NOTES FROM BIG BEN …


Goodbye, Summer I


BY PETER GUEST


T’S THE END OF another summer, and we in the UK have reached the time when all the produce in the


garden is ripening and autumn is just ‘round the corner. Nothing much happens in August, and come September, people pack up their beach towels and start get- ting back to work. (I know you’re reading this in October, but I’m writing this at the end ofAugust when very little is happening.)


I suppose the big story is that the


city ofWestminster is getting out of car parking, at least in car parks. I wrote a blog on this a few weeks ago, but it real- ly is a big deal. The city runs its on- and off-street parking, and that makes it the biggest municipal parking operation in Europe, by some way. Earlier in the year, Westminster


renewed its street parking contract in an exercise that degenerated into a farce and then got worse. It took two go’s and two trips to court before the deal was finally done, and a few people in City Hall probably would like to forget the last fewmonths. The city has followed this up with a


decision to divest itself of its entire off- street car park portfolio in a multimil- lion-pound lease deal. There are 14 car parks with a total of just over 4,000 spaces. Most are offered on a 25-year lease, although a couple, built on Crown Land, are rather shorter term. The reality is that the car parks


are overdue for a refurbishment, and income is in decline, so the city is looking for someone who can throw some money at the buildings and take initiatives that would help income recover. Rather than follow the Chicago


route and take a bucket of money and run away for 25 years, Westminster is being a bit cannier. They are looking for a lease deal based on a share of the rev- enue with aminimumsumguarantee. I have spent a large proportion of


42


the last twomonths working as part of a bid team for a client, so I can’t say too much about the details of the bids, but


The intention was good, but the scheme had a fatal flaw.


there have been a great deal of interest and a number of serious offers. (By now I know that my client has made it through the first cut. By the time you read this, the deal will be done. Wish me luck.)


OCTOBER 2010 • PARKING TODAY • www.parkingtoday.com


Safer Parking? Not Quite Some time ago, we in the UK had a


major problem: Too many cars were being stolen or broken into in car parks, often in buildings that were poorly designed and poorly looked after and simply acted as a crimemagnet. The police and the government


launched a Safer Parking initiative to promote car parks designed to inhibit crime and criminal behavior, better light- ing, no dark corners and so on. The police initiative, called “Secured by Design,”was basically a design template for a safe car park. The intention was good, but the


scheme had a fatal flaw. No matter how little crime there was in a car park, if it didn’t comply with the design template, it couldn’t join the scheme. The entry level was too high, and not surprisingly, numbers in the scheme were small. Some time ago, the British Parking


Association (BPA) took over the run- ning of this scheme and decided, with the police’s agreement, to redesign it. The old prescriptive design-led assess- ment was replaced with a new evalua- tion based on risk assessment. If there was no crime and nothing that suggest- ed a risk of crime, then the car park could get an award. Regular re-assess- ments ensured that if circumstances changed, then the status of the facility could be reconsidered. This addressed the issues surround-


ing car crime, but over the last fewyears, it has become increasingly obvious that this is not the only crime in car parks. Car parks have started to fall


down, and although none has been in the Safer Parking scheme, it seems increasingly irrational to award a car park the Safer Parking appellation when customers and their cars could be at risk from crumbling structures, leaking water or inadequate fire protection. A recent check in a city that


shall remain nameless showed missing test records for safety equipment, no fire evacuation plans and crumbling asbestos in public areas. In some of the car parks, the leaks were so bad that areas were


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56