Parking spaces appear in a wide variety of guises and can include:

• Loading on street on yellow lines
• On street free spaces
• On street spaces reserved for specific users – bus stops, residents permits, taxi spaces, paid for parking with limited duration etc
• Spaces in developments or offices reserved for occupants
• Publicly available free or paid for off street parking for shopping areas, parks, town centres etc

Most individuals, businesses and other organisations want parking to be provided to meet all their needs or wishes and want it to be free.

• For an individual developer, substantial parking for a new development has been worthwhile financially in terms of extra rent achieved.
• For an individual business extra parking can reduce staff grumbles to management and allow most staff (at least for those who have a car available) the freedom to drive, albeit at a substantial real cost to the business and the environment.
• For individual residents or households, depending on location and other circumstances, the availability of an off-street parking space can free them from having to compete with others for scarce parking space on their street or to have to look for parking space in other streets.

Despite the individual advantages of extra parking provision, managing and reducing parking demand has big benefits to all businesses in reduced congestion and substantial savings in cost including rents.

It should be noted that for many years, planners, engineers and politicians (planning committees) demanded that developments have sufficient parking to meet most personal and company demands. This was mainly to try and meet declared business or residents’ needs and reduce parking on street.

In the last quarter century or so (longer for inner London), local authorities and central government have become fully aware of the link between parking provision, traffic volumes on the road network and hence congestion. Thus, they have generally become much more restrictive on parking space provision especially with new planning applications.

Many organisations with either new planning permissions or having expanded on a site have found their parking provision inadequate to meet their needs. John Elliott’s career has been steeped in the design and management of parking arrangements from developing and managing central and inner London’s local authority as well as more rural areas on and off-street parking, to developing and managing premier parking management and enforcement companies.

We have made it a particular speciality to develop, plan and design parking and management systems so that organisations across all sectors can still function effectively. We are exceptionally well connected across the parking industry and often work with specialist consultants on developing alternative management systems to optimise, control or even ration parking to meet the needs of local authorities, international businesses, hospitals, sports facilities and Universities.

If you would like to know more about the range of services provided feel free to contact us online or call us on 07810 204400.