Two out of three users of district car parks pay by RingGo.

Parking is an issue that is never far from visitors or locals minds. When the sun shines across our district we are blessed with visitors and locals who fill all 26 Council Car Parks and spend their money in our district. For locals the issue of parking, is a constant theme in many planning applications.

Car parks 2024 – Google My Maps

Purple icons are for long stay car parks, green icons are for short stay and grey icons are car parks with free parking. Car parks marked with a plug icon have charging points for electric cars.

Our homage and reliance on cars discourages us from using other modes of transport, eg buses, trains, bikes, etc, but that said they do bring our Council a significant income via the car parks the cars park in.

In 2022/23, 66% of all people who used one of our Council’s car parks paid using the RingGo app. RingGo is owned by Easy Park Group AS and is based in Olso, Norway. EasyPark Group is owned by the investment firms Verdane and Vitruvian Partners as well as the Group Management. As is clear from the chart below people prefer to pay by RingGo. This has been the case for the last four financial years.

In 2019/20 all car parks brought in £1,377,657, according to Council data. In 20/21, the car park income fell to £992,512, a fall of 28%, or £385,145 on the previous year. In 21/22, the income from the car park rose as visitors returned and price increases took the Council car park income to £1,528,333; which was a 54% increase on the previous year. The latest data shows a modest 14% increase from the previous year bringing in £1,744,785 across all 26 Council owned car parks.

All Council council car parks are patrolled by parking enforcement officers. In 2022/23, parking enforcement officers (PEO) issued 5,003 parking charge notices (PCN), across all 26 car parks in the district. The car park which saw PEO issue the most PCNs was Upper Payers Park Cark park where 827 PCNs were issued. 

The number of PCNs issued in all district car parks amounted to £187,927. However, this was not the full income collected, as some PCNs are written off and/or canceled, due to errors or after due consideration by the council. The Council wrote off or canceled £39,034 worth of PCNs in 2022/23 issued in our car parks. Also as of the 1 April 2023, the outstanding amount owed to the Council for PCNs was £28,492.

 

So taken all together, the amount of money made from all car parks across the district is £1,744,785 + £117,482 = £1,862,267.

If you need to park, then do so responsibly as otherwise, a PCN can ruin your day. And just remember all this money goes towards front line services run by the Council, which at the moment are all facing potential cuts. 

The Shepway Vox Team

The Velvet Voices of Voxatiousness