Turning workplace parking into better transport

Nottingham’s Jason Gooding talks to Deniz Huseyin about the city’s groundbreaking workplace parking levy

How Clifton centre will look when the WPL funded tram extension is built

How Clifton centre will look when the WPL funded tram extension is built

When Nottingham’s workplace parking levy (WPL) was launched in April 2012, it had a good many detractors among the city’s business community. Firms complained the scheme would erode their profit margins. Nottingham’s biggest company, Boots, threatened to move its 3,000 parking spaces outside the city to avoid paying the levy.

But more than two years on, most of the misgivings about the scheme appear to have subsided. And, importantly, the WPL is fulfilling its core purpose of helping fund major transport schemes in the city.

So, what is a workplace parking space? Nottingham’s parking manager, Jason Gooding, explains: “A parking place at a premises inside Nottingham City Council’s administrative boundary area, occupied by  vehicle used by an employee, pupil, student or regular business visitor. Workplace parking places are not necessarily marked out, lined, or designated spaces.”

All firms in the city with 11 or more liable parking places are required to pay an annual charge for each place they provide (on page 23). Strikingly, compliance among businesses eligible to pay the levy stands at 100%, and the council reports that it has not yet needed to issue a single penalty charge notice for non-payment of the WPL.

Nottingham City Council says the levy pays for the council’s contribution towards the £570m expansion of the tram network, known as NET Phase Two, and £12m towards the £50m redevelopment of Nottingham’s railway station, which is nearing completion.

Overcoming concerns

Several businesses argued the scheme would drive away investors. “But these fears have not been realised as there is no evidence that any employer has left the city citing the WPL as a factor for them leaving,” says Jason Gooding. “In fact, the council’s Economic Development section has supported more companies moving into the city than in five years previous to the WPL being introduced.”

Although some businesses were against the WPL, they did support the transport schemes that the levy was helping to deliver, explains Gooding. He notes that some employers voiced concerns that there would not be viable public transport options for their staff or the funding raised would be allocated elsewhere and not be used to fund transport improvements. 

“However, all of the money raised through the WPL is ring-fenced for public transport investments,” he points out. “As well as redeveloping the railway station and doubling the length of Nottingham’s tram service, the WPL also helps to fund the running and expansion of Nottingham’s Link Bus Network, which serves routes across the city including key employment sites, park & ride sites, and the city’s hospitals, which helps to plug gaps that commercial bus operators don’t serve.” 

By supporting these schemes, the WPL will help to tackle congestion that currently costs the Nottingham economy about £160m every year, half of which is a direct cost to businesses, says Gooding. The scheme is designed to encourage employers to cut the number of free workplace parking places they provide to staff and switch to alternative modes of transport. 

The levy works as a demand management tool focusing on commuter parking, which is the cause of around 70% of congestion in Nottingham at peak periods.

Impact on business

As for the economic impact of the scheme, an independent study by consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers demonstrated that for the majority of businesses liable to pay the WPL, the estimated cost would be less than 1% of their turnover. 

“Additionally, this cost has been further mitigated by some employers managing their parking or choosing to pass on all or part of the charge to their employees, and therefore reducing their WPL liability,” says Gooding.

And, whatever reservations may have been expressed about the scheme, compliance among medium and large employers, with more than 10 workplace parking places, stands at 100% while more than 98% of small employers, who receive a 100% discount from the charge, are compliant with the scheme.

Currently around 2,200 employers hold a WPL licence, and about 460 of these pay a charge. There are about 40,000 licensed workplace parking spaces, of which 24,000 are chargeable.

When the scheme was being implemented, the council set out to explain to employers how WPL would work, and how they would need to licence and manage their workplace parking places. 

“The online registration system has proved extremely successful, with 97% of employers now licensing and managing their licences and accounts online,” says Gooding. “We believe that the implementation of the WPL has gone very smoothly and businesses now see the annual renewal of their WPL licences as a routine part of their business processes.”

The council carries out routine compliance checks to ensure that businesses have licenced the correct number of workplace parking places. “The focus of the city council has always been to work with employers to explain and help them to comply with the WPL scheme,” says Gooding. “We would only use enforcement action as a last resort, and this approach has been a success as the council has yet had the need to issue any penalty charge notices (PCNs).”

