Local authority news Updates from councils across the UK New charging hub opens in Oxfordshire A new electric vehicle (EV) charging hub has opened at Cherwell District Councils Cattle Market car park in the heart of Bicester. Motorists can charge up using one of the 12 new fast 7-22kw EV charging points. The 5.2m Park and Charge Oxfordshire programme is among the delivered by a consortium of local partners including Oxfordshire County Council and Cherwell District Council. owned car parks to have an EV charging hub installed this year under the scheme. A series of events took place in the Cattle Market car park in June to introduce residents to the scheme and offer EV test drives. Llewelyn Morgan, head of innovation at Oxfordshire County Councils iHub, said: Interest in EV ownership is increasing, but one factor holding people back is the inability to easily charge them outside their home. Park and Charge Oxfordshire offers an alternative solution by allowing residents to park for free overnight in council-owned car parks, while giving access to top-of-therange electric charging points. Oxfordshire County Council is committed to going carbon neutral as an authority by 2030 and helping the county to go zero carbon by 2050. Innovative schemes like this one will help create the infrastructure that will make it easier for people to change their lifestyles. Read more about Park and Charge Oxfordshire in Aprils Parking News: bit.ly/PNJul21Ox BCPs multivendor parking scheme Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council has become the second local authority in the UK to introduce a three-way multivendor platform for cashless parking payments. Motorists can now choose between three cashless solutions RingGo, PayByPhone and JustPark that are all available at each of BCPs parking locations. Councillor Mike Greene, portfolio holder for transport and sustainability at BCP, said: This initiative should make things simpler for everyone, as they dont need to match the location to a particular provider, and it gives users the chance to find the cheapest, most convenient app for them. BCPs scheme is only the second three-way multivendor offering in the UK Cambridgeshire County Council launched one in April 2019, in which RingGo and JustPark also feature. The council also benefits from no longer having to carry out regular procurement processes for digital, cashless and permit. Peter ODriscoll, managing director for RingGo, said: Everyone has their preferred apps for music, banking and searching the internet why should parking be any different? Easing the process for motorists, so they use their favourite app wherever they are saving time and avoiding the need to download another app makes sense. It makes sense for councils too, and we anticipate that many more will follow suit over the coming months. Demand ramps up Many tourist destinations reported huge numbers of visitors over the late May bank holiday and during the warmer weather experienced in June, putting pressure on parking facilities and causing congestion. During the 12/13 June weekend, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council issued 810 parking tickets, promoting one Twitter user to comment our traffic wardens have been heroes. Councillor Drew Mellor, leader of BCP Council, said: We were very pleased that there was a real improvement on the scenes witnessed last year. We did see an increase in those choosing to park irresponsibly and our enforcement team issued more parking tickets yesterday than on the busiest day last year. We will continue to look at how we can improve our efforts on this one area that is still causing significant problems. Rother Council took to social media to inform people that the pre-book parking at West Wittering beach was full and if they found themselves in a queue for places such as Camber Sands, to consider going elsewhere. There were chaotic parking scenes reported at other places including Porthcurno in Cornwall, Foremark Reservoir in Derbyshire, and in the Lake District, where emergency services struggled to reach a boating accident in Wastwater because of congestion and badly parked vehicles. Phase 2 for Glasgow LEZ A statutory consultation on Phase 2 of Glasgows low emission zone (LEZ) was due to open last month. A phased approach to the LEZ was adopted to give people time to prepare. Phase 1 (in place since 2018) applies to local buses only, whereas Phase 2 will include all vehicles entering the zone, unless exempt. Phase 2 is dependent on legislation, the progress of which was temporarily impacted by Covid-19. This means that enforcement of this second phase is now expected to be from 1 June 2023. To find out more, go to glasgow.gov.uk/LEZ 12 britishparking.co.uk PN July 2021 pp12-13 LA News.indd 12 25/06/2021 11:39 m199