Cornwall Council Case Study

Cornwall Council aligns Unity5 to its Strategic Parking Plan

In the last census (2021), Cornwall was reported to have a population of 570,000 residents. Huge numbers of holidaymakers and tourists flock to Cornwall every year, with peaks reached during the summer months. This influx of visitors means many more vehicles on its roads and increased demand for parking spaces.

In 2018 Cornwall Council (The Council) produced its Positive Parking Framework for Cornwall (the Plan) to ensure that it delivers its services well and that all stakeholders, residents, businesses, and visitors enjoy a positive parking experience. The Council recognised that the key to delivering improvements to their services was to invest in new and make better use of Information Technology (IT).

Bringing Unity5 onboard

In December 2019, following a comprehensive procurement process, the Council awarded Unity5 a contract for the provision of Penalty Charge Notice (PCN), Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN), and Parking Permits processing systems. The initial contract period was for two years with a possible two one-year extensions. At the time of writing this case study, the first one-year extension had been activated.

The pandemic initially impacted the rollout of the system, but a joined-up, flexible and collaborative approach by both parties ensured the system was implemented robustly and safely. Approximately 200,000 PCNs were migrated into the new system, including all PCN details, photographs and correspondence.

Cornwall Council - restricted parking area in a street with zigzag yellow lines - mobile camera car parked with the sea in the background - parking ticket machines

“The support we received from the team at Unity5 is second to none. They would be highly proactive for any new projects and very reactive when any day-to-day issues arose. We were grateful for how Oli Pellicio and James Hampton steered us throughout the rollout of Digital Permits. We also appreciated the efforts of Tom Palin for ensuring day-to-day issues were dealt with speedily and professionally.”

Josh Macdonald (Business, Products & Communications Manager for Parking)

Unity5 IT Solution

The solution has been carefully developed to meet best practise in meeting the requirements of local authorities. It is an agile, browser-based, scalable, and high-performance hosted solution that comprises of a number of fully integrated modules. During the onboarding process, these modules were configured and fine-tuned to support the Council’s technology transformation.

Improved Focus on Business Objectives

The investment in new technology has delivered on expected outcomes for the Council. The improved look and feel, as well as the expanded functionality, have been a catalyst for the modernisation of the service, providing cost savings and improved customer satisfaction.

The digitised portals for parking enforcement and permits deliver service 24 hours, 7 days a week, enhancing the customer experience. The workload for Council staff has been reduced as data entry has shifted to the customer, whilst there are fewer physical documents for Council staff to handle and store as these have been converted into digital documents. The new portal has reduced the time needed for dealing with resident permit applications dramatically, from 4-6 weeks to 1 week.

“We are pleased with how the system has enabled us to provide better service and experience for our customers. We are also confident that the system is future-proofed should we extend the service into areas such as Moving Traffic Contraventions.”

Zoe Hall