Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): I welcome, from the Department for Infrastructure, David Porter, director of engineering; Stephen Hughes, head of engineering policy; and Laura Irvine, head of transport policy. I think that this is your first time at the Committee. You are all welcome, and we appreciate your time with us today

Are members content that the evidence be recorded by Hansard?

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): Thank you for joining us today. We have your written evidence and your report, which I found really interesting. I invite you to make a brief presentation of up to five minutes to introduce why you are up here today, and then we will have members' questions.

Mr David Porter (Department for Infrastructure): Thank you, Chair and Committee, for the opportunity to talk about residents' parking. You have the report. It has taken some time for us to produce it, because it is a complex issue. In many respects, it strikes to the heart of the role that the road in front of a house plays in society, particularly when it comes to ownership. In some cases, such as with the strategic road network, the role that the M1 plays is clear, and nobody would question that. Equally, there tends to be less of an issue with our city centre streets, because their purpose is clear. There is a space between those two examples, however, where the purpose of the road is less clear. It is clear that people who own properties, residential properties in particular, feel that sense of ownership of the space in front of them. In some cases, that boils over and causes problems.

The Department can react to that in different ways. We can introduce traffic regulations to control the use of that space: for example, we can put in two-hour or four-hour waiting, and, in some ways, that deals with the situation. There are, however, other very residential areas and streets, particularly in urban areas, where you get traffic using those streets to park in order not to be caught up in the traffic regulations or not to pay for the provision that is there. That type of parking becomes a bit of a nuisance, particularly for people in residential areas. It is really the nuisance parking that is at the heart of this.

In order to address the situation, the Department introduced a policy in 2017. There have been many attempts — nine, in fact — to introduce residents' parking schemes here, only one of which we have managed to get on the ground. The review report does not just focus on the success; it looks at the other eight attempts and widens our consideration to see what others have done. Is the problem with our policy or with our approach? How can we make this a little better so that we can deal with the nuisance element of parking?

The report concludes that the policy is OK and is broadly similar to what others do. The scheme that we have on the ground is welcomed by residents. When we get a scheme delivered, it seems to address the issue of nuisance parking. The difficulty is around the process. The design and implementation of schemes is labour-intensive, as is the engagement with communities. Going through that process, you get a sense of that. We looked at some examples where we had built consensus, further work was done, and we kicked it on to the next stage. At that point, we had hoped that we were going to get a scheme across the line. In subsequent stages of the development of schemes, however, because of the design elements or the consensus required, officials were frustrated that we could not get schemes on the ground. It becomes, then, in some cases, quite a contentious matter, and we are dragged into issues. In that situation, the approach to date has been to back off some of those schemes.

The report tries to set out a context in which we can make the process a bit easier; in particular, it uses the words "inform, explain and reassure". Rather than a perpetual process of redesign and trying to deal with every possible query or issue in order to get consensus, the Minister is keen for us to inform people about a scheme, explain the rationale for it, give reassurance that it is OK and push on. There is a slight change from the perpetual attempt to work towards ultimate acceptance to being slightly more robust in our approach.

The context for that robustness is important: this is not a recommendation for dictatorship. The approach needs to sit in the context of the transport strategy and transport plans. The transport plans will set out a vision of how our towns and cities will work, and the context of parking and residents' parking could be defined within that. You could have a transport plan for Belfast that states, "In these large areas, these are the residential areas. We will limit parking there and bring forward residents' parking", and that will set the overall context.

We need to be careful. The example — in my head, anyway — is nice and clean and tidy. When we talk about Belfast, certainly inner Belfast and the city centre, it is clear that that is the commercial core, and there are easily identifiable residential areas. You can clearly see where the nuisance parking could exist and the significant facilities that attract people, such as Queen's University. In the Belfast context, it is easy to say, "This is how we would like the city to develop. Here is the context of parking and how residents' parking fits in".

It is less clear when you go to some of our rural towns. One example in my mind is Ballymoney, where we have had a request for a residents' parking scheme. You can identify the core, which is the main street in Ballymoney. That is the easy bit. It is harder to identify the nuisance bit and where you would draw a line around it. With residents' parking, you do not want just to displace the problem. Small-scale schemes will probably be on the scale of what we did behind Queen's in Rugby Road. That was a pilot project to test the process, but, in practice, it just displaced the problem. It moved the cars parking in the Rugby Road area to parking in the adjacent street. You could end up needing to have another residents' parking scheme and then another. That is where the strategic context is all-important for the likes of Belfast. When we go into our rural towns, it is more challenging to make sure that we do not just solve one problem, make one group of residents more content because they have a residents' parking scheme and simply displace the problem. The scale is important. It is about getting to the core of the problem that we are trying to solve and finding the solution.

The report commits, in the interim, to continuing with the two schemes that have started — one in Belfast and one in Derry/Londonderry — and looking at the emerging problems that we see in and around the new Ulster University campus in Belfast and the Magee campus. That is the to-do list defined in the report. A team has been set up to look at where else, out of the long list of schemes that have been requested, there are justifiable and viable schemes that are likely to gain consensus and deal with some of the nuisance parking that we see.

With that, I shall pause. We are happy to answer any questions.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): Great. Thank you. It seems like a niche area, but it is important to look at nuisance parking, particularly in relation to disabled people and their ability to move about on pavements and so on. It is also important for traffic management, which we are all aware of at the moment. Thank you for that information.

Before looking at some of the points that you made, I want to pick up on a point of clarity: you said that the policy was introduced in 2017, but your paper says 2007.

