Would you leave a car at NCP for 3 days?

alexlyne

My family trip to London is this weekend. Planning to drive to Hounslow on Saturday and park at an Underground CP until Monday. It is 24 hours, and it's manned, though it says there's no cctv. It's also a surface CP, not multi-storey.

I don't drive an expensive car, and would obviously leave nothing on display (including the nipper's seat).

Would you leave a car in a place like this for a few days?

Lum

They are no more or less secure than any other typical car park, but given it's NCP it's probably going to cost you about £100 to park there and for that reason alone I'd find somewhere else.

alexlyne

free at weekends, and about £4 for the monday iirc.
Yes, I was amazed, but all the london underground ncp carparks are dirt cheap - check out tfl website

shaun_from_Africa

If you do leave it there make sure that the glove box and other storage areas are totally empty and leave them open so it is obvious that they are empty.
Even if there is nothing on display, some scrote may decide to break in to see if there is anything locked away out of sight.

If your car has a removable radio it would also be wise to leave it at home rather than in the car.

jaydeeuk1

Lum wrote: »

They are no more or less secure than any other typical car park, but given it's NCP it's probably going to cost you about £100 to park there and for that reason alone I'd find somewhere else.

Can do the old 'I lost my ticket' routine and pay for 1 day

Not that I'm advocating doing such a thing to a car park that so reasonably priced :A

alexlyne

Just to finish up here, I did it, and it worked (i.e. tyres in four pieces and no new scratches!)
Arrived at 9am sat, still plenty of spaces. There's a market on sat and car boot on sun using half the car park.

Free on Sat/Sun and £4.50 for weekdays (P&D - no ticket to lose!). However, I put my £4.50 in on Sat and the machine gave me a ticket valid until Sunday night.. but I didn't get a parking ticket to ignore when we got back

Would do it again. Would also consider it if I was flying via Heathrow for a couple of days, it has got to beat airport parking and only a few minutes away.

Lum

For airport parking, last time I flew from Heathrow I used a company called Purple Parking. Cost me more than you paid, but a lot cheaper than airport parking, and they are a properly secure car park and provide coaches to the airport.

That said, it was my own car, a rare one that I really liked and wanted to look after, and work were picking up the bill.

InsideInsurance

Used to park my old car in an NCP for days on end as I lived in the city centre and there was no private or on street parking and for some reason the council had a deal with the NCP instead of on street permits.

Never had any problems at all, unlike when previously I was using on street parking in another part of the same town. Where the NCP is much more relevant than simply the fact it is an NCP