History

Although NSL was launched as a brand in 2009, our history goes back more than 75 years.
Our predecessor, National Car Parks, was founded in 1931, initially as an organisation  focussing on the management of temporary car parking at events such as Royal Ascot and the Derby. The company's founder, Colonel Frederick Lucas, had previously rented some land near White City in the late 1920s and operated it as a car park. This would have been one of the first car parks in the country.

The company began a  period of rapid expansion in the late 1950s and early 1960s after being bought by entrepreneurs Ronald Hobson and Donald Gosling (later Sir Donald). They had launched Central Car Parks as a business after the Second World War, spotting an opportunity to buy  bomb sites in town and city centres and turn them into car parks.

By the 1970s National Car Parks had become one of the largest private companies in the UK, its iconic yellow and black logo  a familiar site in high streets across the country.

The most rapid expansion - and the next key stage in the forming of NSL - came in the 1990s, when the company began running parking enforcement and services contracts for local authorities.

It won its first contract in Lewisham, south London, in September 1999, and became the market leader in on street parking enforcement within four years.

So rapidly and successfully did the services business expand that by the end of 2006  it was employing around 4,000  people, delivering services to more than 50 local authorities, two national Government organisations, and as well as on street parking enforcement it delivered services including bus and coach operations, business process outsourcing, passenger transport and urban design consultancy.

Because of the rapid growth of the services business, our owners, 3i, who had acquired the group in 2005, decided to demerge the group into the off-street car parking business National Car Parks - which was sold in March 2007 to Macquarie European Infrastructure II - and the services business, to be known as NCP Services.

NCP Services continued its rapid growth and in April 2009 rebranded as NSL. The same year we disposed of our bus business, NCP Challenger, and then in early 2010 further expanded our operations with the acqusition of Patient First, a business providing passenger transport  for the NHS and other care organisations. The company was sold by 3i in 2010 to AAC Capital Partners.

And we operate a secure vehicle pound at White City - the same place where Col. Lucas established his first car park more than 80 years ago.....