Mr Porter: Sorry, it is 2007. Apologies.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): I just wanted to pick that up as a matter of clarity. I will come back to that in a moment.

Mr Porter: It is wrong in my notes. Apologies.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): No problem. I will come back to that in a moment.

I wanted to pick up on your point about finding and scoping out areas and the baseline criteria needed to decide whether an area is one where you might be able to intervene in relation to residents' parking. What I might see as nuisance parking in an area where I work may not be a nuisance for somebody else. It can be subjective, given what could be happening outside your front door. What are the baseline criteria that you look at when, say, elected representatives or residents come to the Department and say that they have a problem?

Ms Laura Irvine (Department for Infrastructure): We have established a new team to look at that. It looks at the review's outcomes on the simplification of the process and at how the Department assesses requests. Obviously, we have areas that have been strategically identified, maybe through transport plans or schemes such as Belfast Rapid Transit (BRT), but there is also significant interest in schemes from residents and elected representatives across Northern Ireland.

We are considering what the minimum criteria could look like. We want to ensure that any process is fair and, as David said, scalable so that we are not addressing something in one area and potentially causing an issue somewhere else. We also have limited resources, so we need to figure out a way to ensure that we prioritise schemes in a way that is not only fair but achieves value for money for the Department. We are actively looking at that and taking it forward as a priority.

Mr Stephen Hughes (Department for Infrastructure): We also do parking surveys to identify problems caused by people from outside the area. That is where you get into the labour-intensive element of this. You start early in the morning and survey the whole day to make sure that you are picking up that the cars causing the problem are from outside the area. There are criteria in the policy for what constitutes a problem for residents' parking.

Mr Porter: We use a similar approach to assess accessible or disabled parking bays. We use the same type of traffic survey to establish whether there is a traffic problem, albeit this is more complex, in that you are also worried not only about whether there is a parking problem but about where the cars are from.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): OK. When was the new team put in place to look at this and assess what is coming down the track? What are the figures? How many requests do you have? What size is the team — your resource?

Ms Irvine: The team has been in place for only the last few weeks. We are looking not just at residents' parking but at issues such as inconsiderate parking, which is linked to pavement parking issues. At the moment, the Department has approximately 230 requests from across Northern Ireland for residents' parking schemes, separate from the schemes that David mentioned. That is a significant number. We are trying to determine how best to assess those as quickly as possible but in a way that ensures that everyone is aware of what that will look like. We are working on that as a priority.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): It might be useful for the Committee to have an idea of where those schemes are across Northern Ireland. Are they in urban or rural constituencies? If you could provide that to the Committee, that would be good. The 230 figure is huge, especially considering that the new team has been in place for only a matter of weeks.

That brings me back to the point that I was going to make about 2007. The fact that we are sitting in 2025 looking at the policy makes me wonder why there has been such a delay in reviewing the schemes. Is it because there needed be that length of time? We have heard about resource being a problem. I am keen to understand why we are pretty much 20 years down the line.

Mr Hughes: In 2007, we were being directed by the Belfast metropolitan area plan (BMAP). We were looking at schemes in the Belfast core area: the Markets, Sandy Row, Donegall Pass and Bank Square. We looked at those and talked to residents, and that all takes time. You are talking to residents, looking for consensus and then signing up schemes. However, at that stage, those schemes floundered because we could not get enough response from the areas.

There was then a bit of a cessation, and we were told, "Go back and ask them again", so we started the engagement process again. That took a couple of years, so time is quickly moving on. After the second round of engagement, it was decided to look at other areas, and we looked at Lower Malone, Stranmillis and Rugby Road and went through the same process: from local engagement to signing up to schemes and things like that. It all took time. We got consensus for the Rugby Road scheme to go ahead. I cannot remember the figures off the top of my head, but the Rugby Road scheme itself took the guts of, I think, five years to implement because of the amount of engagement that we had to undertake with residents — there was a series of engagements. There was a series of redesigns in that process as well. The Rugby Road scheme came into effect in about 2018, and we reviewed it during the two or three years that it was in place.

Mr Porter: It is not that there has been no activity since the policy was introduced. Lots of attempts were made, but only one was successful. That was brought in in 2018 and ran for a few years, and that is what triggered the review, "Right, now that we actually have one on the ground, what are the lessons learned, and do we need to change the policy?". The policy was OK; our issues were the process, the perpetual redesign and chasing after or building consensus.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): So, 2018 is 11 years down the line from the policy introduction in 2007. I read the residents' feedback about the scheme, and it is positive. Do you expect that the process in the other 230 schemes that you are looking at will be easier as a result of the long review and the learning by the Department? I think also of the technological change since 2007. Do you envisage that it will be easier to get those schemes rolled out as a result of the learning that you now have from that engagement, and could the process be less resource-intensive?

Mr Porter: It simply has to be, because we do not have the capacity or resource to chase schemes that we do not have a high degree of certainty will get across the line. Therefore, we need to make the initial stage of the process, which is establishing whether there is consensus, more straightforward — that is an on-off switch — or to streamline the process as we go through it. That is where, the Minister said, we need to "inform, explain and reassure". Let us arrive at the right solution or at what we believe is the right solution. Let us have that consultation, make tweaks where possible, commit to that and get it on the ground as opposed to continually refining. Those refining processes do not make a scheme any cheaper or easier.

If we are serious about seeing this as a way of changing people's behaviour and reducing the dominance of private cars in towns and cities, we need to have more of these schemes. They need to become more established, and people need to recognise that it is not OK just to drive into every city or town centre and assume that you will be allowed to park. More constraints are needed in order for people to make different and more sustainable choices. That is part of this, but, as I said, if we do it on such a small scale, it will not affect the modal shift, because, if you cannot park in one place, you will just go into the next street. It needs to fit into a broader approach that makes it clear that we are genuine about tackling the dominance of private cars.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): I will not hog the rest of the time. I will move to members. Deputy Chair, do you want to come in?

