[Updated 24/4/2014 with The Snail's figures]
One of the more interesting facts to emerge from the ParkingEye case in Cambridge on 22/04/2014 was that ParkingEye pay £1,000 a week to British Airways Pension Fund to be allowed to issue charges at Riverside Retail Park, Chelmsford.
This works out as £52,000 a year, which if replicated over ParkingEye's 750+ car parks, would cost them £39,000,000 a year. It is known that ParkingEye do not pay to play at all of their car parks so the true figure is likely to be somewhat less; especially as the 2012/13 accounts show cost of sales to be £2.3 million. That would limit the number of pay-to-play car parks to 43 (all paid at the same rate).
To cover this, ParkingEye would need to issue and get paid for 20 tickets a week at the discounted rate of £50, or 12 at the full rate of £85.
This gives an interesting insight into the economic of the parking business. ParkingEye presumably have set their figures so they do not operate at a loss, and the number of tickets issued is therefore substantially larger than this [*1].
ParkingEye's figures in ParkingEye v Somerfield show they average 0.4 tickets per parking space per week on similar sites. The Prankster made an ad-hoc attempt at counting the number of parking spaces from Google maps, which came to around 580. The Snail did some better research and found the actual number of spaces was 510. This would put ParkingEye's take at somewhere between £10,000 to £17,000 week from this car park if it achieved similar ticket issuing rates to the Somerfield car parks.
Happy Parking
The Parking Prankster
[*1] Another poster pointed out that ParkingEye could afford to run several sites at a loss in order to increase market share and drive out smaller competitors.
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This is just crazy!. So the only way they can make money is for motorists to break their "rules". If none of do that then PE are stuffed . This also begs the question of GPEOL. As technically PE can only put themselves back into the position they were before the breach of rules, then they will still be down on the deal. If they are making a profit then that is an unfair penalty and should be be ruled as such by any competent judge (or POPLA adjudicator)
ReplyDeleteOverstating losses(damages) to make a profit is unjust enrichment at least, fraud a worst. That is what an Insurance fraud does it overstates damages to make a profit - Insurance fraud is a criminal offence. Maybe the SFO should be interested.
DeleteIt's a shocking business model and the more people are aware of their rights in this area the better.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder their contracts with the land owners are so "commercially sensitive"
ReplyDeleteSo Parking Eye, in order to make a profit, pay £52,000pa, in order to offer free parking.
ReplyDeleteThey then suffer a loss if someone parks too long in the free car park, thus possibly preventing someone else using the free car park.
They then try to recover that loss.
But somehow they make a profit?
Hmmm!
so there actual losses are 1000/7 days = £142 per day / 12 hrs = £11 per hour on a car park , so anything over £11 per hour must be classed as a profit? , umm,,,
ReplyDeleteNumber of parking spaces at Chelmsford Riverside Retail Park is 510.
ReplyDeletePlease see
http://savills.completelyretail.co.uk/index.php?p=viewScheme&id=2327
Article updated, thanks
DeleteThis number of spaces(510) is confirmed by the following brochure:
ReplyDeletehttp://completelyretail.co.uk/media/scheme/2327/archive/CR_RW_2327_Riverside_Retail_Park_Chelmsford_brochure_1_v0_deleted_2011_03_30.pdf
Am I missing something here? The whole idea of tresspass is to remedy for the loss. Surely this means the landowner pays PE to prevent and minimise tresspass on their property. Why would an agent, for which the landowner is vicariously liable for pay for the privelege of preventing any tresspass, unless it's for financial gain? Weird....
ReplyDeleteI wonder if BA Pension Fund are paying Business Rates on the Car Park. Receipt of £1000.00 per week turns the free car park into a Commercially Ratable Area.
ReplyDeleteOK so alan worked out that the car park costs £11 per hour and The Snail found 510 spaces. So that works out to a GPEOL of 2p per space per hour. An overstay of 2 hours would then put PE out of pocket by 4p, 3 hours by 6p and so on. I know PE don't read The Prankster blog because they think they've never been over-ruled on GPEOL so if everyone keeps quiet I might be able to charge them for some robust GPEOL calculations.
ReplyDeleteIt wouldn't even amount to PE being out of pocket by 2p per hour as they would have to pay the land owner the agreed weekly rate irrespective of any breaches by motorists. (They would be in the same position as they were before any breach). Landowner wouldn't be out of pocket as he receives his weekly payment irrespective of any breaches.
DeleteOnly possible loss would be to retailers if the car park was full with a number of non shoppers.