At a previous employer we simply divided up the number of parking spaces in a year by the number of employees and each person got X number of parking passes to use over the year. They could use them when they wanted and it was largely first come first served. It actually worked very well and staff thought it was fair.

We made allowances for those who had a disability and for some pregnant employees.

Hi Nina,

Very interested in what others suggest also, as we are encountering similar parking issues. One of the ideas we have been considering is allocating some spaces for car shares-only, to encourage people who live near one another or on-route to car share. The benefit to them is that they have an allocated space and the benefit to us is that less spaces are needed.

More thought needs to go into it and certainly not saying this is the overall solution, but thought I would mention it as a potential option :)

Best of luck with it!

Shelley

We run a rota scheme whereby you space share with another employee and one week you park on site and the next you park off site. We have a public car park only a 5 minute walk from the office and it costs £2.50 to park for the full day - the company actually reimburses this and pays the tax so the only inconvenience is having a 5 minute walk.

It works well as everyone understands it and it is fair but we do still get the odd problem of someone parking in someone elses space on occasions.

Hiya Nina

My husband's city centre office ran a priority scheme for parking that was similar to the school admissions priority system (which might resonate with your staff). The old system had evolved much like yours with longer serving staff having priority and no one new could get a space.

The consultative committee agreed on the priority criteria for permits and the permits were reissued each year in line with the criteria. Top of the list was anyone who was risk assessed as definitely needing a space - either through disability, pregnancy or any other pressing reason (if that need came up during the year they were allowed to book out a visitor's space rather than have to wait for the next allocation of permits). The next criteria was then car sharing - anyone who organised a car share through the organisation got a space. Then it was distance from work - anyone who lived within York's outer ring road (if you know York, you'll know that anywhere within the outer ring road is an easy commute via foot, bike or public transport to the city centre) was barred from having a permit and then the remainder of the permits were given out on a lottery basis.

This was accepted as being as fair as possible by everyone - especially as you had a new chance each year to get a permit. People were allowed to transfer permits to colleagues if they were going to be away on any particular day - they just had to let the Facilities team know in advance and log the other car's registration with them.

Ideally staff were supposed to give the permits back if their priority reason changed (e.g. my husband returned his when we moved house and were no longer eligible) but even if they didn't they would lose it at the end of the year anyway.

You'd need to agree your own priority criteria. The one about barring anyone within York was manageable as the office was well connected via public transport - this might be different for your location. My local school have arrangements with the local church and a small shopping area who allow them to use their car parks, neither of which are more than five minutes walk away.

Kind regards

Jackie

Thank you all - these suggestions are giving me a lot of food for thought. We're in an interesting situation in that the school is in central London, about 10 minutes' walk from a major train station - so realistically no one needs to drive to work. On the other hand, for many people it's a much cheaper option to drive (which I know isn't a good thing) and there will obviously be some who come from much further away where it's almost a necessity.

I think a system based on agreed priority criteria will be essential, and I really like the idea of promoting car sharing - for the environmental impact if nothing else.

We have several spaces that longer serving members of staff have always had and then we've bought annual parking permits in nearby car parks for all of our new staff. Seems the fairest way to do it (obviously a little pricey on our part but worth it to avoid unfairness).

In one school I worked at we had a criteria and all staff had to apply. This was based on a number of things - disability, distance/location from the school, childcare or other dependent care responsibilities and other things which I can't remember.