Motorists and city users ignored in parking review

A Wellington City Council review of parking has completely ignored motorists and city users, says Councillor Paul Eagle.

Council management have undertaken a narrow information gathering exercise with a focus on money, not people.

"The idea of public service is clearly foreign to some.

"There is, in these times, an extraordinary preoccupation with stripping people of money and pretending it's customer service."

Councillor Eagle said he supported measures to control costs and use infrastructure wisely, but wanted Council officers to put people first.

"People should at the heart of everything we do as a city, not revenue gathering or gouging as the case maybe.

"I think you'd be hard pressed to find a motorist, city visitor or retailer with something good to say about our parking services, parking prices, or parking wardens. And that is a major reputation issue for our city.

The Southern Ward councillor's comments relate to a recent Council process called a Request for Information or RFI, which asked parking companies to supply information about their prices and other matters.

Council parking services is currently outsourced to Tenix Solutions NZ Ltd, a privately owned Australian company that subcontracts the Parkwise division of Armourguard to do the work.

Councillor Eagle says Parkwise wardens weren't the best ambassadors for the city because they were incentivised to penalise people, not to promote fair use of parking spaces.

"These folks are paid to do one thing only - catch people out, and write as many tickets as they can.

"In my view that's wrong, but the RFI doesn't address this wrongdoing.

"The solution is simple. Council must ask Wellingtonians what they want from our parking services. That includes ratepayers, motorists, taxi and courier companies, retailers, and visitors.

"Our city's reputation is at stake and so is our relationship with people of the region."

Councillor Eagle is demanding that a report comes to Councillors for deciding the preferred delivery of parking services.

He says he will not allow a repeat of the CitiOperations debacle which resulted in the loss of over 500 years of institutional knowledge and skills a week before a tremendous storm hit the city causing serious and widespread damage.

ENDS

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