Question from: John Leake, General Manager, Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus
What car parking policy do people apply – allocated spaces only, no space allocations or a mix of both (and if so what sort of mix)?

I have always used unallocated car parking (other than for disabled, delivery and emergency vehicles) coupled with car identification badges. The rationale being that:
- the SP Management Team has more productive things to do than be traffic wardens
- that allocated spaces require 30% greater capacity per sqm (and potentially a large number of them unused!)
I appreciate however that if there are restrictions on the number of places you can have (perhaps from planners) or if your site is available to the public (or has a neighbour with a larger number of staff), this may not be of much help! Dr Eulian J F Roberts, Chief Executive, Qatar Science & Technology Park

So you have the 'poisoned chalice'!? If we had our time over again I wouldn’t allocate any spaces, other than loading areas/disabled bays, etc. Once you allocate you have to police so the onus then is handed to the landlord. We have a mixture of allocated/communal because the BIC is spread over 7 phases with different layouts and planning restrictions. Some of the longer term tenants have allocated spaces built in to their tenancy agreements (wouldn’t do that again!) If there is one access point to the Centre it is much easier to develop a firm policy, we have 6 so it’s a bit more problematic. Good luck in your endeavours and try to 'delegate' the responsibility! David Howell, Director of Operations, North East BIC

Car parking – oh what joy. I also took advice from many quarters on this and the responses were overwhelmingly in favour of permitting without precise space allocations. This allows you to issue more permits than spaces and ensure that all spaces are used. If you allocate individual spaces you will have redundancy. We also encourage permit sharing so that more people can access permits. Yes it takes some administration to set up, but once operating is easy. I currently allocate 1.3 permits per space and state that the permit is a right to hunt not a right to park. Believe it or not – it works. Because people know there are 130% of permits issued they feel they have more permits for their company than they would have otherwise, plus they understand the redundancy issue. After all, many of them have hot desking policies – its just the same thing with parking spaces. Dr Caroline Livingstone, Business Manager and Administrator, Oxford University Begbroke Science Park

We specifically don't allocate for two reasons:
1. The inevitable slack that accumulates across several businesses on a daily basis is fully utilised by the whole building. At our main site we don't even mark up Visitor parking, though we have at the Satellite Incubators.
2. Allocated parking spaces can attract Rates I believe.
We have the advantage that the bulk of buildings were planned when car parking was more generous allowing 1 place per 200/250 sq ft rather than the more typical 350sqft now. Ultimately I suspect you will have to go to allocated parking and sanctions (clampers, barriers, etc.) to placate frustrated tenants unless you have additional parking very close by. David Grindrod, University of Warwick Science Park

