The power of positive parking

North East Parking Show 2025 discussed healthy high streets and looking after the wellbeing of frontline staff

The North East Parking Show returned to Newcastle upon Tyne for its third edition, cementing the event’s position as the region’s premier conference and exhibition. The focus of this year’s event was on the positive role that parking plays in supporting local communities, stimulating economic growth and the wellbeing of those working in the sector. The event brought together parking professionals, facility managers, local authorities and technology providers to explore how parking can be a positive enabler.

The day’s key themes were:

Delivering a positive parking experience
An exploration of how parking can act as a catalyst for economic revitalisation, community accessibility, and environmental sustainability in towns and cities.

Parking as an economic enabler
An examination of the ways in which parking can support local economies by improving access, encouraging footfall, and enhancing the overall urban experience.

Protecting front line staff
Parking officers face aggression and violence on a daily basis. The parking sector is working to better support its people and send a strong message that antisocial behaviour will not be tolerated.

The North East Parking Show 2025 was hosted by Newcastle City Council, programmed by Parking Review, sponsored by Apex Parking and organised by Landor LINKS.

Welcome to Newcastle

Newcastle City Council is providing a positive experience for its citizens, businesses and visitors

Newcastle City Council’s parking team is focussed on providing customer-focussed services to its communities. Over the past 18 months Newcastle City Council has been working to modernise many of its parking services. Some projects include:

• Going cashless: By explaining the rationale and offering different ways of paying, cashless payment has been introduced with minimal complaints while delivering a modernised service and operational efficiencies.
• Red routes: Local residents were suffering from illegal parking at all hours, creating regular verbal and some physical assaults. The implementation of priority ‘red routes’ has significantly improved the situation and had a positive effect on residents.
• Camera enforcement at schools: Targeting where poor driver behaviour by parents dropping their kids off was putting other children’s safety at risk. Newcastle has seen significant improvements in school road safety where it has deployed camera enforcement.
• Cycle storage: Bike theft in the city centre and car parks was a real problem. Newcastle has installed secure storage in two of its multi-storey car parks and is reviewing opportunities to roll out more.
• Click & collect: InPost lockers have been installed in a number of city council car parks.
• 24-hour opening: Newcastle is considering opening two of its car parks throughout the weekend to support visitors and enhance the safety of those working in the nighttime economy.

Newcastle City Council is looking at creating a ‘transport hub’ service in some of its car parks, moving away from the traditional idea of a car park solely as a place to park cars.

The presentation was developed and delivered by David Hall, assistant director city operations, Steven Foster, parking team manager, and service manager Lynne Ryan.

People, places and parking

Chris Wade of People & Places highlights the role of parking in supporting the High Street

Putting more smiling faces on our high streets. This is a shared purpose for parking and place managers, said Chris Wade, director of People & Places. He explored how a customer-focussed approach places the provision of parking within a wider sense of place that takes account of issues such as communication, signage and pricing.

Wade shared analysis by People & Places and its regular partner on parking audits Park Consult which reveals:

• half of businesses perceive parking as a problem
• parking is potentially a limiting factor in only 20% of towns
• place leaders lack confidence and capacity to engage in parking
• parking managers are focussed on white lines and bottom line
• uncertainty exists about links between parking and place within councils
• the reported £1 billion annual parking surplus made by the public sector is viewed with ambivalence.

Wade stressed the importance of integrating parking with other options for travelling to town, with particular attention being paid to incorporating orientation and onward waymarking at car parks. It is also important to remember that many shopping journeys start with people checking out retail offers and parking options before travelling.

“Parking needs to be seen as a link in wider ‘sofa to shop’ thinking on trips to town,” said Wade. “Parking providers only get one chance to create a first impression. This starts online, meaning there is need to ensure parking advice is clear and that messaging around free and discounted parking offers is market tested.”

Parking providers need to:

• link up use of data for parking, catchment and footfall
• provide usable online advice on ‘how to get there’
• match parking purpose and customer needs
• agree road signage to help informed choices
• monitor impacts of promoting parking and place.

There is a need to coordinate tariffs in order to balance on-street and off-street demand. Parking operators should be using technology to provide a fair and seamless experience. And profits should be reinvested to benefit both parking and place.

“A key objective for place managers and parking providers alike is to create a seamless parking experience in which people promptly pass through parking areas to places they want spend time and money in,” concluded Wade.

Know your customers

Guy Watson of Apex Parking provides insights into how to provide user-friendly parking experiences

For many people their retail experience starts in the car parks serving stores and shopping centres. And while retailers set great store by creating a relationship with customers, the identities and experiences of car parks users usually remain unknown. This places retail destinations at a disadvantage when competing with online marketplaces.

One solution is to get to know retail car park users. This is the aim of Guy Watson, managing director of Apex Parking, an operator which specialises in managing retail parking. Apex Parking’s technology-led approach involves marketing to known customers, developing loyalty schemes that encourage repeat patronage. “We never take our customers or clients for granted,” he said. “Instead, we prioritise making their lives easier through competitive pricing, the right products, and open, honest communication. Our priority is always balancing revenue growth with long-term customer retention.”

