The Willow Brook Centre car park in Bradley Stoke, Bristol, has been awarded the ‘Park Mark‘ Safer Parking Award.
Park Mark is an initiative of the Association of Chief Police Officers (APCO) aimed at reducing crime in public parking areas, a very welcome initiative as nationally, vehicle crime accounts for a high percentage of all crime (up to 20%), and it is estimated that 22% of vehicle crime occurs in parking areas [Ref: Home Office Study 266].
For Bradley Stoke shoppers, using a registered Park Mark Safer Parking car park means that the area has been vetted by the police and has measures in place in order to create a safe environment designed to deter criminal activity and anti-social behaviour.
Andy Oram, Operations Manager at the Willow Brook Centre, said:
“We are delighted to receive this nationally recognised award which as well as security is judged on cleanliness, layout and maintenance.”
“We are very proud that our free car park is now listed on the Park Mark website as a recommended place to park in Bradley Stoke. Details, including directions, can be found at www.parkmark.co.uk.”
[Ed: We received this press release back in March but didn’t publish it at the time because the bit about the Willow Brook centre car park being on the Park Mark website wasn’t correct. Five months on it’s still not there, although the centre now proudly displays a large Park Mark sign on the access road to the car park.]
From a security point of view it’s clearly a very good car park (lots of lighting and CCTV). But from a safety point of view I would say it’s not particularly safe, especially with excessive speeding problems and overall layout issues.
Not sure how many people will actively seek out a ‘park mark’ car park. Seems a like pointless scheme to me.
The abandoned Tesco trolleys which blight our town must not be coming from this same safe environment then……
I can think of several reasons why the place isn’t safe. The irresponsibly placed Subway van is one, a hazard when trying to pull out onto the exiting road as it blocks the view of oncoming traffic. I would be interested to know if there have been complaints. Also I agree that the layout in general isn’t paticularly user friendly.