Today, the Fort Dunlop in Birmingham implemented a new car park scheme. They have allocated parking spaces to approximately 20% of employees for each business unit with the remaining spaces using a typical Pay & Display system.

I say “typical” - there’s nothing typical or even logical about the implementation:

1. The first hour and half is waived as a free complimentary period but you still need to get a ticket and put it in your window.
2. After this period, you need to go back to the car park and purchase yet another ticket at associated rates. The cost for a typical 8 hour day is £10.
3. The ticket machines don’t take notes nor credit cards, just coins.
4. There are no cash points on site.
5. There are no shops on site.
6. The marketing suite has no change.
7. There are two small cafe’s on site - both with small limited cash floats.
8. There is no block book option.
9. The free parking option is based at Star City (often referred to as “Stab City” for it’s high crime rate), with buses running “frequently” every hour.
10. Parking at the Fort Shopping Centre next door (which is free) have specifically stated they will clamp anyone parking in their facilities and leaving the site for the Fort Dunlop.

As you can see, Urban Cash have thoroughly thought this implementation through. As a regular employee on the site, I am expected to carry fifty pound coins on me every week for the pleasure of working in the office.

Even worse, they are claiming it’s “not for profit”. How can that be when current tenants haven’t had to pay for parking since the reopening last year but Urban Cash are quite proudly making big profits year on year?

As if charging approximately £250,000 per year for renting a quarter of a floor wasn’t enough too.

It’ll be interesting to see how long this lasts…

Disclaimer: this post is purely the thoughts of myself and do not in any way reflect the opinion of my employers.