Further to Minute 87 of the meeting held on 18 January 20201 the Executive Director of Economic Growth and Neighbourhood Services submitted a report providing an update on the Parking Strategy and Civil Enforcement service.  The following documents were attached to the report:

·       Appendix 1 - Current service

·       Appendix 2 – Proposed Service

·       Appendix 3 – The Parking Strategy

·       Appendix 4 – The Procurement Strategy

·       Appendix 5 – Procurement timeline

The report noted that work had included a review of the performance of the existing service, including both insourced and outsourced elements, and the finalisation of a new draft Parking Strategy to align with the objectives of the draft Reading Transport Strategy 2036. Approval was sought to adopt a new Civil Enforcement (Parking) procurement strategy, in-source some currently outsourced services and agree to procure a new civil enforcement service provision required to support the service, continue to review longer term partnership options for the future service, carry out a trial of paperless permits to replace the current visitor and resident permit parking scheme, apply for a designated order for Moving Traffic Enforcement, and a revised delegation to make future changes to commercial parking arrangements.

Resolved –

That the Committee note progress made on the development of a draft Parking Strategy and a new Civil Enforcement (Vehicle Parking) Service Contract and that the following be approved:

i)              The Procurement Strategy (Appendix 4) setting out how the Council would procure a new Civil Enforcement contract alongside a timeline illustrated in Appendix 5;

ii)             The recommendations set out in Paragraph 6.6 of the report to in-source and let out various services relating to civil enforcement;

iii)           The option for further in-house or jointly delivered services to be considered during the next contract period 2022-2027 and investigated with a future report being presented to an appropriate Committee in 18 months following the delivery of the new contract;

iv)           The trial of a paperless visitor and resident parking permit scheme, subject to the availability of suitable IT and that the Assistant Director of Legal and Democratic Services be authorised to undertake the necessary legislative and regulatory processes to remove the requirement to display a permit within the Traffic Regulation Orders (all comments and objections would be reported to Traffic Management Sub-committee);

v)             The application for a Designation Order for Civil Enforcement of Moving Traffic Contraventions’ under Part 6 of the Traffic Management Act 2004;

vi)           That the Assistant Director of Planning, Transport and Regulatory Services be delegated authority, in consultation with the Lead Councillor for Strategic Environment, Planning and Transport and relevant Ward Councillors for the area affected to make future changes to commercial parking arrangements, both off-street and on-street, in line with the relevant adopted Parking Strategy and the MTFS.