Anti-Olympic parking plan

17 July 2012

Creative Parking has installed a £500,000 temporary car park management system at Brent Cross Shopping Centre, London to deter Olympic spectators from parking at the shopping centre over the next two months and hopping on the tube to watch an event.

Brent Cross Shopping Centre sought an effective deterrent to tackle car park overcrowding and traffic congestion, given its strategic position at the foot of the M1, its close proximity to key Olympic routes, and the sold out tournaments at Lord’s Cricket Ground (Archery) and Wembley Stadium (Football) – which are expected to draw tens of thousands of spectator vehicles to the area.

After being awarded the facilities management tender, Creative launched a multi faceted operation including ANPR mobile vehicles that will be patrolling the car parks and monitoring the spaces throughout the Olympics, ANPR cameras at all entrances and exits, over 300 temporary warning signs to encourage compliance, Variable Messaging Signs to alert drivers to the temporary regulations and restrictions on where staff park throughout the games period. The centre will be allowing a maximum parking duration of 5 hours with drivers who stay beyond this period being issued a Parking Charge Notice via post.

Creative Parking is an Approved Operator of the British Parking Association and has worked with Brent Cross in the past to resolve parking issues.

Creative’s Managing Director, Gary Wayne, commented: “We are delighted to be working yet again alongside the Hammerson team at Brent Cross to provide their parking management solution, during the Olympic Games. Our scheme has been carefully designed to ensure that regular visitors and customers can continue to use Brent Cross as normal during what is expected to be an exceedingly busy period. We have worked hard to design a scheme that will assist the centre management team at Brent Cross to ensure swift ingress and egress for shopper’s vehicles and a plentiful availability of parking spaces whenever possible.”