BPA governance You feel like you are in the presence of greatness in Council meetings, with all the knowledge and experience in the room. I just want to soak it all up its just amazing I have been involved with the BPA Council for many I have been on the BPA Council since its inception, years now, and enjoy seeing change, particularly and re-applied to continue working with the BPA at this technological change, which moves at a fast pace. particularly uncertain time in respect of the Private The BPA offers a forum for sharing this knowledge, Parking Code of Practice. Our client base is varied; and provides members with this connection however, I see myself as a representative of the to discuss, share and apply new technologies, smaller operators who otherwise would not have which can, in the end, improve the parking journey a voice. for consumers. I want to continuing working with the Board I enjoy representing and promoting the Yorkshire to lobby government on debt-recovery fees and and Humberside region, and helping local members get parking charge values, and I want to help operators the most from the meetings by creating on-point agendas to understand and comply with the new Code of Practice. I Richard Boultbee share knowledge and good practice. This can only be of benefit am also looking forward to working with the new BPA Council to our professional development, and will improve services in the region in members and hearing their views, especially around our work to continue to the long run. raise standards. I remember setting up for a BPA conference and helping one of my At ZZPS, we have been honoured to win both the Parking Team of old friends wheel a parking terminal into the building. He thought I had the Year and the Back Office Team of the Year at the British Parking it balanced; I thought he did. It fell flat on its face and smashed! Back in Awards, which is testament to the standards we set internally. I was the van it went and we displayed one less machine that day. It was a real equally honoured to win the BPAs Lifetime Achievement Award. Chuckle Brothers moment! Richard Boultbee, Yorkshire and Humber regional representative I spent 10 years in local government, as an engineer turned parking manager, before moving to Metric Group, supplying technology to the UK and international markets for 14 years. Following this, I started up International Parking Systems (IPS), turning it into an award-winning multi-million turnover company in four years, and establishing a strong foothold in the market. Most recently, I spent a year at Creative Car Park, helping transform the sales force into a high-performing team. So I have seen most sides of the parking industry to this point. Steven Foster, parking services manager at Newcastle City Council, and North East regional representative Steven Foster Like so many people, I fell into parking. After school, I joined McDonalds, working my way up to assistant manager. One day, someone left a local newspaper on a table, with a job for a parking officer job circled. It paid more and appealed to me it was chance to get out of working in a hot kitchen. On my first day, my feet were bleeding from all the walking around in new Dr Martens boots, but I absolutely loved it. The rest, as they say, is history: I became 32 PN Sept 2022 pp30-33 Council Members.indd 32 22/08/2022 09:34