Birmingham's Top Secret Grand Central Car Park Fiasco

Have you recently used the car park at Grand Central Birmingham? Maybe found the ramps a bit tricky? Perhaps your car got grounded? If you have, then an obliquely worded and top secret report to be considered by Birmingham City Council's ruling executive on 18 September could be worth a read.

Official reports submitted to the executive suggest there are some serious problems with the car park, and that the council, who sold the shopping centre in 2016, need to raise extra funds to put it right.

Whilst most of the paperwork is confidential, the publically available equality assessment appendix to one report gives the game away.

It reads that issues have "arisen due to the construction of the car park which has not been built to the correct specification. This has resulted in occasional cars grounding on the ramps. The aim of this report is to raise finance to, amongst other things, remedy any issues in relation to accessibility." It adds that "the recommendations contained in the report relate to financial actions to mitigate any further consequences."

This appears to be describing a car park that has difficulty coping with cars, and will require money from the council to put it right.

The main report says no more than that it relates to "a matter of legacy" connected with the Grand Central sale. Two private annexes to the report — which have not been made available, but are listed on the agenda — contain the full story.

The 467-space car park is operated by NCP and is attached to the 500K SF shopping centre sold by the city council to Hammerson and Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board in 2016 for a reported £335M.

A spokesperson for Hammerson said: “We are working with Birmingham City Council on upgrades to the Grand Central car park to ensure that we offer our customers a parking experience that you would expect from the Bullring estate.”