Can’t believe we’re nearly up to 2000 supporters!

Report on Meeting Re Car Park/Parking Eye 15/2/19

Update on meeting I, accompanied by Frank, had with ULHT Estates & Facilities Director, Paul Boocock, E & F Mgr Ian Hayden & Katy, ULHT Communications.

Parking Eye is here to stay - the obsolete barrier system won’t be returning. This may be disappointing to some but can’t really be a surprise. However, ULHT acknowledge the issues that the new system has brought and that they were more than could be attributed to ‘teething problems.’ ParkingEye has been held accountable for the technical issues that caused so many PCNs (Parking Charge Notifications - ‘fines’ to you and me). I was assured these have been put right. Time will tell.

We then went on to discuss what ULHT is doing to make this system more user friendly. It’s in their interest for it to be successful as much as for those who use it. I tried to bring to their attention all the issues/questions I’ve been made aware of, apologies if I’ve missed anything.

• Where does the revenue from tickets go? 100% of revenue from the Pay Stations goes to ULHT & is used to pay for the day to day running of the car parks, maintenance & security. Anything in excess of that goes into Hospital Funds. Revenue from PCNs goes to Parking Eye. A good reason for them to issue spurious charges? Could be, however, ULHT has the ultimate veto on all PCNs & can cancel/refund any of them.

• PCNs & the circumstances under which they were issued was discussed. The flaws in the system that lead to most of the erroneous ones should have now been rectified. I identified some cases where PCNs had been issued when a vehicle had dropped someone off, without parking, left the car park and then come back within a short time to collect them - in neither instance exceeding the 20min free drop off/collection period. This will be investigated to see if there is a glitch in the system.

• Contact with ParkingEye when making an appeal. Having nowhere to phone to speak to a human being is industry standard, apparently. The rationale is that putting everything is writing covers both sides against misinterpretation. I pointed out that once an appeal has started contact, even by email, seems impossible. They will look at that.

• Blue Badge Holders have been caused an inordinate amount of problems by the new system. ULHT is very aware of this and are working to make the system easier. They hope to introduce a pre-registration system for BB holders - Up to 3 cars will be able to be ‘registered’ on the system, by taking the Photo BB to a reception area in the first instance. Once that has been done on future visits the pay machine will recognise those registration nos. as being a BB user & will charge accordingly. I’ve also asked that they look at making pre-registration by email possible. The problem of people being told they couldn’t have a BB voucher because they weren’t the person with the appointment has now been addressed. All staff should now be aware that any BB holder visiting the hospital whether they have an appointment or not is entitled to a voucher.

• Kiosks - ULHT will put a pay station inside the building once H&S issues have been sorted out. Site maps are being updated and it was agreed adding the location of pay stations would be helpful.
• Wheelchair users have found the pay stations difficult to use in some cases. ULHT were assured the machines were DDA compliant. Documentation on this has been requested & they have also had independent people in to look at and report on them.
• ParkingEye were asked to upgrade their software and modify the user interface to make it easier to use. Hopefully, these changes have improved the user experience.

• Multiple visits in one day. The system in place is difficult to understand & use. I’ve asked them to look at a ‘daily rate’ option on the pay stations.

• Concessions. I’ve asked that all the concessions available be reviewed. I suggested a concession for overrunning clinics be considered. I also asked for awareness of concessions be raised wherever possible and suggested it could be included in appointment letters where appropriate.

• Collection / Drop off. 20 minutes is allowed in all areas, on all sites. I pointed out that some misinformation was being given out about this, so this will be addressed.

• Good2go - the prepayment app is working on an option to include Blue Badge Holders. That would be a great step forward.

• Payment Bands. ULHT are reviewing their payment bands. I made the point that most people are going to be at the hospital for over one hour and suggested the first payment band should be 0-2 hours instead of 0-1 hours. This would help to get over the problems of people going ‘just over the hour.’ Queues at kiosks should lessen as people become more familiar with the system & all the ‘glitches’ are ironed out.

• Staff Parking. I made my point that I don’t think staff should pay at all but that change isn’t going to happen any time soon! Staff members have been badly hit by the new system in many ways including receiving a lot of PCNs that weren’t warranted. Many thousands of staff vehicles were registered before the system went into operation. Due to human error some were entered incorrectly, in some cases incorrect reg nos. were submitted in the first place and staff changed vehicles without updating the information held on the system. This led to PCNs being issued. Facilities are working to review all those who think they’ve received a PCN in error.

• Feedback. I made the suggestion that a questionnaire- hardcopy in clinics etc and online might help ULHT gain some insight into how people were thinking & the problems they were and are facing. Although this wasn’t dismissed, now wasn’t thought to be the right time, it would be more use once the systems has had time to settle down. They did agree that a Q & A section on the website would be useful.

I hope I’ve covered everything that was discussed. We’ve agreed to have another meeting in a month or so to see how things are progressing. In the meantime, I’ll be keeping an eye on ongoing issues raised here and elsewhere.

THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO SIGNED THIS PETITION - all those at the meeting were aware of it and had been on it to look at the comments. So it was a useful exercise!

Should I keep the petition going, now it’s clear the barriers aren’t coming back? We’ve definitely achieved something. I’ll think on where to go with it now.