British Parking Awards Awarding excellence, celebrating community Some of the best ideas come from conversations in the pub, and the British Parking Awards is no exception. Louise Parfitt chats to founder, organiser and key player Mark Moran, and long-term judge Kelvin Reynolds, about how the event has grown to be dubbed the parking Oscars, and its importance for the profession was having a drink with the chairman of our company, and I was saying that there are lots of industry and professional awards for other sectors, but nothing for parking. British Parking Awards founder and Parking Review editor Mark Moran is remembering back to 2001, when he first thought about running an event to recognise the talent in the profession. One year later, the first British Parking Awards was held. It was a smaller event than the one we know and love today. There were around 10 categories some of which still exist, such as best new car park and parking team of the year but the Oscar-style format was something Moran established from I the beginning. The pride of the winners and the keenness of the competition surprised him. People were really excited to win the trophy, he says. Then we had those who didnt win saying, right, were going to be back to win it next year. This event didnt even exist before and, suddenly, it had become really important. I guess it filled a gap; I enjoy the fact that it promotes excellence, because the BPA is absolutely embedded in that: its one of our core values 30 britishparking.co.uk PN Apr20 pp30-33 BPA Awards.indd 30 24/03/2020 15:22