The Auto Stacker, also known as Autostacker, was an ambitious but ill-fated
automated parking system in
Woolwich
Woolwich () is a district in southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich.
The district's location on the River Thames led to its status as an important naval, military and industrial area; a role that was maintained thr ...
, South East
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
in the early 1960s. The project was initiated by
Woolwich Borough Council but failed to work and was demolished in 1965–66.
The Auto Stacker was an automated system for parking cars, and effectively an automated
multi-storey car park
A multistorey car park ( British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a bui ...
, using a combination of
conveyor belt
A conveyor belt is the carrying medium of a belt conveyor system (often shortened to belt conveyor). A belt conveyor system is one of many types of conveyor systems. A belt conveyor system consists of two or more pulleys (sometimes referred t ...
s,
lifts and
dollies to move vehicles from ground level to one of 256 car park spaces. It was situated above a car showroom, workshop and petrol station on Beresford Street, on the site of the former Empire Theatre. Being situated along the
A206 road, close to Woolwich market (
Beresford Square) and the town's main shopping street (
Powis Street), it was thought that the Auto Stacker, along with the introduction of
parking meter
A parking meter is a device used to collect money in exchange for the right to park a vehicle in a particular place for a limited amount of time. Parking meters can be used by municipalities as a tool for enforcing their integrated on-street par ...
s, would solve the town's parking problems.
[, ''Woolwich – Survey of London, Volume 48'', pp. 83-84. Yale Books, London, 2012. ]
The eight-storey Auto Stacker was designed by T. and P. Braddock and built by Mitchell Engineering Company, in collaboration with
Shell-Mex & BP. It was built in 1960–61 at a cost of £100,000. It was constructed more or less simultaneously with the comparable Zidpark at
Southwark Bridge, a private enterprise. The Woolwich Auto Stacker was officially opened by
Princess Margaret
Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth ...
on 11 May 1961. At the opening ceremony, the demonstration vehicle got stuck and had to be manhandled in. The mechanism failed to work that evening for
Fyfe Robertson
James Fyfe Robertson (19 August 1902 – 4 February 1987) was a Scottish television journalist and broadcaster.
Biography
Robertson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was one of six children of Jane Dunlop and James Robertson, a miner w ...
's ''
Tonight
Tonight may refer to:
Television
* ''Tonight'' (1957 TV programme), a 1957–1965 British current events television programme hosted by Cliff Michelmore that was broadcast on BBC
* ''Tonight'' (1975 TV programme), a 1975–1979 British current ...
'' television show, and the Auto Stacker never functioned properly; it was abandoned within months in 1961 and a few years later demolished at a cost of £60,000.
[The Auto Stacker]
References
External links
Pathe newsreel from 1961, about Princess Margaret's visit to Woolwich
{{coord, 51.4929, 0.0675, type:landmark_region:GB-GRE, display=title
Parking
Former buildings and structures in the Royal Borough of Greenwich
Transport in the Royal Borough of Greenwich
Woolwich