Mr Stewart: Thank you very much for coming along today and for the information that you have shared. The Chair has covered some of the key points. I want to go into an issue that is potentially a bit more niche. Hopefully, you will be able to cover it.

Laura, you talked about the team looking at inconsiderate parking, pavement parking and illegal parking. Nowhere is that more prevalent than outside schools. I can think of about 15 or 20 examples in which residents from my constituency have contacted me to say that they feel like hostages in their own home four or five times a day. The reason for that could be poor planning around the schools when the developments were built or the fact that a lot of schools were built before cars even existed and the infrastructure has not kept up. I get those calls daily. The reality is that, if an ambulance or fire engine needed to get into those areas at certain times of the day — not to mention residents finding parking — it would not be able to do so. Is the team that has been set up looking at that? What can be done to alleviate the problems that we see daily outside our schools?

Ms Irvine: On inconsiderate parking, we are looking at the outcomes of the review undertaken a number of years ago and the three options within those. Whilst schools are not necessarily a specific consideration at this stage, that issue will be looked at as part of that wider departmental approach.

Mr Stewart: May I ask that it will be? I am sure that I speak for the rest of my colleagues when I say that it is chaos outside many of our schools. We see people parking on double yellow lines without enforcement, parking in residents' driveways, parking in disabled bays and double and triple parking on a main road, all just to get little Jimmy to school on time. When, as elected reps, we raise the issue on behalf of residents, it feels as though we go round in circles. We contact the police — nothing happens; we contact DFI — nothing happens; and we spend years trying to get through the process of getting wavy lines and double yellow lines, but nothing ever seems to get sorted. This is the policy that covers it.

Rightly, residents complain about illegal parking and inconsiderate parking, and they feel as though they are hostages in their own home. I would like to see an acknowledgement that that is a key, critical problem that needs to be solved. I appreciate that it is difficult — if it were not, we would have solved it by now — but we need to acknowledge how important it is

Mr Porter: You are right, John. The Department can bring in legislation that states that particular wavy lines are now mandatory and that, in law, drivers must stay off them. Enforcement is more difficult.

Mr Stewart: Exactly.

Mr Porter: It is difficult to have somebody from the PSNI or a traffic attendant at all of those schools at all of those times. Plus, it is a short-term problem at drop-off and pickup times.

Mr Stewart: It is a regular problem.

Mr Porter: I accept that it is a regular problem. Sometimes, you see schools putting out signs and encouraging their parents to be more considerate, and you will see a slight improvement. Then, however, a new school year begins, and the situation reverts to what it had been. Part of this is the message that we need to put out across society: think before you park.

Mr Stewart: Exactly.

Mr Porter: As a society, we seem to have become very selfish when it comes to driving and parking, and we need to find a way of changing that. Part of it is legislation, absolutely; part of it is residents' parking; part of it is enforcement; and part of it is "Keep clear" areas at schools. However, an equally large part is an appeal to communities and drivers: "For goodness' sake, think about other people when you are driving". There are things that are impossible to enforce because of the scale of the problem. It is so widespread that we need to change people's attitudes to speeding and parking.

Mr Stewart: I totally agree. The resource issue is massive. I get that the police cannot be everywhere; neither can the redcoats or your officials. We are dealing with people who, for 99% of the day, are rational, but, when it comes to the school run, everything is up for grabs, including claiming the closest spot. An awareness campaign from the Department, maybe working with the schools and residents, would be useful in continuing to raise the issue. At least there would be an acknowledgement to the residents that something is being tried, because, at the minute, they feel totally forgotten and demoralised.

Mr Porter: We rerun the Think Before You Park campaign. That is a routine campaign in DFI. You are right that parking in and around a school might be a good example to target at some point.

Mr Stewart: That is all, Chair. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): Sometimes, when you repeat a message, it loses its meaning, so it might be worth looking at that. It is relevant.

Mr Dunne: Thanks for your presentation, folks. I appreciate the challenges, and some good points have been made. The issue has been talked about for so long up here. It is coming up to 18 years since the policy was first introduced in 2007. To have only one scheme fully operational, albeit that progress has been made in Londonderry, is slightly disappointing, but I appreciate the challenges. As you know, parking issues are not just in Belfast or Londonderry; they go well beyond those places and are across the country.

I have a couple of points. How do you get the balance right between businesses and residents? It is a delicate balance, and parking can be at a premium in some places in our town and city centres. The fundamental reason for the scheme is to help residents. It is interesting and good to see that there was positive feedback from the questionnaire, but there is room to roll the scheme out further. There are models elsewhere, so, linking into lessons learned from how it is done in those places, how can we get businesses more on board so that they do not scupper the plan for the residential end of things?

Mr Hughes: Going back to that point, we engaged with local authorities elsewhere. I have been at this for probably far too long. I wrote the first policy. We visited Glasgow and Croydon. At that time, Croydon was at the top with its parking people. We took what, we thought, were the good elements of all their policies and put them in our policy. We have sought advice from elsewhere. We also talked to the folks in Dublin about their approach. We believe that the policy reflects good and best practice elsewhere. Businesses are included, and they can apply for a business permit. They are treated almost the same as residents.

