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10:53/friday/03/12/99

empty mechanical parking

"Parking space will be made available to tenants' staff on contract rates but the car park is primarily for the convenience of shoppers."

On the roof of the Bull Ring, sits a long concrete box that has stood empty since 12 months after the centre opened. The plan was for the customers cars to be loaded, lifted, racked and stacked in a more efficient manner than ordinary car parks. The picture below, taken from the original brochure for the centre, shows attendants wheeling a customers car out of the lifts (having been lifted from road level inside the building below) and onto a trolley. This was then pushed down the central aisle and the car slid into place.

Various urban myths exist to explain the reason for the car parks failure. Some claim logistical errors meant it took to long too return your car; yet Gordon Harper, the centre manager up until about 14 years ago, has told me that it was purely because the British public weren't happy allowing strangers to park their car.