Issue - meetings

To receive questions from members of the public, of which prior notification in writing has been received (no later than noon two clear working days before the day of the Council meeting).

Should you wish to submit a question please complete the online form at www.maldon.gov.uk/publicparticipation.

In accordance with the Council’s public speaking protocol it was noted that the following question had been received from Mr Ben Groves:

Question:

‘With the closure of most parking machines over the weekend, can the council confirm it's long term plans for public parking and charges? Specifically:

1)               MDC's discussions with RingGo regarding removing the 'convenience fee' charged? This can add over 20% to the cost of parking - and is a mandatory charge, rather than a convenience as card payments are no longer possible where the machines have been removed (i.e. car park 21801 Promenade Park Coach Park Car Park)

2)               Which carparks still have at least one machine available?

3)               What alternative provisions are being maintained for users unable to use an app based service due to vulnerability or disability?

4)               What contingency plans are in place to change provider should RingGo increase charges or cease to operate moving forward, so that MDC maintains control of the cost of users to access the town?

5)               What plans are in place to maintain the parking machine infrastructure, so that the sunk investment is not lost - even if it's not currently being used, to minimise the barriers of reverting to using parking machines should the mobile only decision prove to be ineffective?

The Leader of the Council had provided the following response to the question which had been published, prior to the meeting, as a supplementary document to the Council agenda.

The Council is committed to providing good quality accessible car parking services, recognising the importance to its residents, visitors, and businesses.

The Council acknowledges the inconvenience and frustration when a car parking machine is out of order and strives for all of car parking machines to be operational at all times, with daily checks being carried out by officers to identify any issues.

Where any issues arise Community Engagement Officers are trained to undertake initial investigations and can often resolve these quickly to get the car parking machines back up and running.

Where the technical issues cannot be resolved by officers this is escalated to an engineer. In this situation that machine would be taken out of operation, until it is repaired, and customers would have the option to pay at an alternative machine, or to use the “Pay by Phone” option. There are multiple car park machines at each car parks with the exception of the Coach Park at Promenade Park, however there are other machines located elsewhere on Promenade Park.

The Council currently provides two options to pay for car parking through:

1)               use of car parking machines, for which there is no additional cost, and

2)               a “Pay by Phone” option which offers the convenience of being able to extend the period of parking without needing to return to a vehicle. There is an additional cost of 20p for using that service.

There is currently no plan to remove car park machines, and the choice of paying through machines  ...  view the full minutes text for item 397