St Peter’s Church, London

Situated in Belgravia, St. Peter’s Eaton Square has been using the curtilage of the church as a car park for 30 years. The church clearly marked out the 48 spaces and with electronic gates in place, the car park was always safe. They let out the spaces as long-term parking and invoiced drivers on a quarterly, yearly or daily basis.

Drivers who needed a space for the day couldn’t pre-book and were met by the groundsman who took cash payments from them. This led to a lot of admin for the church and they were always reliant on staffing the car park.

Over the years, the demand for their car park started to decrease. First, as the recession hit local businesses, they saw fewer long-term bookings come through. Eventually, it also affected drivers who normally booked for the day – these were mainly for builders who used to work in the area.

When they had 22 spaces free, they decided to take a more modern approach to parking with the intent of reaching a wider group of potential users.

The solution

After consulting with the church, we took on 11 spaces in March 2019. We installed a receiver to open the gate via our app, as well as a GSM pin pad to ensure only verified drivers could enter the car park. We successfully integrated these with the church’s existing systems, so there was no need for a large change in infrastructure.

To give their car park maximum exposure, we made their spaces available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We also introduced variable parking, so more than one driver could book an available space per day. Previously, the church charged a flat fee, regardless of whether someone parked there for one or 10 hours, simply because they did not have the resources to fine tune their parking arrangements.

The results

• After reaching full capacity and reviewing their financial return, the church added another six spaces in May 2020, bringing the total to 17.
• They reached full capacity almost immediately.
• In June 2020 they had 437 individual parking sessions.
• In July 2020 they had 509 individual parking sessions.
• The church reversed the downward trend and now has more demand than supply.