Retail parking involves a number of partners: the landlord, who owns the destination and its car parks; the centre manager; the retailers; and the parking operator. A common challenge is when the deal structure between the various parties gets out of sync, he said. This can negatively impact the customer experience and parking revenues. A first step in aligning the interests is for the parking operator to engage with the landlord, centre manager and retailer to agree key performance indicators (KPIs) that meet the needs of the destination and expectations of all the partners.

Watson said that areas to address include: commercialisation; retailer engagement; moving unknown visitors to being known customers; customer experience; and volume growth.

“Apex Parking specialises in uncovering value, where others necessarily don’t, by focussing on three key pillars: product, price, and service. We drive sustainable revenue growth through customer acquisition and retention, delivering a customer-centric experience with a tailored range of products for each car park. As specialists in car park turnaround and recovery, we understand what it takes to rebuild revenues and foster customer loyalty – transforming underperforming sites into high-value assets.

“Delivering a seamless and invisible parking experience requires a great deal of unseen effort,” he said. “I have no illusions that parking will ever be a welcomed part of the customer journey – but being unremarkable and unnoticed? That’s the goal.”

A route back to work

NSL’s Paolo Orezzi has a positive story to tell about helping homeless people back into employment

Parking patrol officers working for NSL encounter homeless people on the streets every day. Keen to make a positive difference, Paolo Orezzi, service director at NSL, explored the idea of helping homeless people back into employment. Over the past four years, he has built relationships with homeless charities and third sector recruiters such as St Mungo’s, Radical Recruit, Beam and Social Bite.

To date, NSL has employed over 60 people from the homeless community in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh. The company is looking to set up more partnerships across the UK, and particularly keen to expand into Northern Ireland, Durham, South Coast and South West.

“We have overcome initial obstacles,” said Orezzi. “Flexibility, changing perceptions and removing stigma are key to making this work. Recruitment is not the end, it is just the start. Support is needed from day one for at least 12 months.”

Orezzi said there is need to find other organisations that can support employers with candidates who are work ready. “Finding these organisations is key to the success of employing more people, employers cannot do this on their own,” he said.

A University of Edinburgh study into the benefits of employing homeless people concluded that every £1 spent on programmes such as these yields £3.71 in social benefit.

“Funding is urgently required, employers and charities cannot be expected to foot the bill. The University of Edinburgh study demonstrates the financial benefit of this. We must use this data to lobby central government. Prevention is better than cure. How do we work together in preventing homelessness in the first place?”

Protecting our people

The parking sector is developing initiatives that tackle aggression against frontline staff

Civil enforcement officers, parking attendants and other public-facing staff face verbal and physical aggression on a daily basis. Newcastle City Council parking team reported that there is feeling that there has been general increase in antisocial behaviour and aggression towards parking staff since the COVID pandemic.

Newcastle is investing in staff safety via training, equipment and, most importantly, joining up with other council services, such as community safety and licensing teams, as well as Northumbria Police.

Steven Foster, Newcastle’s parking team manager, said: “We need to demonstrate to those individuals who abuse our staff, whether casually or in a more severe manner, that this is not acceptable and will not be tolerated. Civil enforcement officers should not accept that abuse is just part of the job. And we should support and encourage them to report any issues that they face in the knowledge that the organisation will provide the right level of support.”

A panel chaired by Carole Kenney, director, welfare, road traffic & road user charging, CDER Group endorsed this view.
Vikki Main, parking manager at Gateshead Council, shared the experiences of frontline colleagues who had been left physically and emotionally traumatised by assaults.

Alexandra Hobbs, parking manager at South Tyneside Council, called for violence against parking staff to be taken seriously by the police and government. ”We cannot and should not allow a culture where enforcement officers are seen as easy targets for frustration and aggression,” she said.

Hobbs called for better training for frontline staff. “We need to ensure our officers are fully equipped to de-escalate situations and handle conflict effectively,” she said. The police and legal system need to support parking officers and prosecute those who attack them. “We need a zero-tolerance approach, like the protections given to emergency workers.”

There also needs to be a concerted effort to help the public understand that enforcement officers are serving the community via awareness campaigns, she said.

Hobbs concluded with a call to action “This is not just about safety, it is about fairness. Every enforcement officer, every public facing worker, has the right to do their job without fear of abuse. Whether you are an enforcement professional, a policymaker or a leader in your organisation, I urge everyone here to take this issue seriously. Let’s push for stronger training, greater police support, and a clear message: abuse of enforcement officers will not be tolerated.”

‘Beyond the Uniform’

The parking sector is developing approaches to raise awareness of the issue of violence against parking officers. One initiative is ‘Beyond the Uniform’, a public information campaign focussed on humanising the role of civil enforcement officers who experience abuse from the public.

The campaign has been devised by North Essex Parking Partnership (NEPP) and Brighton & City Council with funding support from PATROL (Parking and Traffic Regulation Outside London).

Sarah Baxter, PATROL’s democratic services and policy manager, explained how tackling violence against parking staff was the theme of the Driving Improvements Awards. She said: “Funding was awarded jointly because Brighton & Hove and NEPP both submitted fantastic bids that focussed on telling the human stories of enforcement staff and engaging with the public on the vital work of enforcement in communities and the individuals involved.”
Brighton & Hove and NEPP are reporting back to PATROL on the outcomes and learnings from their respective campaigns.

Sarah Baxter said: “The campaign assets will be ‘white labelled’ and made available for use by PATROL’s authority membership for a wider national push.”