is certainly not a job that is for those who take insults to heart. But for the majority of people who just want to get on with their lives, a uniformed presence on Britain’s streets is something that will be missed if it disappears. Today’s frontline parking workforce is a


throwback to the days of the bobby on the beat, and you only have to listen to middle England’s social commentators to know how much those guys are missed.


MARCH 20 7 11


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