Devon County Council wins prestigious parking award

Devon County Council has been named the winner of the Best Overall Report at the PATROL PARC Awards (Parking Annual Report Awards by Councils).

The council received the honour at PATROL’s annual awards ceremony at the Houses of Parliament last night (Tuesday 10 July). The awards recognise the local authorities who have published the best reports on their parking services, as part of their civil enforcement reporting.

Councillor Stuart Hughes, the County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highway Management, and Chris Rook, Devon’s Traffic Management Team Manager, were presented with the award by broadcaster and former MP Gyles Brandreth.

The Best Report Award is judged on how helpful it is to the local community, the policies, scheme design and the quality of the information provided as well as the overall presentation.

The independent review group commissioned by PATROL to assess the reports praised Devon County Council’s report for its “easy to understand statistics to demonstrate the impact of new initiatives.”

Councillor Stuart Hughes said: “Devon County Council is delighted to be recognised as overall winner in the PATROL Annual Report Awards. The annual reporting format provides an excellent opportunity to promote our service, allowing the public to understand how we operate, and seeing what is being achieved in managing our network.

"As a young service, each report has given opportunity to reflect on that year’s development of our service. We feel that the strength of this year’s report comes from reflecting the overall contribution to parking and traffic management in Devon from all the Traffic Management Team; Operations, Processing, and Traffic Engineering.”

PATROL’s PARC awards have been designed to reward, share and promote best practice in local authority annual reporting nationwide.

Councillor Jamie Macrae, Chair of the PATROL Joint Committee, said of Devon County Council: “Annual reports increase the accessibility of parking information, bringing it together in one place. They provide an opportunity to communicate the whole landscape of parking, from objectives which support the local community and economy, to policies, services and the impact of parking education and enforcement on compliance.”

Last year Devon received the accolade for “best practice reporting in customer service” at the PATROL PARC awards.