Reinventing the Parking Experience

As befits a poster city for Brexit, users and volunteers at a food bank in Sunderland have had a taste of British decency unhampered by petty regulations. The organisation running the food bank hired a private company to prevent unauthorised use of their car park; that company was subsequently taken over by an Australian multinational which did not deign to inform the food bank project of the change and, once they had found out, refused to release them from the contract. The firm, aptly named Smart Parking, began handing out fines to users and volunteers and threatening them with legal action if they didn't pay within a week. Coincidentally, hired boot-boys like Smart Parking customarily derive their income from such fines rather than receiving payments from landlords, since landlords in Britain are famously more deprived than food bank users. Smart Parking condescended to reach a negotiated solution once the Press had been involved; but given the progress of British values over the past few years it seems unlikely that publicity will remain a deterrent for long, especially as Her Majesty's Government has pledged to try and improve matters.