Should employees pay the full cost of parking at their workplaces?

[fredfelt]

whats really galling is consultants who are on a good wage get to park for free as do senior managers.
nurses hca's and junior docotrs don't get parking permits

So parking is already being offered as a perk to the better paid employees.

Another reason to think of car parking being a benefit. If accepted in this way it could be handed out more fairly.

 

[cybertect]

I was at a Parking Management conference the other day, and learned that the average cost of an employer maintaining a parking space for use by their employees is over £10 per day, in security, maintainence, capital costs of building the car park, and leasing costs of the land.

That's quite an increase over the DfT's figure of £300-500 per year quoted in the aforementioned BPA's Position Paper: Parking its role in workplace and school travel planning

In 2001, the DfT commissioned research into 20 organisations whose travel plans had achieved a range of reductions in car use from 6% to 66% in 2-4 years (Making Travel Plans Work). The aim of the research was to compare the effectiveness of different travel plan measures and strategies.

The research found that, in addition to reducing car use, there may be scope for employers to save money through travel plans. It suggested that in 2000, the average cost of maintaining a parking space was £300-£500 a year. By contrast, for the organisations in the study, the average cost of running a travel plan for each full-time employee was £47 a year.

 

[Mr T]

That's quite an increase over the DfT's figure of £300-500 per year quoted in the aforementioned BPA's Position Paper: Parking its role in workplace and school travel planning

I wonder if the difference might be "annual cost of leasing and maintaining parking space" vs "whole-life cost of buying, building, maintaining, securing and administrating parking space"?

Giles:
I mean, I just drove to my local Homebase, and came out with a desk, some large cans of paint, a hoover, a chair, etc etc. I couldn't have carried these home another way. The desk was the display one, and so was already assembled, so its a good job I had a Transit. Homebase presumably find it worthwhile to build a car park next to their shops. How is the non car owner subsidising them?

While, like Roryer, I tend to get big stuff from Homebase/Ikea etc delivered, I don't think that those are the kind of stores that are the target of his ire specifically. There are a lot of those retail-parks in which stores selling big/electrical goods are a minority, and shops selling clothes and cds predominate, which even my 88 year old gran could get home on the bus. I'm thinking specifically here of the Brent Cross South retail park - Next, TK Max, Game, Lakeland, Books Etc, 10 minutes walk from the nearest bus stop along roads some of which don't even have pavements, just off the North Circular. There's a similar one in Greenford (Ealing), with Boots, Sports Soccer and a couple of clothes shops, surrounded by a car park, with nothing else for some distance.

One issue that seems to have arisen in recent years is the reluctance/refusal of the chain stores to open shops that aren't enormous - this has exacerbated the tendency for town centre decline while the new build retail parks have grown on the outskirts of towns. Its also why the likes of Westfield have opened (with Stratford Westfield due by 2012), while town centres like eg Barking struggle to attract the big names, as the existing buildings are too small for the size of shops that the big retailers require. (I'm sure there will be people on urban saying "yeah but i only shop in charity shops and drink tea in the local cafe" and that may be fine for them but most people, myself included, like the big shops!)

 

[cybertect]

I wonder if the difference might be "annual cost of leasing and maintaining parking space" vs "whole-life cost of buying, building, maintaining, securing and administrating parking space"?

That still would have to be a hefty change in definition to make a difference of between 500% and 866% (assuming a year of 260 working days at £10 a day = £2600 p/a). If it's £10 a day for every day of the year, the annual cost is £3650. Or the companies leasing out the parking space are making a hell of a loss by not amortising the costs of construction over the life of the building.

I suppose it's possible that it could be up to £10 a day for somewhere like central London, but when you consider that you can get a month's parking at a commercial rate in central London (Butlers Wharf) for £3550.20, even that starts to look perhaps a little generous.

 

[Geri]

For exactly the same reason the people 'need their cars to do their job' I'm putting in expense claims for my clothes and shoes.

They're loss adjusters. Do you expect them to travel by bus?

 

[pk]

I was at a Parking Management conference the other day, and learned that the average cost of an employer maintaining a parking space for use by their employees is over £10 per day, in security, maintainence, capital costs of building the car park, and leasing costs of the land.

This is surely a perverse subsidy to drive, and raises questions over equity.

