Frozen in time: vehicles left for almost two decades in disused “robot” carpark

When it first opened in 2001 the £5M Skypark was thought to be the "car park of the future"

Frozen in time: vehicles left for almost two decades in disused “robot” carpark
The disused carpark was shut down after the firm which ran it went into receivership. Image: Bigstock (stock image).

Eight vehicles have been discovered at the disused AutoSafe SkyPark in Edinburgh, reports the Daily Mail.

The cars, which have been trapped for the better part of two decades, were spotted by a worker in an office building which looks on to the site.

Once heralded as the future of multi-storey car parking, the five-million-pound SkyPark closed just two years after it’s grand opening in 2001 when the firm which ran it went into receivership.

Ronnie Meredith, a former employee of the SkyPark, commented: “When it first opened they did buy so many bangers for testing.

“We had a few scrap cars; I remember one being a Austin Maestro and we also had a Lada and a long wheel base Volvo.

“On numerous occasions when it broke down we either had to instruct the computer to retrieve a car from its position or physically go inside with what we called a joystick and manually retrieve a car.”

He added: “I find it funny how people think that these cars were abandoned.

“Even if the place had its doors shut by administrators they would have still legally be entitled to retrieve their own personal vehicle.

“If anyone looked at the windscreens of these cars they would no doubt have noticed that none of them had a tax disc which was still a legal requirement back then if the car was being used on the road.”

Since the shutdown, the facility was left dormant for more than a decade in which time it became a popular space for illegal raves.

Over the past year worker started to covert the building into offices, revealing the metal shell of the carpark and the vehicles within.

A spokesperson for the company behind the transformation, Hermes Real Estate, said: “We can confirm there are eight cars present at the car park on the Capital Square site, which have been there since the car park closed in 2003.

“The owners of the cars are unknown and they are now the property of the demolition company who will remove the cars once work begins on the levels on which they are located.”

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