Sheffield Council's 1.2 Million Profits from Parking Permits!

[Cyclone]

planner1, what transport is the surplus spent on?

 

 

Posted from Sheffieldforum.co.uk App for Android

 

At a guess the council provide and/or pay for, lots of subsidised tickets, the special needs transport buses, etc...

[truman]

Don't forget that Parking Services as we see it today is largely here because of the permit zones. They employ a large number of people, many of whom would no longer have a job if the permit zones were got rid of. How would that help the local economy?

 

Instead of paying for parking then people may spend that money in town....?

[dosxuk]

Do any of the people on this thread calling for the scrapping of the permit zones actually live in one of those zones?

[Planner1]

Well, nothing personal against those people but that sounds like an even better argument for getting rid of them to me - employing people for the sake of it leads to the sort of bloated organisation we see today.

It isn't employing people for the sake of it.

 

The people who live in the permit zones want them. So, if you are going to have a large network of permit zones you need significant numbers of staff to administer them and enforce them.

 

The Council have in recent times put a lot of effort into making the back office side of Parking Services as efficient as possible. The number of people employed has fallen and the organisation is far from being "bloated".

[metalman]

Perhaps you should ask the people in the permit zones whether they think it's right that the rest of the city subsidises their private parking space to the tune of 100 grand a year, which appears to be the picture if we believe Planner1.

[Ousetunes]

Instead of paying for parking then people may spend that money in town....?

 

That's too simplistic.

 

True, obviously.

 

But too simplistic for a council like ours.

[Planner1]

planner1, what transport is the surplus spent on?

 

 

Posted from Sheffieldforum.co.uk App for Android

 

The Traffic Management Act (2004) explains what uses parking income can be put to under the 1984 Road Traffic Regulation Act.

 

Extract as follows:

 

(4) The purposes referred to in subsection (2) above are the following, that is to say—

 

(d) If it appears to the local authority that the provision in their area of further off-street parking accommodation is unnecessary or undesirable, the following purposes–

 

(i) Meeting costs incurred, whether by the local authority or by some other person, in the provision or operation of, or of facilities for, public passenger transport services,

 

(ii) The purposes of a highway or road improvement project in the local authority's area,

 

(iii) In the case of a London authority, meeting costs incurred by the authority in respect of the maintenance of roads maintained at the public expense by them,

 

(iv) The purposes of environmental improvement in the local authority's area,

 

(4B) For the purposes of subsection (4)(d)(iv) “environmental improvement” includes–

 

(a) The reduction of environmental pollution (as defined in the Pollution Prevention and Control Act 1999 (c. 24); see section 1(2) and (3) of that Act);

 

(b) Improving or maintaining the appearance or amenity of–

 

(i) A road or land in the vicinity of a road, or

 

(ii) Open land or water to which the general public has access; and

 

© The provision of outdoor recreational facilities available to the general public without charge.

[the_bloke]

As far as I am aware, the Council gave the Star the following information when they were asked to comment on the potential story:

 

The Lib Dems have included all income from pay and display which is not connected to parking permits. The PPZ income is £522,000 the income from enforcement is £669,000, which means the total income is £1.191 million. The cost of providing the service is £1.255 million, the council is still subsidising the permit zones by over £100,000, so there is no ‘profit’.

 

The Star chose not to print this information. They just said:

 

But ruling Labour councillors said income from parking permits alone does not cover the cost of running the zones...

 

Why did the council create a system that costs £1.255 million pounds but only gets an income from of £522,000?

 

Sorry, I'd rather a system that costs £1.255 million pounds to run that generates an income of £1.255 million pounds, with the extra income from enforcement (fines) being out back into the coffers to do something more useful.

 

If permits were charged at a non subsidized rate, then these zones wouldn't even exist in the first place as no one would have wanted them, and the city would have an extra million pound each year to fritter on another scheme.

[No User Name]

Why does it cost so much?

 

Surely most of the costs incurred are "set-up" costs that dont apply in Year 2,3,4 etc... ?

[dutch]

If parking is too cheap there is not enough space.

When it is too expensive many people will avoid it.

 

Arresting people throwing litter on road and fining them would be a more respectful way of making money than squeezing profits out of drivers.