Usage of car parks in St Helier (FOI)

Request

I am interested to know the current usage of parking spaces in St Helier.

A

How many general use spaces as a percentage of the total are normally (term time summer) occupied in the morning and afternoon in –

• Sand Street
• Esplanade Shoppers (prior to closure)
• Les Jardins
• Waterfront
• Pier Road (ideally split between short and long stay)
• Green Street
• Minden Place
• Patriotic Street
• Kensington Place
• Snow Hill
  
• La Route du Fort
• Vic Avenue Lay-bys 1 and 2

B

And on a Saturday midday at –

• Sand St
• Minden Pl
• Pier Road short stay
• Snow Hill

C

And how many days and individual instances during the year 2021 (or 2019 if data unavailable) did each car park register as full?

Response

A and B

The Transport section within Infrastructure, Housing and Environment (IHE) carry out quarterly manual occupancy counts on their car parks.  

The summer count is carried out in August, during the school holidays, therefore the information requested is not held and Article 10 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies. 

It should also be noted that the Transport section do not maintain the data collected from the occupancy counts in a percentage format.  The Freedom of Information legislation does not require manipulation of data if it is not held in the format requested.

C

The Transport section does not maintain lists of how many days or individual instances that their car parks are recorded as full, therefore this information is not held and Article 10 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.

Digital car park counter systems are installed in the following multi-story car parks. Included is the maximum number of spaces as available in 2021.

• Green Street - 579
• Minden Place - 242
• Patriotic Street (public car park only, not hospital parking) - 625
• Pier Road - 706
• Sand Street- 523

These counter systems are designed to calculate and publish real-time occupancy levels in order to provide information to our customers about available spaces.

The systems also provide an overview of the typical occupancy levels throughout the day to identify parking pressures, however they do not produce reports regarding when each car park is registered as full.

The attached spreadsheet details the number of parking spaces available at the above car parks for each 24 hour period in 2021.  This data was recorded at 2.5 minute intervals.  The car park is full when the count indicates zero and the spreadsheet may be filtered accordingly. 

This raw data has been provided to enable a review of when the car parks were full as detailed in the request.  Scheduled Public Authorities are not obliged to create new data sets under the Freedom of Information legislation.

The following items should be noted:

• a digital counter is also installed at Les Jardins however it only reports real-time data and is not able to provide historic reports
• car parks were still experiencing lower levels of occupancy in 2021 and had not returned to pre COVID-19 figures with many people still working from home
• -1 or 999 indicate system errors and the count has not been recorded
• there was an issue with the Pier Road counters and some levels are showing higher than the maximum number of spaces
• the total available parking spaces includes disabled, electrical vehicle charging bay etcetera.

The remaining car parks will receive a quarterly manual count to monitor usage levels as detailed above. Therefore, the information requested is not held and Article 10 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.

ID FOI 5603 Car park counts 2021 20220524.xlsx

Article applied

Article 10 - Obligation of scheduled public authority to confirm or deny holding Information

(1) Subject to paragraph (2), if –

(a) a person makes a request for information to a scheduled public authority; and

(b) the authority does not hold the information, it must inform the applicant accordingly.