Our friends in the North East

Parking professionals gathered in Newcastle for the North East Parking Show 2023

Local authority teams from across the North of England and beyond converged on Newcastle Civic Centre’s awe-inspiring Banqueting Hall on 11 July for a day of topical debates and networking. The North East Parking Show was a forum in which parking management teams discussed traffic management schemes, clean air zones, event management, parking payment trends and career development, and where leading technology and service suppliers had an opportunity to showcase their latest projects.

Hosted by Newcastle City Council, which co-programmed the event with Parking Review. The North East Parking Show was organised by Landor LINKS and sponsored by RingGo.

Northern Parking Powerhouse

Local authorities across the North East of England share a common desire to decarbonise transport, improve air quality and enhance accessibility, thus supporting local communities, businesses and economies. Christine Heriot, director of operations and regulatory services at Newcastle City Council, and David Hall, assistant director, operations and regulatory services, outlined the issues facing a major regional city and the challenges these pose for parking and traffic management teams. These include minimising traffic congestion, ensuring road safety, improving air quality and achieving net zero by 2030 while delivering customer-centred parking services.

The ‘Routes to Recovery’ session saw local authority teams from around the North East provide a regional perspective on key traffic and parking issues: Speakers included Lynne Ryan, service manager, parking services at Newcastle City Council, Peter Broxton, parking and transport infrastructure team leader at Durham Council, and Andy Waters, parking and streetworks manager, Gateshead Council.

The North East Parking Show then welcomed a special guest from the East Midlands – Nottingham City Council. Matt Ralfe, innovation and change manager, discussed how Nottingham has devised and implemented a series of parking policy measures such as the workplace parking levy and mobility hubs designed to tackle traffic congestion and improve air quality while supporting the city’s economy and meeting community needs.

Technology keeps the city moving

The parking sector has always been open to adopting and developing new technologies for payment, enforcement, data sharing and the provision of electric vehicle infrastructure. The technology session at the North East Parking Show explored how the digitisation of payment and information services is transforming parking.

Stuart Harrison, president of the British Parking Association and chief technology officer at Intelli-Park, discussed initiatives such as the National Parking Platform (NPP) and Alliance of Parking Data Standards (APDS), through which the association is playing a key role in developing new standards and sharing best practice on their use.

There were expert presentations on digital innovations by a panel of technology companies: Jason Barbour (Barbour Logic), Andy Stott (RingGo), Matt Terry (AppyWay), Richard Williams (Transfer360) and Leadley Wilson (Unity5).

Parking... a career of choice

Managing parking is often seen as a challenging job. But it is also rewarding one for many people. The afternoon saw BPA chair Anjna Patel MBE share her personal career path and outline the work being done within the sector to both improve working conditions and to develop approaches that encourage more people to build a career in parking. She set out work what the BPA is doing in providing support networks, access to best practice mentoring and undertaking formal qualifications.

‘My Career Journey’ was an interactive session that saw a number of parking professionals share their personal development stories. Participants included: Newcastle customer response and enforcement officers Philip Boyes and Claudia Jewell, as well as Chris Head, senior business development manager at RingGo.

The panel discussed ways to improve staff retention, suggesting placing greater emphasis on team building and the importance of creating supportive bonds between employees.

The event’s chair and co-programmer, Steven Foster, team manager, Parking Services, Newcastle City Council, reflected on what had been a day where delegates and exhibitors alike had learned much by sharing their ideas and experience. “Thanks to everyone for a really successful North East Parking Show 2023,” he said. “It was fabulous to have the opportunity to bring colleagues together regionally and nationally.”