It will probably come as a surprise to anyone who has paid £10 per hour or more for one of its car parks, been stung by one of its ‘overstay charges’, or lost a wing mirror trying to squeeze an average family vehicle into a space that seems to have been designed for a toy car, but National Car Parks does not actually make any money. The country’s biggest private car park operator has collapsed into administration. Sure, it is always sad when a company fails. But no one in their right mind could possibly miss NCP.
It may not have occurred to the bean-counter managers of NCP but perhaps it can’t fill its spaces because it charges too much?
The chain, which owns more than 300 car parks in town centres, hospitals, and airports, is among the best known names in corporate Britain. Its yellow and black logo is familiar to all of us, and it can trace its roots back almost a hundred years, to the very start of the era of mass motoring. But for the last decade it has been owned by the Australian private equity firm Macquarie, known as the ‘vampire kangaroo’ for its rapacious management style, and most recently by Japan’s Park24. Over the last few years, it has been caught out by the cost of its leases and by the decline in driving, culminating in this week’s decision to appoint receivers either to sell it to a new owner or else to rationalise the chain.
It is hard to believe that anyone will miss it. NCP has followed a path that is depressingly familiar to anyone who has followed the fate of companies sold to private equity or foreign owners. The customer is squeezed and squeezed again until finally they give up and move on. It may not have occurred to the bean-counter managers of NCP but perhaps it can’t fill its spaces because it charges too much? And because it does not provide a secure and easy place to leave your car for an hour or two? Instead, NCP has been allowed to become emblematic of rip off pricing and poor service. Indeed, its demise should be a warning to the government. You can only push motorists so far before eventually they just abandon driving.
Whatever happens to the chain now, it will surely be an improvement over its current ownership. Either the receivers will be able to renegotiate the leases and lower the charges, or else they can sell on the sites. Many old car parks would be excellent locations for apartment blocks, in the admittedly unlikely event that local councils allowed them to be built. Whoever ends up owning it, one point is certain. The NCP brand is damaged beyond repair, and no one will mourn its passing.
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