A small WPL compliance and enforcement team is responsible for administering the scheme and making sure that employers know their responsibilities, explains Gooding. “Through engagement by the WPL team, any non-compliance is quickly identified and rectified, enabling effective working relationships to be established between the WPL team and Nottingham employers.”

A vehicle fitted with ANPR technology from Traffic Enforcement Systems (TES) patrols the sites. “The ANPR car was the first of its type,” says Gooding.” We worked closely with TES to ensure the vehicle was fit for purpose to ensure that it would reduce administration requirements on employers and the WPL team, while also providing robust and enforceable evidence. The use of the vehicle is for licence validation visits (LVVs) and full compliance surveys to validate that employers are licensed correctly and all liable employers receive at least one LVV per licensing year.”

Cutting congestion

Funding generated through WPL was designed to be flexible, so that if less is raised than estimated in one year, this can be made up for in future years. “The costs of projects that the WPL provides funding for is spread over the life of the NET Phase Two 23-year contract period,” says Gooding. 

In its first year (1 April 2012 – 31 March 2013), the WPL raised £7.8m, and in its second year (1 April 2013 – 31 March 2014), the scheme raised about £8.4m. These figures were broadly in line with expectations, says Gooding.

Since the scheme was launched, several major employers have taken steps to manage their parking, according to Gooding. “This means that 38% of chargeable workplace parking places are now covered by parking management schemes,” he says. “This helps to slow the growth of traffic congestion, and the council continues to provide support to businesses to manage their parking provision and assist with travel planning. We also help them to gain access to grants for measures such as cycle infrastructure improvements to support businesses which choose to encourage their staff to explore alternative forms of transport to travel to work.”

The WPL alone would have only a modest impact on congestion, Gooding acknowledges. “It is not a road user charging initiative,” he says, “but together with the package of measures that it is helping fund, it will help to contain growth in traffic congestion, cater for economic expansion, and contribute to making Nottingham a better place to work and live.”

The infrastructure projects that the WPL is helping fund include: the redevelopment of Nottingham Station, used by 6.5m passengers a year, which is nearing completion; the doubling in size of the tram service this year, with the capacity to cater for over 20 million passenger journeys a year; an extra 2,400 park & ride spaces at junctions 24 and 25 of the M1, providing access for 55,000 commuters to over 1,270 workplaces. Alongside these schemes, other transport improvements are also underway in Nottingham including the widening of the A453 and major improvements to the ring road totalling £16.2m. 

“Once all the different transport improvements are completed in the city, we will be in a better position to evaluate congestion levels on the road network,” says Gooding. “By then people’s travel behaviour, as well as employers’ WPL provision, will have had a chance to fully adjust to the new public transport options available to them.”

Without the WPL, Nottingham City Council would not have been able to invest in such major transport infrastructure projects, “given the shrinking budgets that local authorities receive from central government”, insists Gooding. He sees no reason why a workplace parking levy would not offer similar benefits to other local authorities.

Nottingham City Council undertook careful research of the workplace parking levy legislation as it was the first scheme of its type in the Europe, he says. “We would be happy to work with other authorities to help them to understand the benefits that a scheme could bring to them and helping them to reduce the time and cost of introducing a levy. The WPL is a valuable tool that makes new public transport projects possible and supports existing services and infrastructure. This, in turn, can reduce congestion and the burden on road networks.”

For now Nottingham’s WPL scheme remains unique in the UK, but Gooding says others towns and cities are curious. “We have already received enquiries from a number of other UK local authorities that are interested in our WPL scheme and the benefits it can provide, and they are considering if a WPL is right for their area.”

How much does the workplace parking levy cost?

The charge per workplace parking place for employers that provide 11 or more commuter parking places, for the licensing period from 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015, is £362.

The cost of each liable parking place provided rises with increments and inflation in the early years until 2016, while the public transport improvements the levy helps to fund are rolled out. From 2016 the fee will increase with inflation only, through the RPI (Retail Price Index).

The estimated charge per workplace parking place for the next licensing year (1 April 2015 - 31 March 2016) for employers that provide 11 or more commuter parking places, is set to be £379, based on an assumed inflation rate of 3% and National Statistics data for RPI.

For further information on the WPL scheme visit: 

www.mynottingham.gov.uk/wpl