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So it’s England, and summer. We know this because the rain is warmer and the grass is growing. As I write this, “Brexit” still fills

 Let’s talk about parking. “Shoupistas” talk a lot about the (mostly) American propensity to provide one parking space for each person that will ever visit

  I had lunch with a good friend the other day. He’s a very busy man. He runs the UK operation of a major and

 We are a service industry, and it’s important that we understand, and respond to, our customers’ need. Ignore this at your peril.  However, please don’t

 I have just spent a month “skiing” in New Zealand – not zooming over snow or water with planks tied to my feet, but what

 We here in the UK have a national road sign design system that dates to the 1960s. The basics haven’t changed, but designs have been

 Once again, the press over here in the UK are having a field day with the publication of data relating to how much people pay

 Here in the UK, Park and Ride (P&R) is becoming increasingly common. The idea is that the city builds a big parking lot on the

 Some of you may know that I have a day job as a parking consultant. Recently my phone rang; it was someone from a “bailiff”

 I suppose the big news item this side of the water is what has happened to WPS, the Dutch PARCS vendor. Its parent company, Royal

 If it seems too good to be true … My cousin contacted me recently to ask my advice about a new “business opportunity” that she

 When I went to build a garage at my UK home, the local council decided that, to allow this, I would have to pay for

 SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) and I had an Imperial State Visit from JVH recently. We took him out for a pub lunch in

 I recently wrote of our UK government’s rather strange plan to make Britain a better place to park.  In 2004, the current law came into

 It’s that time of year when the British Parking Awards hove into view just a few weeks before we head off to Chicago for PIE

The big news these days is the survival of Apcoa AG, Europe’s biggest parking company. Howard Metzenbaum and “Ted” Bonda founded the Airport Parking Co.

So it’s 2015. Happy new year to you all. I wonder what it holds in store. Here in the “Disunited” Kingdom, we are looking forward

I have just looked at and “binned” a major tender to design, finance, build, operate and transfer some major parking infrastructure for a city; I

The British Parking Association (BPA) journal Parking News ran a good article (“Standing Proud”) in July on a very early carpark, in Glasgow, Scotland, known

Back last summer, our UK Parliament looked at how municipal parking worked here. In particular, how local authorities enforce the rules. This was done via

The big news story here in the UK – indeed, in Europe – has nothing to do with parking. We Europeans have just elected a

As Ashley Bijster prepares to become the next President of the British Parking Association (BPA), she is relishing the prospect of playing a central and

It’s been a busy few weeks. My day job has taken me to Madrid, where I am working with a client on a pretty important

It’s party time over here in England’s green and pleasant, as once again we head toward the British Parking Association (BPA) “any excuse for drink”

(Our intrepid columnist on all things British began using a typically English swear word. It may be banned in the UK, but not in the

I have reached the magic age of 65, which here in England’s green and pleasant land is the state pension age, the point at which

It’s already 2014, and I’m wondering what surprises the next 12 months will bring in the crazy world of parking. 2013 gave us here in

The UK Parliament has a system on scrutinizing public life called Select Committees, and one of these, the House of Commons Transport Committee, recently carried

Many years ago, I was part of a team that was asked to review the design of a carpark in a very prestigious new building

The result was chaos, and the police ticketed the residents for obstruction. To ensure that this never happened again, the government issued a notice to

We had the third annual “Parking and Property” seminar in late May here in London. This event came out of a conversation that I had

They said what they stood for, published a manifesto, and declared, “If you agree with me, vote for me.” Not any more, we in the

Fewer and fewer people seem to understand that the words “change” and “improvement” have different meanings these days. Changing things for the sake of changing

Once again, the British Parking Association (BPA) awards are with us, and this inevitably means that, as one of the judges, I have got to

Right now, we in the UK probably have the most famous carpark in the world, here in Leicester. There’s nothing special about it, per se;

Here in the UK, two councillors in Northumberland have been accused of “hypocrisy” over their rather variable views on parking charges. John Riddle and Anthony

Just got back from Brazil; you can see what I was up to elsewhere in this issue of PT magazine. Meanwhile … Something Happened I

For a whole week, I have been cut off from the world of electronic communications; it has been wonderful. On Monday, the phone line was

Twenty-four hours to go and nothing – my brain’s a complete blank. There must be something worth writing about before JVH starts sending the threatening

It doesn’t snow much in England’s green and pleasant land but in 2010 we had a doozie with half the country in lock down, all

I was in New York for a few days recently; I guess that anyone who isn’t living in a cave can probably guess why I