Durham County Council has awarded NSL, a Marston Holdings company, a five-year contract for the provision of parking enforcement services. The two organisations have been working in partnership since 2000 and, under the new contract, NSL will continue to provide enforcement of on and off-street parking regulations, including the management of park and ride sites and penalty charge notice processing. NSL is also operating Durham’s road user charging scheme, which was the UK’s first congestion charge when it was introduced in October 2002. The newly awarded contract is for five years and five months with an option for a further five years.

Dave Wafer, head of transport and contract services at Durham County Council, said: “It is important that we continue to enforce parking offences across County Durham. Compromising road safety or misusing bays designated for residents, businesses and people with disabilities can have an impact on people’s lives. We want everyone who lives, works in or visits the county be able to park safely and enjoy their stay, and enforcement is one measure which supports this.”

Throughout the period of the contract, NSL has helped to manage various council buildings and numerous special events including Lumiere, Bishop Auckland and Seaham food festivals, and Durham City Run, as well as external events such as Christmas festivals, Durham Miners’ Gala, Kynren Pyromusical and vintage vehicle rallies. The company has also provided high levels of support during the Covid pandemic with additional support at household waste recycling centres and supporting food banks over the Christmas period.

NSL has also project managed the introduction of Pay by Phone on behalf of Durham County Council to provide more customer payment options. This was introduced at the height of the pandemic, which reduced risk to customers as it eliminated the need to touch multi-use surfaces on pay and display machines. This deployment has proved to be extremely successful and around 40% of all transactions are now made using this service.

Mark Hoskin, Chief Commercial Officer at Marston Holdings, added: “We are delighted to have been awarded this contract which recognises our ongoing commitment to County Durham and the delivery of social value and green initiatives throughout the next five years. Our full portfolio of end-to-end transportation and enforcement solutions now includes urban design, CCTV and parking enforcement and notice processing through to debt recovery.”