6
Jun
2013
By Calvin at 13:21 GMT, 12 years ago
It has been a while since I mentioned the Association of Chief Police Officer’s Park Mark® Safer Parking Scheme, an incredibly effective national crime prevention initiative to prevent vehicle crime in car parks, which is a little remiss of me.
The scheme is managed on behalf of ACPO by the British Parking Association (BPA) and car park operators who want to display the Park Mark® signs at their parking facilities have to submit their car park to a thorough inspection by both the BPA’s expert Area Managers and the Police Accredited Assessors. This is to ensure that both the management and the quality of the facility and its security meet with the high standards required by the scheme, so that both you and your vehicle will be safe when using the car park.
And if you’re wondering about the standards required of car park operator just take a look at the detail of the Assessment Guidelines used by the scheme! You don’t have to read it all! But you can see for yourselves that car park operators who go down this road are most certainly making a serious commitment to giving you the best of experiences.
There are currently well over 4,700 award holding car parks, which are at shopping centres, hospitals, hotels and train stations and although there can never be any cast iron guarantee that they will all be entirely free of crime, the amount that does take place in them is miniscule when compared to car parks that have not achieved the prestigious Park Mark® award.
And just to demonstrate how good they really are, here’s part of a very recent press release from the BPA concerning Arun District Council’s 27 car parks that hold the reward:
Arun District Council has recently increased the number of awards for parking it holds to 27. This fantastic record covers the areas of Littlehampton, Rustington, Arundel, Middleton-on-Sea, Felpham and Bognor Regis.
Arun have been staunch supporters of the Safer Parking Scheme for many years as it has developed under various names - Gold Silver & Bronze, Secured Car Parks and now The Safer Parking Scheme’s Park Mark® award. They have consistently kept a high standard in their parking facilities throughout this time.
Over the past twelve months, despite approximately 1million vehicles using their car parks, no criminal activity has been reported to police or to the council, which is an excellent achievement. There are very good management practices in place which incorporate regular visits by civil enforcement officers (CEOs). Some facilities have electronic surveillance, together with appropriate lighting and all are regularly cleaned and maintained.........
The Crime Prevention Website has been a partner of the Park Mark® Safer Parking Scheme and the British Parking Association for a long while now and so impressed have we been with the effectiveness of the scheme that a little later today you’ll see the blue Park Mark® logo permanently displayed in the footer of all the pages of this website.
So don’t forget that by choosing a Park Mark® Safer Parking facility you are visiting a car park that has been vetted by the Police and has measures in place in order to create a safer environment for both you and your vehicle.
To find one near you or to where you are driving simply visit the Park Mark® search facility, pop in the postcode or street name or town and hey presto!
You know it makes sense!
Park Mark® Safer Parking search facility: http://www.parkmark.co.uk/
British Parking Association: http://www.britishparking.co.uk/
British Parking Association News: http://www.britishparking.co.uk/Park-Mark-Awards-and-latest-news
Association of Chief Police Officers: http://www.acpo.police.uk/
