Car park giant NCP owes the taxpayer £1.2m that it WON'T have to pay

Car parking firm NCP will see £1.2m of its debt written off after a controversial council decision.

The firm owed Bolton council around £4m in fees for the car parks it runs in the town but it is only going to pay part of the cost. The debts have been incurred since March 2020, when the first pandemic lockdown was declared.

NCP - a Japanese-owned company which is partly funded by the state-owned Development Bank of Japan - says has failed to pay Bolton council its contracted monthly payments as part of a 35-year deal signed in 2009.

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Within the contract, there is a requirement for NCP to make payments to the council of £79,398 per month. A report to Bolton council’s cabinet reads: “During the period March 2020 to present, use of the multi-story car parks was significantly impacted due to national and local Covid-19 restrictions and patronage has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.

“As a result, NCP have experienced long periods where the car parks have either been closed, or operational but empty and have suffered a significant loss of income.”

In October the council’s cabinet agreed to use Covid support grants paid to it by central government to write off around £1.2M of the debt as NCP could not claim Covid support cash as they were the operators, not the owners, of the car parks.

That decision was ‘called in’ by Coun David Grant and in a subsequent full council debate a majority of councillors supported a motion which demanded the cabinet reject the proposed write off. The motion said: “It is not financially prudent and not what the public expects of the council at a time of serious financial hardship for residents and