Response: 18.04.2007
Nearly all our tenants (97% by staff numbers) are on monthly licence agreement arrangements rather than leases. The licence agreements only promise 'access to car parks', not commitment to allocated spaces (or indeed definite availability). With ever-tightening planning regulations restricting the amount of car-parking space allowed to be constructed pro-rata to the lettable areas of the buildings, allocation of specific spaces does not really make sense. If this is done you would likely find space wasted when the designated space owners are off-site and a queue of people trying to find somewhere else unmarked to park. We thus find working on an open-access basis is best – this allows use of spaces to be optimised by ensuring that no spaces are wasted. It generally seems to work OK and is accepted by tenants. We do get odd moans when we get a bit full and someone has to walk from their car the full distance from the far end of the car park to their building, but it is hard to sympathise with this – they are very lucky compared to a business or shopping trip in the middle of a large city or town! Andrew Gilson, Operations Director, Wolverhampton Science Park I always applied the 'first come first served' principle, but kept a clause in the property agreements/park/centre handbook that stated that car parking may be subject to the requirement to hold parking permits at our convenience. I know others have used allocated spaces which is often not very efficient. Better to allocate a set number of permits to each client (the total adding up to the spaces) and let them find their own space. However, policing can be an issue. This will get harder to cope with as green travel plans and Highways Agency bite. Dr Gavin Wonnacott, Head of Business Incubation, South West of England Regional Development Agency At St Peter’s Gate, we have free car parking in every sense because it is a great attraction these days and because we are also a conference centre and it would be hard to charge delegates. The University has agreed to allow this opt-out from their system which is an annual payment of £80 for a parking disk and then pay and display at 20p an hour.
At The Industry Centre, my other building further off-campus, there is also free parking but I have just allowed one company to pay for 2 reserved parking spaces for which they are paying £100 a month. I decided that was the maximum I would allow any company to reserve (they would have been happy to pay for 6 at £50 each) as again it is a conference centre as well and sufficient parking on busy days is already an issue. Even free car parking needs to be policed, maintained and kept clean so there is still a cost to the Park. We have a caretaker who acts as traffic warden now to keep the students out. At St Peter’s Gate, there is an opportunity near us to park on the road, which the students take full advantage of. If I tried to charge tenants, there would be a significant percentage who would then park on the road, leaving me with an empty car park and it would detract from the Park, when other business centres nearby are offering free parking. If you can charge for parking, I think you should – it helps towards your environmental policy if it dissuades drivers from using their cars. Julia Macfarlane, St Peter's Gate Manager I managed two business centres and our policy is no specific spaces for anyone, including myself. The rational behind this was based on 2 main points:
1. Policing it would be time-consuming, costly and almost likely problematic.
2. As both our business centres also offer ad hoc meeting and training facilities it was likely that visitors to the centres wouldn’t know where to park.
Simply avoiding designated spaces seems to be the most cost-effective and least problematic solution. Joy Jardine, Centre Manager, Ettrick Riverside/Tweed Horizons We include one specifically designated space per company immediately outside the relevant building (ie. where they have their office/lab) within the ‘deal’. It is up to the company who is allowed to use it but the space is usually occupied a director or whoever is head of the company. The spaces are numbered (not named) and companies are told which number they may use. In my experience it is important to emphasise that these spaces are only ‘designated’ rather than ‘reserved’ and that no guarantees are given regarding availability. Everyone else parks on a first come, first served basis on the main car park. We have tried other permutations on this model in the past but have found that the policing of reserved spaces is just not worth the hassle. We do not currently charge for parking (neither staff nor visitors). Hope this helps, but feel free to get in touch if you would like further info. Patricia Marshall, Research Park Manager, Birmingham Research Park Ltd Always a thorny issue! As we are on a University campus, we give tenants 2 parking permits per unit, which allows them to park anywhere on campus, with no designated spaces. If they need additional permits, they pay for them. In addition, we have 3 spaces which are controlled by the Reception staff for visitors and suppliers/customers of the companies, as there is often a problem with spaces for them. Mike Day, Commercial Manager, Technium Digital We allocate parking at a rate of one per office (despite its size), but for larger offices at a rate of approximately 1 extra for each additional 500 sq ft. We have just 6 visitor car parking spaces. This seems to work but of course if we had ten times as many spaces, it still wouldn't be enough! Tracy Robinson, Business Manager, Leeds Innovation Centre Our Innovation Centre serves about 35 tenant companies with about 150+ staff based here altogether. We also service a number of conferences of up to 50-60 delegates, although not that large on a regular basis. We have a small, un-barriered visitor car park for about 10-12 vehicles immediately adjacent to Reception. We try to keep this available for visitors to our tenant companies and also for conference visitors, although our tenants tend to (mis-)use it unless we are vigilant! We also have a barrier-controlled car park with about 40 spaces to the side of the building for our tenants; this is controlled by swipe access so our tenants can let themselves in and out; we can also let in contractors as we have CCTV coverage of the entrance and a control button. Our situation here is different to many as we are based on campus. One of the reasons we put in the car park barrier is that it prevents other people misusing our parking facility, but if our car park fills up there is usually overspill available somewhere reasonably nearby on campus for our people. Tim Bacon, Centre Manager, Loughborough Innovation Centre