Parking app hassle could end in Walsall with new national scheme

Paying for parking in Walsall is set to become easier as a national scheme returns to the pioneering town.

Walsall is the latest council to adopt the National Parking Platform as it attempts to streamline parking in the area without making car parks more expensive.

The NPP is ‘government-backed’ and means customers will only need one app across all car parks. The new system will, according to the Head of NPP Engagement, Michelle Boshoff-Turner, be ‘so much easier’.

Michelle said: “So the national parking platform is a government backed digital platform that enables drivers to use their app of choice in any of the council car parks.

“It sits nicely in the middle and enables everybody to talk to each other.

“It's definitely not an app. It enables you to use an app you already know and trust, so you don't have to go and download new apps every time you go into a car park.

“So the framework is really fragmented, so every time you go into a new area, the chances are that you have to download a new app.

“I think I spoke to one person who had something like 29 different parking apps on his phone.”

Walsall joins 24 other local councils in adopting the new platform, including Birmingham. This will mean drivers can use any parking app across council car parks in both areas.

“We've got 10 [councils] on-boarding, so, by the end of January, we should be live with 35 locations. Walsall is fully operational - they are one of the pioneers on the platform.”

The NPP are also looking into working with private companies to potentially streamline parking payments across non-council owned car parks including those at railway stations.

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“The tariffs are still set by the council like they would have done before, so if they, where they only had one app traditionally, they set the tariff and we honour what the council says.”

Michelle added: “Some people get a little bit annoyed that they can't use that app in the new location, or you have to download an app you've never used before.

“With this choice, you can now have your app, you can pre-program it, and it also helps people that aren't as digital-savvy, to familiarise themselves with a particular app and then they'll be able to use it across the whole network.

“We also have a phone line, so if you don't want to pay by app, you can call our phone line and you can pay for your parking on the phone - and that's the same concept: you'll have a choice of providers that you can pay through.”