Getting on to the technicalities of schemes, the preference has always been for access by permit and by pay and display. I know that a lot of people do not like the pay-and-display element, but it is intended to make the scheme work for everybody. As I keep saying to people, the plumber still has to call. If you lock spaces down so that they are permit-only, he will have difficulty getting there. Pay and display gives people like him the opportunity to come in, do their work and move on.

You may be looking at the lower Malone scheme, where businesses scuppered the whole plan. That was mainly the landlords, because they felt that they were having difficulty accessing properties. That was a hybrid scheme with pay and display and mixed use at either end, but the core of the scheme was permit-only. That restricted the use of the core area, and the landlords did not like that. To be honest, we, as engineers, did not like it either, but that is what the residents wanted.

Mr Dunne: Balance is important. It is a bit like the on-street parking in many towns and cities, where the free one-hour bays generally work in keeping the high turnover going for the prime spots at retail units.

Mr Hughes: That is what it is for. It is for businesses and for keeping that turnover, with longer-term parking being slightly further out or in car parks and things like that.

Mr Dunne: Councils have bought into that, too, with strategies and so on.

Locally, the centre of Bangor city, as it is now, and Holywood town centre have long lobbied for the introduction of a scheme. It is frustrating that that has been going on for the length of time that it has. A lot of businesses are within walking distance of residential units in both those centres. Are those centres on the radar? Where on the radar, if anywhere, are they?

Mr Hughes: They are on the list. They have always been on the list.

Ms Irvine: Yes, they are number one of the 230.

Mr Dunne: Has there been any progress?

Mr Hughes: I say "list", but there is not actually —.

Mr Boylan: I can feel a local press statement coming on. [Laughter.]

Mr Dunne: There are real issues out there, though, and we are contacted about them weekly. Parking is a huge issue.

Mr Porter: Parking is contentious, yes.

Mr Dunne: I encourage progress on that. Thanks, folks.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): I saw Mark vigorously shaking his head when Londonderry was mentioned.

Mr Durkan: It was Derry, Chair,

but that was not why I was shaking my head.

Mr Boylan: They are two different places, Chair, so there are two different schemes.

Mr Durkan: I am sure that the people in the Bogside would concur with my description of the location.

Thanks to the team for coming in. I share the concern that others aired about the time that the process has taken. I am sure that that is something that you, as officials, are looking at. You were not all here at the start of the process, but, hopefully, we will see more progress with you at the helm than has happened to date.

You spoke about the importance of the Rugby Road scheme being up and running and the lessons that can be learned from that. It is equally if not more important to learn from the schemes that have been unsuccessful. You cited the Bogside scheme in my constituency, which was torpedoed; there were over 200 objections to it. We have to understand what those objections were about and how they can be overcome if the scale or ambition of the scheme were merely decreased by reducing that red line.

I will ask a couple of questions, and the team can then answer them all at the same time. There is huge frustration in Derry and beyond about that Bogside scheme. I am sure that every other scheme or any work on every other scheme has been delayed until the nut has been cracked. I am glad to hear that that does not seem to still be the case, but will you confirm that?

The expansion of the university in the city offers tremendous opportunities, but with that growth comes inevitable friction, so I am glad that there is now a commitment from the Department to look at that. The expansion of the uni is long overdue, but so is a residents' parking scheme. That was the case before the expansion, but it means that the need for a scheme will now be more acute. I think that you, David, almost confirmed that the zeal with which the schemes are or will be approached is driven more by climate considerations or obligations than by residential amenity.

Displacement is a pretty obvious issue. Is the consultation on schemes confined to locations that are within the red line, or is there consultation with those that are beyond the red line who will inevitably be impacted by displacement? The one thing that we have definitely all learned from the schemes, whether they have been successful or unsuccessful, is that these things do not happen quickly. What is DFI doing in the interim in those areas to alleviate problems? We cannot just have residents waiting for a scheme that may never come. What work is DFI doing with other partners, such as the PSNI, for example, on enforcement with Ulster University in Derry and Belfast and, crucially, with Translink to identify potential public transport solutions and new routes and to look at park-and-ride opportunities?

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): Thank you, Mark, for asking all your questions in one go. I appreciate that.

Mr Porter: I will have a go at answering the question about whether the nut has been cracked. We believe that it has. There was definitely a hesitancy to commit to any other schemes until we got the report published. We now have that published, and, as Laura said, a team is in place. That is the transport policy team, and it will determine the streamlining of the process and the prioritisation.

It is not just Laura and her team who will then deliver. When we get through the list of the schemes that, we think, are viable, that will go back to the traffic sections in the divisions to deliver. It is not about just looking at an individual team. There has been work ongoing in the divisions that have received the long list of requests. That bit has not stopped. Some thinking has been done in the divisions about whether particular locations are good, which will help to inform the work of Laura and her team.

Everything that we do in DFI — in fact, everything that we do in Departments — needs a climate lens to be on it.

It is not our main or our only driver, but it is definitely a central plank in the argument. If we are going to achieve reductions in emissions, we need to change our behaviours. Part of that is about changing the fuels that our vehicles run on, but an equally important part is minimising the number of journeys that we make. Parking and demand constraints are part and parcel of that.

We need to be careful that we are not too brutal. We need to recognise that moving around is part and parcel of our economy. It is the way that economic and social activity takes place. We need to find, as you rightly say, those other routes. That may be done through Translink, so making the public transport offer more attractive and reliable will be part and parcel of that.

