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Data explodes
parking price myths
Facts and figures… data from parking facilities is essential to give a clear picture of trends in the market
Getting a clear picture of the pricing structures and trends of the UK’s public parking stock takes an inordinate amount of time, and relies on the cooperation of all the parking managers to secure the necessary information. However, Ian Betts, a former
president of the BPA and director of Parking Data and Research International, has collated information from more than 13,800 car parks and has arrived at a point where some significant trends in the cost of parking over the past four years can be identified. Te emerging picture shows
a sector, which, with a few anomalies, has seen very little increase in parking fees. One or two town centres, such as Halesworth and Bungay in Suffolk, have recorded increases of 45 per cent or more, but closer inspection
10 OCTOBER 2011
reveals there are reasons behind the large percentage increases. In Bungay, the local council
decided to round parking charges up or down to the nearest 10p to simplify charging. So, in car parks where parking charges were very low a 10p increase could represent a 25 per cent rise. Halesworth had been
charging very low prices for its parking. Terefore, when prices rose for the first time since 2006, the price rise was seen as high in percentage terms. A visit to the local newspaper’s website revealed that while there was outrage at the price rises, in fact it was a rise of only about 20p/ hour in real terms, and many comments from the public reflected that prices had not risen since 2001. Te figures, gathered from
182 towns, indicate that over the next year parking charges will probably rise in 30 per cent of car parks, decrease in 10 per cent and stay constant in 60 per cent. Betts suggests that these
figures tend to be ignored by the mainstream media, with stories that appear in the daily press tending to focus on the percentage rises rather than the real cost of parking, or the length of time since the last price rise. One such example is Cambridge, where an increase in residents’ parking was hailed a ‘price hike’. While the rise from £50 to
£70 was quite an increase, in real terms it was the first price rise since 2001, and meant that the cost of parking remained at just over £1/week in a city with high parking demands. Te data collected demonstrated that revenue
of both on-street and off- street parking in England had dropped slightly from 2007/08 to 2008/09. Betts suggested that, with the continuing recession and from evidence collected, this was a trend that was likely to continue. Tere are some anomalies:
some airports have shown a significant price rise, with both Glasgow Airport and Heathrow recording significant increases in parking costs. Te surprising fact was the
number of towns with reduced parking costs. Tis was usually due to council officers seeking to encourage shoppers back into town centres. Betts is keen to ensure that
the parking industry gets credit for its pricing strategy and is urging local authority parking managers to file data about parking costs on the website
www.parking-info.com
www.britishparking.co.uk
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