Parking mad: UK man completes mission to park in every spot at local supermarket

A man has completed a six-year challenge to park in every car parking space at his local Sainsbury’s.

Gareth Wild, 39, from Bromley, south-east London, said he decided to take on the challenge after noticing his preference for certain spots.

“For the last six years I’ve kept a spreadsheet listing every parking spot I’ve used at the local supermarket in a bid to park in them all,” he tweeted. “This week I completed my Magnum Opus!”

“It kind of feels like the old Panini sticker albums, but a really boring version of it,” the production director told the PA news agency.

“There’s only so many parking spaces, why not try and get them all? “It’s a collector’s thing I suppose.”

What followed was a thorough mapping of the 211 spots available to him on his weekly shop – with disability spaces and motorcycle bays excluded – dividing the spaces into categories A-F.

The graphic created by Gareth Wild labelling the parking spaces at his local Sainsbury’s in Bromley, south-east London
The graphic created by Gareth Wild labelling the parking spaces at his local Sainsbury’s in Bromley, south-east London Photograph: Gareth Wild/Google/PA

Wild completed his challenge on 24 April by slotting his car into F20, which he described as “a pig to get in”. He added: “I don’t want to make out this was too big a deal, but there was a moment of elation.”

People responded to his thread detailing the challenge with questions including what best space in the car park was.

“It turns out there’s a lot of questions about car parks,” he said. “The best space is … I mean comfortably you’ve got to be looking at C1. C1 is just gold dust.

“The moment you come in through the gates it’s the first thing you really sort of see as a space.”

Wild said his wife is “always really supportive” while daughter Aubrey, four, regularly joins him on parking missions.

“It sort of became a thing that we would do – having her along is a bit like daddy daughter time, you know?”

On Twitter, Wild said that a Lidl close to where he lives has the potential for a repeat attempt. He also described car parks as “a good snapshot of English life”.

“You get all sorts of people coming in and mingling,” he said. “Some of them park like arseholes, some of them just obey the rules and follow the signs.

“I just like being out and about and seeing those people.”

source: theguardian.com