I will turn to the consultation on the red line for schemes. The transport plans are particularly important, especially for our cities. In contrast to the consultations on the individual streets that we are going to constrain, the transport plan for how Belfast or Derry/Londonderry will work and which areas the interventions will target is, to me, the bigger and most important bit, because it sets out the context in exactly the same way as area plans or local development plans (LDPs) set out where development will be. You can look at a settlement at a strategic level or an arm's-length level and work out where development will be, and the development control process is then just about working out the detail of what has already been established. It is the same approach. Setting out the strategic approach in the transport plans should ease some of the issues in specific consultations. If you can point to a scheme and say, "This has already been accepted in the transport plan for a particular settlement, so now we are just worried about the detail", it changes the conversation.

Your last point was about PSNI enforcement, Translink and other solutions. I cannot answer you by saying that the whole Department is focused on always looking for other solutions. As I said, part of the solution to shifting people away from private cars is enforcement, be it through traffic attendants (TAs) or the PSNI, and by making public transport more accessible, attractive and affordable. It is about all those things coming together to make it work. We absolutely are looking for those things. I cannot give a specific example of where we have introduced a bus because of non-delivery of a residents' parking scheme. I cannot go into that level of detail, but you are absolutely right about the Department's approach. It is about constraints not just on parking but on parking and the provision of alternatives. That is what will make it work.

Mr Durkan: There are some chicken-and-egg scenarios. I am thinking of an area that is not far from my office beside Ulster University —.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): Mark, sorry. If you are going into another speech about your area, I will cut you off. There are questions from other people, and we need to come to them as well.

Mr Durkan: Chair, I was going to give an example of an area where Translink cannot come into or refuses to run a service because it is overrun with parked cars. In the interim, DFI needs to look at other measures, such as an increased use of double yellow lines and enforcement, to keep that area clear so that a service can be delivered to reduce the dependence on cars.

Mr Boylan: I will run through my questions quickly. Thank you very much for your presentation. Is the premise of residents' parking schemes the same as it was when they were introduced? The idea behind them was to help people to access their house and deal with all their frustration. We have learned a lot of things about it now through traffic movement and congestion. That is my first question.

My second question is about whether a permit is for a house or an individual. Does a resident have to say that they are applying for a permit, or does it go with the individual property?

I also want to mention the healthcare permit. Have you considered that? We have individual boxes for disabled parking spaces. Healthcare workers move about. Is it a case of identifying parking areas for them? We are encouraging more care at home nowadays, and the number of instances of that is growing. How would a healthcare permit be rolled out? Has consideration been given to marking a box outside the house of a person who has been identified as needing a care package?

My final point is about engaging with people, which you, Stephen, mentioned. Does that involve letters to or communication with each house, or do you target an area and bring all the residents to a local community office? Do you engage with the council and say, "Let's have them all in the one room. Let's have a proper chat and do a presentation."? How do you do it? That might be better. I am not saying that you do not do that, but it might be a way to engage with residents.

That is it, Chair. That is as quickly as I can go over the questions.

Mr Porter: I will deal with two of those, and then I will ask you, Stephen, to deal with the permit.

You are right: the basis of the scheme has not changed. We need to change the process. It needs to be streamlined so that we get schemes across the line a bit more quickly.

All manner of approaches are taken to engagement, including individual approaches, site meetings and town hall-type meetings. The report says that elected representatives play an important role in that process. That is key. If a local elected representative championed a scheme, made sure that there was consensus and got businesses on board, that would definitely help that scheme's chances of getting across the line and reassure us that it is worthy of putting our limited resource into. Again, that was included in the report on purpose, because it cannot just be the case that the Department needs to work harder at it. That is not the answer. We tried nine schemes and got one across the line. If the answer is to say that the Department needs to work harder, we will come back in 10 years and say, "We tried another nine, and we have another one across the line". Something needs to change, and elected representatives play a part in that.

Mr Boylan: To be fair, all agencies — I mean whoever has a say in it — should be involved, be it the local authority, elected representatives, certainly, or the Housing Executive. I do not know who it may be, but all those people should be invited into the room.

Mr Porter: Stephen, will you deal with the permit, please?

Mr Hughes: The permits are for residents who have a car.

Mr Boylan: One hundred per cent.

Mr Hughes: They need to have a car to qualify. They are also eligible for visitors' permits. They can have 25 per quarter, and it is double that for the over-60s, I think. The healthcare permits seem to work fairly well. I cannot recall whether, as a proactive step, we went out to the local health authorities or they came to us about issuing permits. If you look at the numbers, you see that quite a few are health permits, and most of those are for daily carers. It is a great benefit to them, because, previously, they would have spent a lot of their time driving around the streets looking for a parking space or running the gauntlet of parking on a corner. Now, they get into the area and get a parking space almost outside the property. That is in the policy as it is.

Mr McMurray: Thank you for coming and for opening up the debate to include areas outside Belfast. That is really important. As you say, Chair, those 230 or 240 other schemes would help to inform us.

It is like all these things: you have a question scribbled down, but, when you hear some of the answers, you start scribbling down different questions. I will try to go back.

The big issue is behaviour as much as anything. You referenced Croydon in London. Which scheme or system has resulted in the biggest change in behaviour? Sometimes, a scheme would need to be bespoke.

That leads on to my next question. You mentioned the need for elected reps to champion schemes. With the greatest respect, I will throw that back and say that it would need to be the right scheme, because it would take a brave elected representative to champion some of them, if that makes sense.

That then leads on to my next question. Is there scope for — dare I say this; it is maybe a terrible term — a graduated response in some ways? You would start with a scheme and then see it change and evolve as people buy into it and see its benefits. It involves businesses, workers and residents. As someone who has been involved in local politics, I know that it is a difficult —.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): Road politics.

Mr McMurray: Car park politics, you know?

