Penny Wise Pound Foolish

As the saying goes. I visited Camberley in Surrey today (Saturday), a nice town with the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy going full speed ahead. There is an old multi-storey which is reaching the end of its life but is still way better than the other two car parks, one barely a year old, that couldn't be much worse and could only be improved with a bulldozer. Therefore the "old lady" is far and away the most popular site. Problem is that it snowed, (does that in December again, something to do with global warming) and so the top deck and ramps are covered with snow and ice. Rather than send out a team to sweep and grit the deck the Council closed it. This meant that they had a guy in the car park directing drivers away from this deck and several more dealing with the irate queuing drivers and, no, I don't think anyone thought to reset the counters to show when the car park was full. End result: save a few bucks on clearing the deck; probably spend more on the staff to manage the resultant chaos, lose perhaps 20% of the best car park in town on the busiest day of the year, lose hundreds in revenues and piss off the local retailers and shoppers. Brilliant!