The A1 Biggleswade retail park is a prime retail destination featuring a wide range of high-street shops, food hubs, and independent brands. The retail park features a range of renowned brands, including M&S, H&M, River Island, JD Sports, Costa Coffee, and more.
It’s located at the southern entrance to Biggleswade and is managed by British Lands. The multi-outlet retail centre has extensive visibility to the A1 and has a large open-level multi-space car park specifically for customers and staff.
People had started misusing the car park with long stays during day time and frequently attempted to park overnight.
With a longer stay, most of the parking bays were occupied and not available for customers and staff members of the retail park. The businesses of retail car parks also lacked a system to manage allow lists for staff members and delivery services. It meant anyone would park anywhere, leading to major confusion.
Frequent anti-social activities were also observed in the car park. The car park lacked effective enforcement services, so no proper action was taken for unauthorised users and to monitor anti-social activities.
We introduced the following solutions to resolve ongoing issues:
1. Automatic Number Plate Recognition(ANPR) and Allowed List
We added ANPR cameras in the car park to capture every vehicle registration number entering and existing the car park. The ANPR system was also needed to implement a maximum stay duration of 4 hours. So, if anyone surpassing maximum stay duration would be identified with data received from ANPR cameras.
Further, with ANPR in place, our dashboard system helps provide retail parks with reporting and detailed data to make easier and profitable operational decisions.
2. Easily Manageable Allow List
The businesses inside the retail park mostly operated during 8AM to 8PM, but staff members/deliveries needed parking access outside business hours too.
So, we set up an online system and gave full access to business operators to manage their own allow list by adding registration numbers for staff members.
The staff members had a designated parking space and a system to park outside business hours with ease.
3. New Signage
We installed new signage that displayed maximum stay duration, tariff rate, enforcement signs, entrance signs and pay & stay and other parking information. The signage was easy and clear to understand, ensuring parking regulations compliance.
4. Availability of Manual Patrol
The retail park is also made aware of the Minster Baywatch’s manual patrolling services. If there’s a frequent and particular type of misuse- people parking in blue badge parking bays, parent and child bays, or anti-social behaviour, even with ANPR in place, our well-trained parking attendants will patrol the car park to prevent such activities and issue a Parking Charge Notice(PCN).
Minster Baywatch’s services have proven to be highly effective for Biggleswade’s Retail Park. The overstay and antisocial behaviour have reduced with the maximum stay duration strategy and ANPR camera on site. More parking bays are now available for customers.
Staff parking for the retail park’s various businesses is well-managed with the online platform provided to customise the allow-list.
The adequate signage and availability of reliable enforcement services have positively transformed A1 Biggleswade Retail Park’s multi-space car park for genuine users.