Willow Place car park in Corby given national safety award for fourth year running

Corby’s largest town centre car park has scooped a gold standard in safety awards for the fourth year running.

The Market Walk East car park, which has 472 spaces, has again been given the Park Mark Safer Parking Award from the British Parking

Association (BPA).

The surface car park was constructed five years ago following the demolition of the former multi-storey and has 16 parent and child spaces as well as 26 accessible bays.

There’s free parking on Sundays and bank holidays and on other days, it operates via a pay-on-foot system. Inspectors welcomed the fact that the site is covered by an extensive CCTV system.

The Safer Parking Scheme, established in 2004, is a UK-wide initiative aimed at reducing crime and the fear of crime in parking facilities. A Park Mark is awarded to parking facilities that have met the requirements of a risk assessment conducted by the police.

These requirements mean the parking operator has put in place measures that help to deter criminal activity and anti-social behaviour, thereby doing everything they can to prevent crime and reduce the fear of crime in their parking facility.

Centre Director Dan Pickard said: “This is great news for our customers - a Park Mark Safer Parking facility means that the area has been vetted by the police and has measures in place to create a safe and clean environment.

"This award is testimony to the effort the town centre team put in to delivering a safe, clean and inviting parking offer for our shoppers and visitors.”