Mr Porter: The success of a scheme depends on the angle from which you look at it for measuring that success. Resident feedback on the Rugby Road scheme shows that it is a success. They welcomed it. They feel that they have the space in front of their properties back under their control. Therefore that is a success.

There is, however, also a different perspective to look at, because some people who want to park there have now been displaced. It is tricky to say, "Here is a glowing example of success" when there are different perspectives.

You mentioned a graduated response, and that is exactly what we do. For the Department, parking issues and, indeed, traffic issues are a game of whack-a-mole. It is not that we are saying, "We're going to come with a solution, and, by the way, when we implement that solution, we will not talk about it ever again, because that's it sorted"; that is not the reality of managing a transport network that is continually evolving. As development happens, towns and cities grow, businesses and factories open and close and investment comes in, the road network and the demands placed on it are constantly evolving.

The graduated response that you mentioned is exactly what we try to have. Our traffic teams in the divisions in particular look at an area to see whether it is operating OK or whether they need to introduce some sort of traffic regulation to limit the amount of parking time. Their next tool may be to put in a pay-and-display system or to introduce a controlled parking zone (CPZ) in order to get more control over that area. A further tool may be residents' parking, where some people are permitted to park in certain areas, but it is a constantly evolving scenario. We need to work constantly on the road network, because it is not a case of saying, "We have the solution. We will implement it, and then that's it all sorted".

Mr Hughes: You talked about success stories. I live in Lisburn, and, when it introduced a pay-and-display system, many of the businesses were not particularly happy with it, because they thought that a lot of the parking spaces had gone. As a resident of Lisburn, however, all of a sudden I was able to go into the city centre and park outside my hairdresser's to get my hair cut. That was when I used to get my hair cut [Laughter.]

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): I did not want to be rude by saying anything [Laughter.]

Mr Hughes: All of a sudden, I could nip in for 10 minutes, because a lot of the parking was now all-day parking. People were previously shifting their car on the basis of where the traffic warden was. There was more control over parking, so it was working better for the businesses in the area. To me, that is a tangible and visible success.

Mr Porter: That is an example of the different perspectives on what is a success. Some people will view it as being draconian, because they have to pay for parking, while others will view it as freeing up spaces. For the Department, it is about being open to reviewing our approaches and not just saying, "Here's the answer, and this is what we will do everywhere". A CPZ, for example, is not the right thing for every town. It needs to be done to a certain scale, and it works in certain areas. That CPZ or pay-and-display system then funds enforcement. Although some people do not like them, the presence of redcoat parking attendants makes the system work and is a healthy thing, but it is not right for everywhere. Particularly in our smaller rural towns, we do not want to take that approach, but, where there are particular problems, we need to step in, especially where road safety issues or traffic progression issues have arisen.

Mr K Buchanan: Thanks for coming to the Committee today. I have three points that I want to raise, which are on finances, car charging and staffing. I will get the name of your barber after, Stephen, if that is OK [Laughter.]

I will start with finances. I am looking at page 16 of the review report. I will give you an example in simple language. There is a street with 10 houses on each side. Does each house get one space?

Mr Hughes: Residents of each house do not get a space; they get a permit.

Mr K Buchanan: Sorry?

Mr Hughes: We do an initial application round. There is a threshold to be met, and everybody who meets it gets a permit. If there is sufficient capacity after that, we may have a second application round for permits.

Mr K Buchanan: As in, for a space. It is as simple as that.

Mr Hughes: Yes.

Mr K Buchanan: OK. How do you work that business model? I am looking at year 1 and year 2 in the table on page 16. I appreciate that COVID happened in the middle of that period. If you are looking to put in new schemes, do they need to wipe their face in order for you to say whether they are a good idea? Are you with me?

Mr Hughes: Yes.

Mr K Buchanan: If there is a cost to the Department, do you say, "The scheme is going to cost us a lot of money". It might be a good job, but how important is income and expenditure when you are deciding whether to deliver a scheme, irrespective of where it is?

Mr Porter: Good point. The Minister has said that he would like them to be run on the basis of full cost recovery, and he has asked us, as it states in the report, to look at the cost of the permit to make sure that even some of the more marginal schemes are viable. It is not an absolute: we will model a scheme and make assumptions at an early stage about whether it will be viable. It will not be the case that, should it materialise in a slightly different way in year 1 or year 2, we will rip it out. A decision on introducing a scheme will be made on the basis of projected use. If it is approved, we will put it in.

As you can see from the figures, one of the big income contributors is revenue from penalty charge notices (PCNs). That is significant. In some ways, it is worthy that individuals who park badly contribute to the public purse. That is not the purpose of PCNs, however, and they are also not a stealth tax. Ideally, we would like people to follow the rules. When we draw up schemes, we are careful not to build in an utter reliance on PCNs, because we want people to abide by the rules. If people abide by them, our revenue from PCNs diminishes or disappears. That is not our experience, however. The Department has a healthy income from PCNs, but the purpose of a PCN is to drive people's behaviour, not to be a revenue stream for the Department.

Mr K Buchanan: David, if revenue from PCNs were to disappear, it would be difficult to make schemes cost-neutral.

Mr Porter: We undertook a business case to work out the cost of the permit, which we calculated against income from the permit, income from pay-and-display and income from an element of PCNs. Rugby Road's is a different scheme, because most of the PCN income was coming from students. There was a spike in September, with mummies and daddies paying those PCNs, we perceive.

