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Battle of Hastings… the town council is knocking the gulls off their perch.

Down memory lane

THAT WAS THE YEAR…

As the BPA celebrates its 40th year, we publish extracts

(below) from the BPA Parking Newsletter and other events from 1970

May 1970 saw

It’s guano... guano... gone

T e sound of seagulls is all part of the atmosphere in the historic seaside town of Hastings and it wouldn’t be the same without them, but for the Priory Meadow Shopping Centre they also represent an expensive health hazard – or at least they did until a high-tec scarecrow was employed to disperse them. T e mess the birds

were creating on the top deck of the centre’s car park was a costly operational nightmare until the centre management called in Scarecrow Bio- Acoustic Systems to install the fully automatic One-Shot bird dispersal system to scare birds away. ‘Since we started

using the device we have made huge cost savings from not having to clean up the shocking mess that the birds were creating,’ said Steven

50

MAY 2010

Ball, Priory Meadow’s operations manager. ‘T e whole of

the top level of the multi-storey car park covering almost 4,000 sq metres was completely infested with roosting seagulls. T e hazardous combination of bird guano, waste and feathers with which they covered the fl oor rendered the top level completely unusable by customers.’ ‘We were having to

employ additional staff to clean the area on a daily basis, which was a huge drain on our resources. No sooner had they got from one end to the other than it was fi lthy again – it was a never- ending cycle that we couldn’t seem to break. A distress call, which

mimics the natural alerting call of the birds, is broadcast. T e device can be set to play more than 60 diff erent kinds of bird calls.

the release of the 12th and fi nal album by the

Beatles. Let It Be

was released by

Apple and, appropriately enough for

a parking magazine, T e Long and

Winding Road was the fi rst single

to be released. ● T e Vietnam war continued to

rage, and anti-war protests spilled into tragic violence with four students killed and nine others injured as the State National Guard opened fi re on students during a march at Kent State University in Ohio. Also this month, the ninth FIFA

World Cup kicked off in Mexico, with Brazil emerging the winners.

BPA FLEXES ITS MUSCLES

In the world of parking, the BPA was offering advice to the Greater London Council about licensing public off-street car parks.

In respect of the Greater London Council’s proposals to make regulations under Section 36 and Schedule 5 of the Transport (London) Act 1969, controlling off -street parking in areas of Westminster, Camden and Hammersmith, the BPA has told the GLC that it should study the facts and fi gures that it gave in its own consultation document, and should ask

itself two questions: 1. Is it unavoidably necessary to proceed with the licensing of public car

parks at the present time? and 2. Is there any way in which similar results to those hoped for can be achieved without the burden of abortive expenditure and the proliferation of staff ? In answering the fi rst question, we say that the GLC should quite

frankly admit that additional staff will be required by the boroughs, the council and the operators themselves. It can hardly be the appropriate time to increase staffi ng levels by

any amount on a scheme which, at best, may produce a negligible improvement to traffi c conditions; and at worse can bring chaos in the central area, can thoroughly infl ame the motoring public and the rate payers and destroy the spirit of co-operation which exists between the local authorities and the car park operators. T e second question can be answered quite simply. Yes, similar

results can be achieved without the cumbersome and expensive procedure of licensing… In view of the great concern of the BPA, and the fact that the matter is one of considerable public interest, the Secretary of State is urged to refuse consent to the making of the proposed regulations on the grounds that they are unnecessary, will lead to wastage of manpower and public money and will harm commercial and social interests of London.

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