Tag Archives: car parks

National Car Parks entered administration this week, and the coverage has followed a predictable script: jobs at risk, iconic brand in trouble, another casualty of post-pandemic Britain. All true. But the real story isn’t about what’s being lost. It’s about what could be gained.

NCP operates 340 car parks across the UK – at airports, hospitals, railway stations, and city centres. That’s 200,000 parking spaces sitting on some of the most strategically located urban land in the country. Land with road access, public transport links, and existing planning permissions for intensive use. And right now, it’s available at a fraction of its market value.

The government should be picking up the phone.

What killed NCP – and why it matters

The company’s debts exceeded its assets by £305 million. Demand for city-centre parking never recovered to pre-pandemic levels, and NCP was locked into long-term, inflexible leases on sites it couldn’t afford to operate. The business model broke because people’s behaviour changed: more remote working, fewer commuter journeys, a gradual shift away from the car-dependent patterns that made NCP profitable for nine decades.

This isn’t a temporary blip. It’s a structural correction. And structural corrections create structural opportunities – if someone is willing to act.

The opportunity: triage, don’t rescue

The case isn’t for bailing out a failed business. It’s for acquiring a portfolio of strategically important land and infrastructure out of administration at distressed prices, then putting it to work for the public good.

A sensible approach would triage the sites into three categories. First, the essential infrastructure: car parks at hospitals, airports, and major transport hubs where parking isn’t a convenience but a necessity. These should be acquired and leased to local authorities or NHS trusts to operate, generating revenue while protecting access to critical public services.

Second, and this is where it gets exciting, the city-centre sites where parking demand has permanently declined. These are large, flat plots or multi-storey structures on generous footprints, sitting in exactly the locations where Britain most desperately needs social housing. The land is already serviced, already accessible, and already zoned for intensive use. Mixed-use development with retained ground-floor parking could serve both needs simultaneously.

Third, sites that are neither strategically important nor suitable for housing get sold back into the private market, with the proceeds helping fund the first two categories.