People who walk, cycle or take PT to work do not get an extra £10 a day in their salary even though they save their employers this much, but employers are happy to pay the £10 a day in parking costs for those employees who drive to work.

Should employees pay the real costs of parking at work?

It's not the role of the employer, it's more a government issue, to allow a tax break (only a slight one) for those who don't drive or take public transport.

Walking or cycling would be reimbursed, in some way, which would lead to great and important social change, as more people cycle and more people would look to working locally to be able to qualify, local communities would benefit and society will be cured of it's transient social illnesses overnight.

But they'll never do it. They don't have the

 

[softybabe]

]For exactly the same reason the people 'need their cars to do their job' I'm putting in expense claims for my clothes and shoes.[/B]

My office does not have any parking. Travel to work and back is up to the employees. If we started to pay for car parking we'd have to also pay for bus fares.

That's not exactly the same for essential car users like me...I need a car to perform my duty to vulnerable service users in the community...being able to use a free car park and parking permit is not a perk for me...and I dont put expense claims for my clothes and shoes either

 

[softybabe]

.

 

[softybabe]

.

 

[pk]

WOW, a hatrick!

Not seen one of them for a while... is your mouse broken, or do you just use a Windows PC?

 

[roryer]

Surely resident car owners pay for the parking scheme through their parking permits? How do non car owners subsidise them?
Giles..

If you live in a CPZ which charges about £800 a year for a permit I accept that you probably pay your way, looking at land prices in Ramsgate as a comparison, land with planning permission is selling for £666 per sq meter, so presumably if you wanted to buy a parking space in small towns in the UK it would cost about £10K. This would be on the edge of a town. If you live in a more central location, or in a big city the cost would be much greater. In fact £10K is the average capital cost of parking space in the UK.

My recommendations is that if anyone lives in a street with no parking permits and no car, or if parking permits are very cheap, see about parking an old camper van or caravan there.

You would need to road tax it too of course, but an extra bedroom or office would be easily pay you back.

 

[cybertect]

You would need to road tax it too of course, but an extra bedroom or office would be easily pay you back.

Unless you get caught.

Sleeping overnight while parked on the public highway would be illegal in England and Wales. You'd prior need permission from the landowner (i.e. the local authority or the Crown).

If you're using it for offices, it's possible you might fall foul of planning law.

 

[roryer]

Homebase presumably find it worthwhile to build a car park next to their shops. How is the non car owner subsidising them?

Giles..

The costs of parking at Homebase are paid through the profits of their sales. This means if we shop there without a car we subsidise car users, as the price of their goods is devised to cover their costs or which store rental and parking provision are included.

There is however no doubt that locations away from the high street have much lower land rental prices, which allows shops to offer free parking. As you state, this can be convenient for car owners, although in most cases lack of PT means it is often inconvenient for the car free.

It also reinforces car dependency, attracting car free people to buy a car. This means that congestion levels around car parking based shopping outlets can often mean there are no actual time savings for car users over high street shopping.

However the very popularity of this model in turn leads to a hollowing out of high street shopping as low margin stores like green grocers, fish mongers, butchers etc are forced to close.

This further reinforces car dependency.

Since car dependency worldwide each day requires 5.8 million tonnes of oil and kills 3000 mainly poor and non-motorised citizens. This is one of the primary causes of global warming and resource depletion.

I therefore assert that the cost of free parking is fairly high.

 

[softybabe]

WOW, a hatrick!

Not seen one of them for a while... is your mouse broken, or do you just use a Windows PC?

'tis a touch pad and i got heavy handed with it

 

[cybertect]

The costs of parking at Homebase are paid through the profits of their sales. This means if we shop there without a car we subsidise car users, as the price of their goods is devised to cover their costs or which store rental and parking provision are included.

Conversely, you might argue that the increased sales generated by shoppers with cars allows the stores to buy in larger bulk and therefore obtain larger discounts on their supplies, thus lowering prices to all of their customers, including those who don't use their cars.

This is probably the view taken by Homebase and other companies with similar markets.

 

[fredfelt]

They're loss adjusters. Do you expect them to travel by bus?

No. Right from the start I said the employers should not be forced to make employees pay for their parking. Each case is different. If you need to use your car to do your work then it's obviously out of order to charge for that.

Where as in my office if we made an exception to pay for parking for just one employee that would be an extra £1,000 directed to that employee over everyone else who chooses not to drive. That would not be fair.