Mr K Buchanan: I will finish with two quick points. Where does charging electric cars come into this? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Mr Porter: Charging electric cars is a separate issue and is not necessarily related to residents' parking. At the minute, the provision is that either people have their own off-street facility where they can charge their car or they can use one of the commercially available charge points. The Department is looking at what are called "cross-pavement solutions". There are issues with some of those solutions. If there are cables across the public space, for electrical safety reasons, they are a potential hazard. They are also a trip hazard. The Department is exploring the issue of liability. We are not alone in doing so: lots of road authorities in GB are also doing so.

Mr K Buchanan: Will the same permit apply, David? If I have a permit to park my car and there is a duct or whatever in that space, can I charge my car in that same space?

Mr Porter: Not at the minute. The two things are separate. There is a residents' parking scheme, and work is being done on —.

Mr K Buchanan: I appreciate that they are separate. If I have a permit to park my car and the scheme changes so that I can charge it there, will it cost me more money to charge my car in that same space?

Mr Porter: I do not know whether it will cost more money, because I do not know that money will be the issue with cross-pavement parking. As it is, getting a resident's parking permit does not permit people to run a live electricity cable across the pavement. The two things are separate. I do not doubt that, at some point in the future, if we crack the nut of cross-pavement parking, we will have to look at the consequence of doing so for residents' parking schemes, but we are not at that stage just yet.

Mr K Buchanan: Finally, we have talked about delivering the schemes. We can see the timeline so far for delivering them. You are talking now about moving them into traffic sections. I mean no disrespect to the traffic sections, but it took me a year and a half to get one road sign moved. If that happens, how will we ever deliver the schemes, given staffing levels? I am not blaming individuals in areas; it is a staffing issue. We do not have the staff.

Mr Porter: There is a well-publicised issue with staffing not just in the Department for Infrastructure but in all Departments. It is a problem and one that is particularly acutely felt on the operational side of DFI, where we have a high number of vacancies. We have a plan to try to recover from that situation, but it is not just as straightforward as saying, "Here are lots of posts". Funding is constrained, and, when it comes to our ability to attract skills, the outside employment market for the likes of chartered civil engineers is buoyant. Recruiting is not straightforward, but we are doing what we can.

The other point to make is that, if priority is given to things in the Department, they are delivered. I give the example of the part-time 20 mph zones at schools. That was made a ministerial and departmental priority, and was it 214 or —?

Mr Hughes: It was 216.

Mr Porter: There were 216 such zones delivered over a two-year period. When the Department focuses on something that is important and wants to move on it, it can do so. I accept that that is then done at the expense of other things, but that is life.

Mr Hughes: Like the moving of a sign, David? [Laughter.]

Mr Porter: Yes.

Mr Hughes: That could have been one of the reasons that moving your sign took so long, Keith.

Mr K Buchanan: Do not start me on the sign.

Mr Porter: That is just life. The Department is constantly prioritising. It does the things that, it thinks, will have the biggest impact —

Mr K Buchanan: Fair enough.

Mr Porter: — and prioritises them. It has to do so brutally at the minute, because of the resource level and the financial constraints that we are under, but you will hear the same from every Department.

Mr K Buchanan: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): I will let Peter come in, because he has been waiting.

Mr McReynolds: I am happy for Cathal to come in on a minor point.

Mr Boylan: It is just a minor point. The Chair mentioned getting the message out. Where are we now in percentage terms with PCNs across the board?

Mr Porter: The percentage?

Mr Boylan: Percentage-wise, yes. Where are we now with collecting revenue from PCNs?

Mr Porter: I do not have the figures.

Mr Boylan: I see that you made substantial progress in years 1, 2 and 3.

Mr Porter: You mean on that specifically.

Ms Irvine: We do not have the figures, but we can provide them.

Mr Porter: We can get you updated figures.

Mr Boylan: It would be good to see the figures. It is about getting the message out. You pay for the scheme, obviously.

Mr McReynolds: Thank you, everyone, for coming to the Committee today. I note from the review report that Dublin has introduced 988 residents' parking schemes since 1998. We have had one since the policy was introduced in 2007. By my quick GCSE maths, that is about 481:1. Do you have figures for any of the other council areas mentioned in the report, such as Liverpool City Council or Gloucestershire County Council? Is the disparity as big there, or is it similar?

Mr Hughes: I do not have those figures, Peter. The difference is in the approach. From talking to them, it seems to me that other local authorities take a fairly brutal approach. It is a take-it-or-leave it scenario. They do not re-engage with residents or get into continual redesign; rather, they present a scheme and say, "This is what we propose to put in. Do you want it or not?". They may look at moving the odd sign or shifting the odd bay, but they do not go beyond that. That was made clear to us when we visited Croydon and Glasgow local authorities. They pointed out to us that, if we were to get into that level of engagement with residents, we would never deliver a scheme. Unfortunately, that has proved to be true. It is about striking a balance. We want to engage with and inform people, but we found that, on delivery, we were being hamstrung.

Mr McReynolds: That links to my next question. The word "consensus" has come up a lot today. I try to rationalise the issue in my head by thinking about the Glider in east Belfast. I am an East Belfast MLA. If full consensus had been a requirement for that Glider route to proceed, it would never have happened. I remember signs going up at the time. They were critical, to put it diplomatically, of the Glider, but, now that it has come in, everybody loves it. You spoke, Stephen, about the Lisburn parking issue and getting your hair cut. It was something like that.

Mr Boylan: He just had to get that in. [Laughter.]

Sorry about that. That is the third time.

Mr McReynolds: People did not like the idea of the Glider. When it was introduced, however, they realised that it was not that big a deal. Where I get my hair cut, if I were to go along for an 11.00 am appointment, I would not be able to park my car in the free car park across the road from the barber's. It is rammed, because it is free. My point is that you sometimes have to take the difficult decisions.

