On New Year’s Eve 2014, administrators Ernst and Young (EY) called vacant property service contractors VPS after the parcel courier City Link collapsed leaving 1.6 million square feet of space unprotected, 30,000 undelivered parcels and 51 depots around the UK. VPS, secured and alarmed the depots, from Aberdeen to Southampton, within 24 hours of receiving the instruction from EY.
News of the courier company’s failure and of the thousands of parcels at their depots made national headlines over the Christmas holiday. The administrators acted to request VPS’ rapid response service to ensure the City Link premises were secure, using their alarms developed for use in vacant properties.
Within 24 hours of the formal instruction, VPS reports, it had used its UK-wide service centres to install and protect these depots.
Damien Frost, Head of Insolvency at VPS, said: “City Link had over 1.6 million square foot of depot space spread across all the major cities and towns in the UK and Northern Ireland. I’m very proud of our teams who worked fast and efficiently throughout New Year’s Eve to complete the task. There were thousands of parcels in storage kept secure and monitored until repatriated, with the company’s remaining assets also protected.”
VPS, the UK and European leaders in vacant property management, supply security to the insolvency sector as well as commercial landlords (pictured), construction firms, local authorities and housing associations. Looking after over 50,000 properties at any time, they use in-house designed alarms and void property access control solutions such as SmartDoors, guards and live-in guardians. VPS haa won contracts to provide a range of security solutions for other multiple closures such as JJB, Peacocks, Dolcis, Oddbins and Land of Leather.
Damien Frost added: “It’s great to be able to demonstrate our ‘National Reach, Local Service’ promise with such a genuinely UK-wide project. I think few companies, if any, could match this specialist vacant property service with the same speed, commitment and quality of standards. It’s why VPS are the provider of choice in these challenging situations.”
For the case study visit the VPS website, www.vpspecialists.co.uk/downloads.
