Resident Parking Permit Improvements

Overview

Over the past year and a half, Kensington and Chelsea Council has introduced virtual (paperless) parking permits as a temporary measure in response to the Covid 19 pandemic.

This has had benefits for the environment and for customers, so we are now consulting on whether we should move permanently to issuing virtual parking permits.

So far, during the temporary scheme, some of the benefits have included:

• Faster service for residents, who do not need to attend the Customer Service Centre in person or wait for their permit by post.
• Environmental benefits, saving paper, printing and delivery emissions.
• The ability to activate the permit as soon as the application has been approved.
• Making quick and simple changes to permits, such as when a resident needs to transfer their permit to a different vehicle.
• Parking enforcement officers can check resident permit data for vehicles immediately.
• Safer process with less risk of fraud because there is no physical permit in the vehicle which could be stolen, altered or copied.

We received some feedback regarding the lack of a physical permit in the vehicle, this consisted of three main themes:

• Residents who wanted to know if a vehicle was parked illegally in their residents’ bays (this happened more during the height of the pandemic when we were providing free parking to critical key workers in resident and pay-by-phone bays and the pressure was greater on street).
• Residents who had forgotten or did not know when their resident permit had expired and wanted a visual reminder (the pdf mentioned below can be printed by residents to aid with this. Again, most of these complaints were during the height of the pandemic when people were not able to access our services or receive postal reminders as easily).
• Residents who have received a PCN because they are parked in a Westminster bay that is shared with RBKC on boundary roads (the pdf can be displayed in residents’ vehicles confirming the validity of the permit).

The feedback we have been given following the introduction of this temporary measure has been used to shape the following consultation which will be used to help us decide if we should permanently adopt virtual parking permits.

As we have been operating with virtual permits temporarily for more than 18 months now, we have already received some feedback from residents. If virtual permits are permanently adopted, we will:

• Provide a PDF of your permit to print and use
  We have received feedback from residents that parking on boundary roads in Westminster City Council (WCC) parking bays can be problematic without a physical permit. After consultation with WCC, we propose amending the resident permit application process so that a PDF of your parking permit can be sent to you. You can print this at home or contact the Customer Services Team to ask for it to be printed on your behalf.
   
• Advise residents when their Parking Permit expiry date is approaching
  We know some residents may miss the visual reminder of having their expiry date printed on the permit in their windscreen. We will also send you a reminder six weeks in advance of your permit expiry by email and/ or post. You can also print and keep a copy of the pdf for your permit which contains your expiry date if you wish to refer to it.

The results of this consultation will be submitted to the Lead Member for Planning, Place and Environment who will consider all comments made before making a final decision.

Why your views matter

We would like to gather your views on the ideas which have already been fedback, but also on any other ideas which you would like to see included. We would appreciate it if you could please spend a few minutes answering the survey at the bottom of this page.

If you do not want to feedback on any of the areas in the survey, please leave them blank. This survey will run for a period of six weeks and will close on Sunday 23 January 2022.

We want to ensure anyone can contribute towards this consultation. However, as residents who have a parking permit will be most affected by these proposals, we will give more weight to the responses by residents who have a current permit as they will be most affected by the proposal. We will be asking for vehicle registration numbers in this survey to help us understand who has a parking permit. This information will not be used to identify you.

Information about how your data will be processed can be found at the end of the survey. If you have any queries, require a paper copy of the background information on the website or require assistance in other languages, please contact the Parking Service using the contact details in the 'Contact' section of this page.