Unlike Chicago, they didn’t simply sell the family jewels. They offered a deal where bidders had to offer an upfront index-linked rent on a lease, plus a share of any profits over an agreed sum. This meant a win-win for the city. The market goes down, they have a guaranteed bottom line. The market goes up, or the new incumbent does something clever, then they get some of the cream.
The winner was Q-Park, the Dutch company and the biggest operator in Europe, which, it is rumored, offered significantly more than the other contenders, and they certainly know what they are doing. However, it seems that Westminster
was not quite as careful with their property as one might expect. There are horror stories emerging of carparks where more than 100 tons of silt have been taken out of the drainage systems, and at one site, the incoming operator found 10 people living in the carpark.
The people at Q-Park are too smart
to have bought a pig in a poke, but I suspect that the odd eyebrow is being raised in Maastricht at just how badly these carparks were looked after under the benign indifference of the previous incumbents.
•••
Just once ... or how to make a bad thing worse
There was a break-in at a UK store and the police turned up. This incident had happened six hours before, but instead of using one of the available parking slots in the carpark, the police parked in the disabled bay. Why? Well, first, because they could, and second, one suspects because the bay was next to the door to the store and so the cop didn’t have to walk so far. The officer did this twice, and on both visits was photographed by members of the public, who confirmed that there were vacant parking spaces available nearby. It was a thoughtless act by someone who was probably overworked and short of time.
Did the police say, “Sorry, got it
wrong” and remind their people the reason the disabled spaces are there? No, they issued a b.s. statement:
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“Police officers are exempt from parking regulations for operational policing purposes, but officers are aware of the need to be considerate and park in disabled bays only as a last resort. ... The police vehicle pictured was on operational duties, as the officer was investigating a burglary, which had happened overnight, and on both these occasions there were no other spaces available at the time.”
So, either the people who took the pictures were lying, or a stupid statement has given another knock to the credibility of police, who 99% of the time earn and are worthy of our respect?
Peter Guest is PT’s correspondent in the UK, Europe and the Middle East, and discusses all
things parking. He can be reached at
peterguestparking@hotmail.co.uk.
PT
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