NCP, the UK’s oldest and largest private car park operator, has collapsed into administration — putting 340 car parks and around 700 jobs at risk across the country
Car park giant NCP has plunged into administration as 340 car parks are now in jeopardy of shutting down.
The company is teetering on the edge of collapse, with a creditors’ meeting set for Wednesday, 20 May.
NCP operates over 300 car parks throughout the UK, some leased and others managed directly.
The firm employs around 700 people. PricewaterhouseCoopers are supervising the administration process, as reported by the Gazette.
NCP was bought by Japanese company Park24 in 2017, after previously being sold by Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund, reports the Mirror. Park24 oversees more than 19,000 sites across eight different countries.
NCP is the UK’s oldest and largest private car park operator, with its roots deeply embedded in the transformation of post-war urban landscapes.
The groundwork for the modern business was laid in 1948, having originally been incorporated in 1931 by Colonel Frederick Lucas.
It started with the conversion of a single bombsite in Holborn, London, for £200, before Sir Ronald Hobson and Sir Donald Gosling bought NCP from Lucas’s widow and adopted the “National” branding to reflect their ambitions for nationwide expansion in 1959.
The company expanded rapidly throughout the 1960s and 1970s, becoming a dominant force in the development of concrete multi-storey car parks that came to characterise British city centres.
The most recent update verifies that the unpaid pre-administration costs outlined in Appendix C of the Administrators’ proposals dated May 1, 2026 are approved for payment as expenses of the administration.
The document identifies Zelf Hussain, Rachael Maria Wilkinson and Mark James Tobias Banfield as the appointed administrators.
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