Earn a bob while you can

The issue of who has rights to a car parking space at any BBC site is a thorny one.   Management have traditionally argued that they're reserved, first, for disabled staff and visitors; then for operational vehicles; then for shift workers; and finally, if there are places still available, for staff. In there, inevitably, there are some fixed spaces that seem to be reserved for "talent" and "senior management".  Every now and then, there's a new badge or token system - but there's a lingering (and often correct) suspicion that more management than shift workers get a space.

I understand there's now a proposal, at least along Wood Lane, to charge everyone except disabled staff and operational vehicles £5 a day. This is apparently based (though I can't quite see why) on a discount rate offered to BBC staff if they park at the nearby Westfield shopping centre.  The BBC boasts an ugly multi-storey car park just south of the tube bridge over Wood Lane, quite a bit of surface parking around Television Centre, and space for more underneath the new buildings on the White City site.  The scheme might net £750,000 a year -  much less if and when TVC is sold.