Sunday 12 August 2012

No right to free parking at Sainsbury's for Cultural Centre users

At last week's Consultation on the Willesden Green Cultural centre plans the Brent Council Mayor Projects and Regeneration representative stated that the Council had an agreement with the nearby Sainsbury's store to provide 2 hours free parking for local residents.  This was in response to concerns about the lack of parking at the new Cultural Centre with the current car park handed over to the developer for the building of flats. It was made clear that there was no room for negotiation on the issue.

A request for clarification from Sainsbury's at national level has produced this reponse:
Thanks for your email regarding the parking limit in our Willesden Green store.

I've spoken with the Store Manager, Jonny Magill, about your query.  He's confirmed the car park is for our customers only, and anyone seen to be using the car park to shop elsewhere will be issued with a ticket.  Jonny has said they'll of course use their discretion when customers are shopping with us and may wish to pop to the High Street for some other items.  I hope you find this information helpful.

We appreciate you taking the time to get in touch with us and hope to see you in store again shortly.

Kind regards
 
Mark Jackson | Customer Manager
Sainsbury's Supermarkets Ltd | 33 Holborn, London | EC1N 2HT

3 comments:

Ossian said...

Whaaat? Another slapdash stroke. Even if Sainsbury's were willing, that carpark is often full and operates at hours that are nothing to do with the library centre. By the way, does the addition of council offices on top make a library centre into "a cultural centre"? I think it does because it puts it into the same sort of category as Soviet bureaucratic institutions.

Anonymous said...

Hahaha - blatant on the spot BS by Brent!

Martin Francis said...

I received a couple of comments on this suggesting that the Brent officer concerned was 'economical with the truth' regarding the parking. She is on holiday at the moment. As there seems to be a dispute between Sainsbury's and Brent Council about interpretation of a 1980s planning agreement on parking this could easily be a matter of confusion, lack of information etc as deliberate misinformation. The former seems to be often the case with the Council relying on memory rather than written statements. Local newspapers are following it up.