Issue - meetings

At its meeting on 18 November 2020 the Executive Committee considered setting aside capital receipts for the replacement of pay and display parking machines and it was RECOMMENDED TO COUNCIL:  

1.   That capital funding of £117,000 be allocated from the Capital Receipts Reserve for the replacement of car park pay and display machines across all authority-owned and charged car parks.  

2.   That authority be delegated to the Head of Finance and Asset Management to procure suitable parking pay and display machines that offer cash and card payment options with a remote back office function.

38.12        At its meeting on 18 November 2020, the Executive Committee had considered setting aside capital receipts for the replacement of pay and display parking machines and it was recommended to Council that capital funding of £117,000 be allocated from the Capital Receipts Reserve for the replacement of car park pay and display machines across all authority-owned and charged car parks; and that authority be delegated to the Head of Finance and Asset Management to procure suitable parking pay and display machines that offered cash and card payment options with a remote back office function.

38.13        The report which was considered by the Executive Committee had been circulated with the Agenda for the current meeting at Pages No. 78-82.

38.14        The Chair of the Executive Committee proposed the recommendation and the Vice-Chair seconded it.  

38.15        A Member advised that she was pleased to see the inclusion of solar technology within the report. Another Member noted the intention that the new machines would accept cash as well as card and she questioned why that was felt necessary and how much could be saved in capital and maintenance costs if cash was not included in the specification. In response, the Head of Finance and Asset Management was of the view that it was sensible to keep the options open for customers. There had been good take-up of the parking app since its introduction and there was good feedback from other local authorities about the contactless option on their parking machines however, a number of customers had indicated that they would still like to have the option of using cash. With that in mind it was not felt by Officers to be the right time to completely remove the cash facility on the machines. The way the new machines worked made it easy to take away the cash offering when it was felt to be the right time. There would be negligible savings if the cash facility was removed as the contract for collection of cash from the machines was based on the amount collected rather than the number of times a machine was visited.

38.16        Members noted that there were people that chose to use cash rather than card as well as those that did not have the option to use a card and, accordingly, it was

                 RESOLVED           1.  That capital funding of £117,000 be allocated from the                                          Capital Receipts Reserve for the replacement of car park                                 pay and display machines across all authority-owned and                                  charged car parks.

                                                  2. That authority be delegated to the Head of Finance and                              Asset Management to procure suitable parking pay and                              display machines that offered cash and card payment                                 options with a remote back office function.

To recommend to Council the setting aside of capital receipts for the replacement of machinery.

That it be RECOMMENDED TO COUNCIL:

1.       That capital funding of £117,000 be allocated from the Capital Receipts Reserve for the replacement of car park pay and display machines across all authority-owned and charged car parks.  

2.       That authority be delegated to the Head of Finance and Asset Management to procure suitable parking pay and display machines that offer cash and card payment options with a remote back office function.

58.1          The report of the Head of Finance and Asset Management, circulated at Pages No. 250-254, outlined a request for a capital budget of £117,000 to replace the ageing parking pay and display machines within the Borough Council’s car parks. The Committee was asked to recommend to Council that the capital funding requested be approved and that authority be delegated to the Head of Finance and Asset Management to procure suitable parking pay and display machines that offered cash and card payment options with a remote back office function. 

58.2          The Head of Finance and Asset Management explained that the Borough Council managed 10 car parks across Tewkesbury and Winchcombe towns which currently had an ageing stock of pay and display machines that had not been replaced for more than 13 years. The age of the machines was causing a lot of problems in terms of frequent breakdowns and difficulty in sourcing parts as well as the issue of not holding data centrally and offering a lack of functionality for payments etc. Replacing the machines would give an opportunity to offer card payment for users and remote access for Officers via a back-office portal which would receive live data of car park usage and any machine faults, as well as reducing the ongoing maintenance costs of the machines. The popularity of the Council’s cashless system via ‘Ringo’ had been helpful and that, along with better machines, meant the current provision of 18 machines could be reduced to 12 as there would not be the requirement for more than one machine in the smaller car parks as a back up in case of breakdowns. The costs within the report were for the most expensive machines and the highest number that could be required; this was likely to be reduced considerably through the procurement process and as the number of machines was agreed. Any money that was not required would go back into balances.

58.3          Members agreed that the current machines were at the end of their life and needed replacing but some questioned whether they needed to have a cash option at all now people were much more used to contactless payments, it was felt this would also reduce the likelihood of vandalism of, and theft from, the machines. In response, the Head of Development Services agreed that the Council had seen a great uplift in the past few months of people using the payment app and the added functionality of contactless in the new machines would benefit many more people but there were still those that wanted to pay cash and it was felt that, particularly in the short to medium term, that ability should still be offered. Certainly, in the longer term it may be a consideration to move away from cash payments entirely. In terms of the security of the machines, this had improved significantly in recent years meaning they were far less likely to be broken into and, in addition, they were concreted into the ground so  ...  view the full minutes text for item 58