Vote with your feet - Do NOT use NCP Car Parks

Rallyline

Last Thursday I parked my Subaru Impreza P1 in NCP's Long Stay 1 at Birmingham International Airport.

When I came back on Sunday it had gone. A brief investigation by the NCP staff (once I had found someone) showed that my car had been driven out at about 10pm on the Friday evening.

NCP's attitude to the theft of my pride and joy was disgraceful. The Duty Manager, Steven Handley, refused to answer any of my questions and simply said 'No comment' to everything I asked him.:mad: He only seemed interested in making sure that he gave me NCP's Terms and Conditions, which basically is them washing their hands of any responsibility for your car.

This to me seems totally wrong. They take £12 a day for the 1st day and £8 a day after that, supposedly for providing a safe place to park your car. They have high fencing, CCTV monitoring the faces of those entering, but none on the exit and ANPR type camera's on the entrance and exit. Why do they put all that security there if they then accept no responsibility?

It almost makes me think that their employee's themselves are involved in the theft of these type of vehicles.

The police told me that the security is only there to stop people making off without paying and thet they have made recommendations to NCP many times to improve their security, but they do nothing about it.

I think that the only way that NCP will do anything proactive that is going to make any difference, is if they are hurt in their pockets.

I would therefore urge no one to park their car in Long Stay 1 at Birmingham International until NCP have put in place better security.

If anyone has evidence or experience of other long stay car parks with similarly poor standards, then let us know.

If anyone has other experiences of this particular car park I would like to know the details. So would the Birmingham newspapers.

Vote with your feet, there are many better (and cheaper) car parks that serve Birmingham. The loss of my car has already cost me a considerable amount of money and inconvenience and as I just spent over £1000 on some repairs on the car, I expect that will pretty much be money flushed down the toilet too.

sturll

suerly the cost of the parking would have been more than your car was worth.

You didnt have to pay it so winners all round

pinkcandyflossprincess

ive booked into there sept:eek:
surely if its enclosed one of there staff should have noticed, where are all the cameras pointed exactly!

ixwood

Sounds likely a staff members involved to me...

jammin_2

OP, what is your insurance company saying?

Crabman

We parked there earlier this year and I'm sure they had a face camera at the vehicle exit too, did you check or was that something the 'Duty Manager' (sounds a bit of a prat!) told you?

The parking in that place is totally unregulated, people park over junctions and the staff don't care. Has someone competent actually looked at CCTV records for you? If not, then this is a priority as they may not keep recordings for very long.

How about contacting their head office (saynoto0870 for non rip-off number) and appealing to someone there. Their website states 'regular patrols and CCTV' which is clearly aimed at assuring your vehicle's safety.

Good luck & keep us updated

mad_rich

Bad luck for you, and I hope it works out well, but I don't think it's a good idea to mention the manager's full name on here.

As for asking the entire MSE community to join in your personal vendetta against 200,000 parking spaces around the country after one bad incident...

Alfrescodave

Where does "bad luck" come into this. It appears to be outright theft - luck has nothing to do with it.

Rallyline, I'm sure that you will continue your fight to resolve this crime; keep us posted

Microstar_2

I've used that car park regularly. I think the CCTV is to protect their interests rather than the cars. I agree that the staff are useless.
On the other hand I once used an off-airport car park (where you drop your car off and they park it for you in a 'secure location' close to the airport. When I picked my car up it had an extra 55 miles on the clock and a chewing gum wrapper in the centre console. I now usually take a taxi to the airport since it costs little more than parking and is less stressful.

Bob63

How did they get out of the car park without a ticket? I'm assuming that you had the ticket with you and hadn't left it in the car.

jammin_2

cheesy.mike wrote: »

How did they get out of the car park without a ticket?

Probably by walking to the car park entry point and pressing the button for a ticket.