FEATURE UNIVERSITY PARKING
EDUCATION GROUP IS LEARNING FAST
The BPA’s HE group, which is compiling a charter for higher education, has launched its survey of practices across all universities and colleges. Fiona Macey describes it as ‘a huge piece of work – the most significant exercise we’ve done as travel plan people’. The survey will be open for responses until the end of July, with results due to be published by early September. ‘We want this to be a benchmarking exercise,’ she says. ‘Having all that information will be brilliant and we hope it will give us new ideas. For instance, it’s useful to know what other people are charging.’ (York’s rate is £6 a day). Across almost 500 universities and
Every university is different and so
its travel and parking strategies will be different
University of Worcester. Boom belongs to the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC) transport group which, with more than 300 member universities and colleges, exists to promote ‘sustainable’ practices. She’s sceptical that BPA membership will bring her any extra benefits. ‘If there’s a charge and you have a tight university pot of money, what will you get that you don’t get from being a member of EAUC?’ she wonders. Boom also questions the value of the BPA’s HE group’s imminent survey of parking practices. ‘It will be out of date as soon as you do it – these things are always being reviewed,’ she says. ‘Vast numbers of institutions don’t have a dedicated parking manager. Where does parking fit into a university structure? Often quite low down, I imagine. Every university is very different and so its travel and parking strategies will be different.’ Yet knowledge of the way Worcester does some things could prove useful to others – for instance, how it managed a planning application for the new city-centre campus despite being refused extra parking provision. This entailed a five-year traffic impact assessment within a one-mile radius of the site. Then there’s its staff permit scheme, where charges vary according to income. This means the handyman pays less than the vice-chancellor: indeed, at Worcester, nobody parking all day pays more than £2.30.
26 AUGUST 2012
colleges, finding the right person to get answers from poses a big challenge. EAUC will help with this, though, as Macey concedes, ‘we can’t make people fill in the survey’. Goodwin, as HE Group chair, believes the exercise needs to be promoted more vigorously, stressing that the evidence it will produce ‘has never before been holistically collated’. ‘We’ll be repeating it year on year,’ he said.
‘People writing strategic reports will be able to dip into this database, though they’ll need to be members. We hope it will boost interest in our group – that’s one reason for doing the survey.’
Challenge Manchester Ian Goodwin, travel plan manager at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and chair of the HE special interest group, also belongs to EAUC’s transport group, yet he believes it has limitations. ‘EAUC does excellent work but it’s never delved into the realms of parking,’ he said.
The challenge posed for him by MMU is one of contraction, having to squeeze seven campuses onto two sites. ‘We’re half way through and there’s a lot of strategic planning still to be done,’ says Goodwin. ‘We’re reducing the level of parking and it will increase the demand on finite spaces.’ Unsurprisingly, sorting out who gets permits is analysed in depth. Less than a third of MMU staff – 31 per cent – drive to work, which Goodwin feels is ‘pretty good’. But, he adds, with tuition fees of £9,000 a year, universities are growing increasingly competitive and may introduce student parking slots. ‘I think most will be considering it,’ he says. When its survey results appear, the HE group hopes to have a much more complete picture of where priorities lie and what needs fixing. ‘Parking often fits in with security or the travel plan co-ordinator, whose main role is to change travel habits, but who doesn’t really know about car parks,’ says Macey. ‘We’ve found that parking issues can be really obscure. What we’re trying to do is make it professional.’
www.britishparking.co.uk
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