At £4 to £4.80 per hour North Lambeth residents have the highest parking fees but are the least well served
Like many people who used the Kennington Parking shop once or twice per year (see this google street view ) I was caught out by its’ unexpected closure. Judging by the number of people turning up at the door when I was there today -some 3 months after it closed -it would seem fair to conclude that its’ closure has not been very well communicated. Perhaps the high local parking and congestion charges contributed to its demise.
According to Lambeth’s website it closed 16 December 2011 as a result of ‘improvements to parking services’. Interesting claim so I thought I’d check that out.
For those living in the Kennington Oval Vauxhall Southbank Waterloo areas who wish to pick up visitor parking permits etc. will now have to travel to Brixton (see this google street view). I estimate that this will add an additional 30 minutes to the return journey for anyone attempting the trek from North Lambeth.
When I got to the Brixton Customer Service centre , it took me 50 minutes to be served -approximately 30 minutes longer than it ever took at the Kennington Parking Shop. While I was waiting, I conducted an informal survey:
* Approximately 13 staff were on duty
* At any one time, approximately 3 did not have members of the public with them
* Approximately 50 ‘customers’ were present in the hall at any one time with 10 actively being served (People apparently together were counted once)
The screens indicated the average waiting time for those without appointments was just over 30 minutes. For those with appointments it was close to zero. Given the apparent number of customers waiting and those being served the average waiting time was more likely to be nearer my own experience of 50 minute. The use of mutiple queues with apparently random numbers being called out of sequence did not instil confidence.
Let’s consider the economic impact of all that waiting. The mean weekly wage for a full time employee is about £501. Assuming there is an average 40 or so members of the public waiting/being served 8 hours per day for, say, 50 weeks a year then the potential cost to the economy is about £1m. Ok some are unemployed but then we have to add in the additional time taken to travel to the more distant customer service centre. What should have been a half hour return trip for this local resident turned into two hours.
Parking services may well have improved but unfortunately it does seems to be at the expense of the public’s time – particularly North Lambeth residents.
Anyone want to challenge that view?
rather confusingly the screen appeared to