In the Department, what you take "consensus" to mean? The South has a different perception of it. Here, we seem to be a little conservative.

Mr Porter: Do you remember the percentage in the report?

Mr Hughes: Not off the top of my head.

Ms Irvine: I can answer that. Out of the initial consultation process, the survey and from looking at the area, we are looking for a consensus of around 22%.

Mr McReynolds: In favour?

Ms Irvine: In favour.

Mr Hughes: It is a third of two thirds of residents. We are looking for two thirds of residents to respond, and a third of them have to be in favour, so it is 22%. We discussed that earlier. Twenty per cent is quite a high response rate to any survey. People may think that it is a low percentage, but, in our experience of doing surveys, 22% is quite high. That only starts the process. It is the initial threshold. We then move on to doing detailed design. Normally, we do public engagement sessions in local halls etc to explain the scheme. The next step is the formal notice of intention for the order. There is then a 21-day period in which people can raise objections to the order. It is at that point at which —.

Mr Porter: That is what scuppers a scheme. It goes back to the point that I made about the role of an elected representative. If an elected representative could help us by championing the scheme, corralling the objectors and explaining the scheme, it would make the process that wee bit easier. We do not want to think that we have consensus through the design stage, issue a formal notice of intention for the order and then find that we have massive opposition to the scheme, because that is just a waste of resource. As I have said, resource is precious at the minute. We need to allocate it to schemes that, we believe with a high degree of certainty, will land and be welcomed.

I take your point, however. Maybe "welcomed" is the wrong word to use; rather, the scheme will solve the problem or contribute to a change in people's behaviour, but, you are right to say that not everybody will view it as positive. If we can get more schemes in place, they will become more normalised, and people will understand that they cannot just drive to a town or city and expect to park as conveniently as they once did. We want to make it more difficult for people to park, because we want people to change their behaviour and either not make that journey or make it by a more sustainable means. For those who have to use a car, we do not want to make it impossible for them to do so, but it cannot be as easy for them as it was in the past.

Mr McReynolds: I am trying to rationalise it in my head. I am thinking about Rugby Road. I go there quite a lot now. I drive there if I have meetings in the immediate area. I used to panic a little, because I am not the best in the world at parking. I think that everyone knows that.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): Sorry, Peter: I will be exactly the same with you as I was with Mark and be fair.

Mr McReynolds: I am getting to the point. For Rugby Road, the scheme feels like a no-brainer to me. I used to panic about being able to park there, but I now go there and am able to park. I am happy to pay a little bit of money to do so. There are not many businesses along that road, but there are plenty of residential properties. Residents were crying out for years for a scheme. What was the resistance there? Why did it take so long to bring in the scheme?

Mr Hughes: Our perception is that, in a lot of respects, people do not know what they are getting. You talked about Dublin and other areas. Once there are a few schemes on the ground and people see what is being presented and what lies ahead, they are more accepting of them. Here, there is a lack of understanding of what they are physically getting. We have to find a balance. If people are experiencing huge parking problems now, you would think that they would vote for a scheme straight away. For the proposed scheme in the Bogside, one person raised an issue.

Mr Porter: That then encouraged others. That is the challenge that we have.

Mr McReynolds: I will be kind and listen to you, Chair. I will leave my last question. It is all right.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): You can maybe follow up on it, Peter.

We may follow up on some other points with you. We appreciate your coming to the Committee, because parking outside people's homes is a contentious issue that causes residents an awful lot of stress.

I noted down some points during our conversation. They may be points for you to note as well. One is the issue of EV charging. We have introduced the Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes (Amendment) Order 2024 or "VETS". There needs to be some joined-up thinking on how that will work for residents who have purchased EVs. That may also be something to look at.

There are 230-odd parking schemes in the system now, and a new team is in place. Speak to this quickly, if you can. Is the team reviewing those schemes right now? Behaviour may have changed in those areas over time, and schemes may have been in place for 10 years, so is the team reviewing them to take any out of the system to free up space? In my area, transport plans are under way, so, if there are schemes in my area now, they will not get moving until the transport plans are sorted out.

Ms Irvine: To do so fairly, something would need to be in place to help us prioritise as a Department. On pulling out certain ones at the moment, although they may have aligned with certain strategic objectives, they may not be the most impactful for the residents in the area and potentially may not address their issues. I do not necessarily think that there are schemes that we could pull out. That would not be fair.

Mr Porter: There will be a review, however.

Ms Irvine: They will be reviewed.

Mr Porter: And prioritised.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): OK. Engagement with other agencies is key, and the point that you made about the awareness campaign is valid when looking at that behaviour piece.

The final thing that I had noted down was about full cost recovery for schemes. Depending on where they live and the population on their road, there may be a disparity between how much people's permits cost. Are you looking at that? That might be an issue, particularly in areas of economic deprivation.

Ms Irvine: In neighbourhood renewal areas, there is no charge for the permits, so there will be no income derived from permits. We have to balance that against areas where, because there is free parking nearby, pay-and-display schemes potentially will not work. We will therefore look at areas on a case-by-case basis, because one size does not fit all.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): OK. Thank you very much. We appreciate your time today. It is an interesting topic.

Mr K Buchanan: You will not say it again. [Laughter.]

Mr Hughes: I will go to the DIY store the next time. [Laughter.]

Mr Boylan: A number one all over, and you are OK.

Mr K Buchanan: Watch it back. It is about 40 minutes in.

The Chairperson (Mrs Erskine): Thank you.