West Bridgford: Consultation could lead to parking charges on residential roads

Charging for parking on some streets near West Bridgford centre is one of the options being considered as a consultation in December 2023 will ask residents’ views.

There are a couple of important notes before reading ahead:

1. Councils’ responsibilities are often confusing to people as to who is responsible for which service, in this case Rushcliffe Borough Council is responsible for off-street parking ( that is, car parks ) and Nottinghamshire County Council for on-street parking ( parking on residential or designated parking bays on roads ).  So addressing this issue to the borough council isn’t necessary. 
2. The report doesn’t mention the privately operated 101-space car park ( Horizon Parking ) behind Bridgford Road Co-op – which is free for an hour ( with a ticket ) and £1.40 for two hours. 

The below is taken from an NCC report which will be considered at a meeting of Nottinghamshire County Council before moving to a consultation:

In November 2017, Rushcliffe Borough Council published the West Bridgford Commissioners’ Report which examined a number of issues and themes relating to the town centre.

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The report was commissioned by the West Bridgford Growth Board, a body set up by the Borough Council to maintain and build-upon West Bridgford’s ‘high-quality, thriving and diverse retail, leisure and business sector’.

The Board recognised the need for independent external expertise to help develop the local economy further.

The report builds a number of key themes, the first of which is accessibility to the centre and within this primary theme, the most prevalent point is around parking availability with 30% of respondents wanted greater availability and some longer stay options.

The car parks operated by Rushcliffe Borough Council encourage short-stay parking for up to 3 hours at present.

On-street within a 5 minutes’ walk of Central Avenue, there is a mix of restrictions at present that have developed over many years, often to resolve localised issues on an ad hoc basis.

Consequently, on the southern approach from Gordon Square, there is a mix of 2-hour parking and 30-minute parking leading up to Central Avenue.

Rectory Road to the west of the centre has some 2-hour bays with some free unlimited parking on Church Drive.

To the north- east along Albert Road past the Nursery car park entrance, there is a long bay offering 2 hours short-stay parking and this leads into a section of largely underused residents parking opposite Violet Road.

To the north-west of Central Avenue, there is unlimited parking on Bridgford Road adjacent to Bridgford park, and on Millicent Road, William Road and along Fox and Hound Road immediately adjacent to Trent Bridge Cricket Ground.

On the 2019 National Index of Deprivation, the town centre is one of the least deprived nationally and the surrounding residential areas score even higher.

Rushcliffe Borough Council operate 3 car parks in West Bridgford: Bridgford Road, Nursery and Gordon Road.

Collectively they provide 298 short-stay spaces for visitors to the town centre and the charges are effectively £1 an hour in 30-minute increments up to 3 hours maximum.

Beyond 3 hours, the fee is a flat £20. The charges have been in place for many years and cover the period from 7am to 8pm to reflect the level of demand throughout the day and into the evening.

The Borough Council’s stated aim for these chosen charges within its ‘Off-Street Parking Strategy 2023-2027’ is to ‘encourage short-stay parking with high car turnover’. In 2019/20, largely pre-Covid, the Borough Council reported pay and display income of £739,000 across the Borough but the vast majority of this is generated from the spaces within West Bridgford.

The County Council is responsible for on-street enforcement and whilst this will typically focus more on dangerous parking, the Enforcement Officers do monitor the existing on-street short stay parking.

Because of the geographical area and mix of restrictions between 30 minutes to 2 hours, this enforcement is challenging. Officers have to log every vehicle within each permitted bay across the area and then return after the parking time has expired also allowing for the 10-minute grace period.

The countdown effectively only starts when an officer first notes the car details and location, and this can bear little resemblance to the time the car was actually first parked.

The net effect of this is that the enforcement of short-stay parking where there are no tickets required to be displayed by the motorist is widely accepted as inefficient as well as costly and this leads to evidence of vehicles regularly staying considerably in excess of the stipulated restriction.

If a system of requiring drivers to acquire and display a ticket either physically or virtually, this would dramatically improve the enforcement process.

In addition, the proliferation of free and unlimited on-street parking to the north of the town centre and around the cricket ground means that in these spaces, cars are often parked for long periods and are likely to belong to those working in the area rather than shoppers.

West Bridgford is well served by public transport. There are 21 bus services in total that average 4 buses an hour with some as frequent as every 5 minutes. In total along Bridgford Road, Loughborough Road and Radcliffe Road, some 1,300 buses per day pass within a 5- minute walk of the town centre and 12 services run over 16 hours a day.

Aecom study

In summer 2023, the County Council commissioned Aecom to undertake a detailed independent technical study of on street parking in West Bridgford. The key findings of the report clearly supported the issues raised by the West Bridgford Commissioners Report around the availability of parking spaces. In particular the report noted that: –

(i) Whilst there is good compliance within the residents parking areas, there is poor compliance with the limited waiting spaces on-street with some cars staying significantly in excess of the time restriction.

(ii) Enforcement can be inefficient; a number of ‘mystery shopping’ exercises confirmed that Enforcement Officers on occasion did not issue PCNs to cars that were left beyond the time limit in short stay spaces.

(iii) In the free unlimited spaces to the north-west of the town centre, vehicles were recorded as being parked for several hours a day without moving.

(iv) There are a number of locations within a short walk of the centre where, if introduced, charges would improve turnover and consequently increase the availability of parking opportunity. If the existing free and unlimited spaces within 5 minutes’ walk of the centre were converted to 2-hour bays, this would result in over 1,900 extra parking ‘slots’ throughout a 12-hour period. Added to this could be the conversion of underused residents’ spaces (260 slots) and with increased turnover from existing limited waiting spaces in combination this would result in a very significant increase in parking opportunity.

(v) The off-street car parks were often at or near to capacity particularly during the period between 11am and 3pm that matches the peak shopping times. The Rushcliffe Borough Council website indicates that on average, each space is used over 6 times a day in their car parks.

Next steps

Based on the Aecom study, it is proposed to commence a public engagement exercise about the proposition of increasing the availability of on-street parking in West Bridgford both by extending the available public spaces and by potentially imposing a charge and time limit similar with that in the off-street car parks.

The report indicated that there is a real opportunity to considerably increase the number of spaces that would in turn support town centre vitality as well as reducing congestion caused by vehicles looking for spaces.

At this stage the engagement would be seeking views on the current level of parking availability to see if those responding agree about access issues in West Bridgford and whether, building on that, they would support changes to the restrictions and potentially a modest charge to increase the availability of spaces.

A questionnaire will be available both online and within the library where a pod would be staffed to assist with any queries. Plans will also be available showing potential locations for new restrictions.

A detailed communications plan has been developed to ensure that the public are aware of the engagement exercise and know who to contact for further information. The key message is that all responses are valid and helpful to us in considering the next steps. Specific groups representing Members and stakeholders in West Bridgford will be engaged with directly throughout and the input of the Borough Council sought as a key priority. It is proposed to commence the engagement exercise during December 2023. Following this, all responses will be analysed and reported back to the Cabinet Member early in 2024.

Reasons for Recommendations

Based on the findings of the West Bridgford Commissioners Report, the need to preserve the long-term vitality of the town centre, our duties in relation to the management of traffic flows and availability of parking, and our commitments within the LTP, it is considered essential to undertake this review and, for a project of this nature, this proposed engagement with the public will be essential to understand the issues faced by regular visitors to the town centre. From this intelligence base, a detailed proposal can be developed that meets as many of these needs as possible.