Supermarket celebrates award

A SUPERMARKET car park has won an award for being one of the safest in Huddersfield.

The car park at Sainsbury’s Market Street store has been given the Park Mark Safer Parking Award.

The award is an Association of Chief Police Officers’ national initiative which replaced the Secured Car Park Award and is managed by the British Parking Association.

To qualify, a car park must reach good standards of safety and security and also have lower crime levels than the streets around it.

West Yorkshire Police’s Architectural Liaison Officer for Huddersfield, Gerry Gallagher, said: "We have been working closely with the store to ensure the car park maintains high security standards.

“The lighting, automatic barriers and constant surveillance have resulted in very low crime reports from this car park.

“A car park which has little or no crime is obviously much more tempting for customers to park in than one that suffers regularly from damage and thefts.

"The award is aimed at reducing crime and the fear of crime in parking facilities. It requires the owners or operators to adopt an active management strategy to ensure there is a minimal occurrence of crime in a safe and non-threatening environment.

"The Park Mark Award can be gained by applicants whose car park achieves the requirements of a risk assessment which is carried out by a police architectural liaison officer.

"The Award Scheme also provides guidance to owners, operators and developers of car parks on how to maintain a safe and secure environment.

"Across Kirklees, we already have many car parks with the award and hope to continue this trend."

Car park manager, John Woodhouse from Euro Carparks Sainsbury’s Huddersfield, said: "Our customers will now be even more aware that our car park has very high standards of security.

"Sainsbury's has adopted a number of measures to ensure this, including security patrols who operate in the car park throughout the store's opening hours."