Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from The Deputy Mayor, Councillor  Howard Smith and from Councillors Dawn Bennett, Geoff Davis, Matt Furniss, Lizzie Griffiths, Stephen Hives, Bob Hughes, James Jones Sandy Lowry, Julia McShane, Danielle Newson, Meryl Rehorst-Smith, David Shaw, Katie Steel, Jane Tyson, Keith Witham and Catherine Young, and from Honorary Aldermen Catherine Cobley, Sarah Creedy, Jayne Marks,

Tony Phillips, Lynda Strudwick and Nick Sutcliffe.

To receive and note any disclosable pecuniary interests from councillors. In accordance with the local Code of Conduct, a councillor is required to disclose at the meeting any disclosable pecuniary interest (DPI) that they may have in respect of any matter for consideration on this agenda.  Any councillor with a DPI must not participate in any discussion or vote regarding that matter and they must also withdraw from the meeting immediately before consideration of the matter.

If that DPI has not been registered, the councillor must notify the Monitoring Officer of the details of the DPI within 28 days of the date of the meeting.

Councillors are further invited to disclose any non-pecuniary interest which may be relevant to any matter on this agenda, in the interests of transparency, and to confirm that it will not affect their objectivity in relation to that matter.

There were no disclosures of interest.

To receive questions or statements from the public.  As this is an extraordinary meeting, any questions or statements must relate only to the business for which the meeting has been convened.

Details of any questions (including a written response to them) or requests to make statements received from the public will be set out in the Supplementary Agenda Pack which will be published on the day before the meeting.

There were no questions or statements from the public.

Details of any questions from councillors (including a written response to them) will be set out in the Supplementary Agenda Pack which will be published on the day before the meeting.  As this is an extraordinary meeting, questions must relate only to the business for which the meeting has been convened.

There were no questions from councillors.

The Council considered a report which sought authority to use capital funds within the car park maintenance reserve to fund the procurement and acquisition of new car park payment equipment across all council run car parks.

The Council noted that it currently operated 4 barrier pay on foot car parks, comprising of 13 entry / exit barrier systems and 11 payment machines. These facilities generated £3.3m net revenue and cost around £130,000 to service in 2023-24.  However, being 13 years old, the ticketed technology was now antiquated, prone to ticket reading issues, becoming increasingly difficult to service, not particularly customer friendly and limited in terms of the business intelligence it can provide.

More modern ticketless, ANPR equipment was available, which would provide improved customer service, additional flexibility to increase the opportunities to generate additional revenue, future-proof payment provision, improved business intelligence and reduced maintenance issues and costs.

The improved service provision could include integration with pay by phone, thereby allowing customers to use pay by phone within the PoF car parks alongside, cash and card payments. Pre-booking of spaces could also be made available, and the management of the season tickets and pre-payment cards would be simplified, relying on whitelists of vehicle registration marks, instead of RFID equipment / readers that needed to be programmed, dispatched etc.

It was considered highly unlikely that it would be possible for the existing PoF equipment to remain serviceable for another 10 years, and if it did fail unexpectedly, a net revenue loss of between £2.0m-£3.0m could be expected during the 6 months that an unplanned procurement exercise might take to complete and implement. In terms of the procurement, the estimated capital cost (of up to £650k) was such that a full procurement exercise would be necessary.

The transactional costs and the proportion of payment methods were unlikely to change significantly from the present situation, although there might be some scope to reduce the frequency of cash collections, particularly if pay by phone payments also became possible in the PoF car parks.

Servicing and maintenance costs were also likely to reduce. The newer equipment might be less prone to issues, particularly as more modern equipment tended to have fewer mechanical components, so this too could potentially derive some savings.

The Council also noted that it currently operated 17 Pay & Display car parks that only accepted coin and pay by phone payments. This involved 44 P&D machines. The P&D facilities generated £6.0m net revenue and cost around £50,000 to service in 2023-24.

While 10 years old, the equipment continued to maintain high levels of serviceability. However, over the course of the next few years, issues associated with serviceability and the availability of spare parts were likely to increase.

The primary limitations associated with the existing P&D equipment was that currently, the vast majority only accepted coins. Whilst pay by phone payments were also available, providing contactless card payment would improve payment options and customer service. It would also provide the opportunity  ...  view the full minutes text for item CO41