Foreword
Councillor Kevin Buck Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Parking.
It is my pleasure to present Southend City Council Annual Report for Parking Services for 2022/23.
The report gives an insight into various performance indicators and financial information which include comparative data for previous years. The Council places a strong emphasis on transparency, and it is our unwavering commitment to provide an open view into our parking operations.
As part of this commitment, we intend to publish our parking and enforcement report on an annual basis. This regular publication ensures that our local community and other stakeholders remain informed about the changes we have implemented and those we are contemplating for the future. Our goal is to foster a greater understanding and engagement with our parking services to better serve our community.
Vision for 2023/24
My vision for Southend is a place that people want to come to live in, that is a 'go to' destination for visitors, that makes travelling and parking easy and affordable. As we transition to zero emissions vehicles over the coming decade, public electric vehicle charging infrastructure will be key to achieving this objective. We also have excellent rail links to the city via two well served rail lines. I want to capitalise on these to encourage more to use them and to reduce car journeys into the city.
We remain committed to maintaining free evening parking all year round for the central seafront area to encourage more local visitors and to support our local businesses. The notion of punitive evening parking charges is damaging to our local economy, impacts local residents the most and will put local jobs at risk.
We are progressing with creating additional parking spaces in high footfall areas, such as the central seafront. With work to commence soon on the Marine Parade flood attenuation work, this will also include some new zero emissions parking and EV charging bays.
We will also be rolling out more EV charging infrastructure - to become more prominent and available within our car parks. We will also consider the introduction of on-street charging points in residential areas where practicable. Residential charging will be key to the zero-emissions vehicle transition.