Silent Pool: Parking That Works for Everyone

A fairer model for a protected beauty spot. Albury Estate is home to Silent Pool, a spring-fed, historic site in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Results Data

PCN's

0 during onboarding

Community

Positive, minimal resistance

Environmental

Solar power, natural materials

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Case Studies

Silent Pool: Parking That Works for Everyone

Albury Estate is home to Silent Pool, a spring-fed, historic site in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It’s surrounded by popular visitor destinations, including the award-winning Albury Organic Vineyard, the Silent Pool Gin Distillery, and Mandira’s Kitchen – an award-winning Indian-themed restaurant. The area draws regular local visitors and tourists year-round, including walkers, food lovers and tour groups.

Ocean Parking worked closely with the estate and tenants to design a management system that strikes a balance between enforcement, flexibility, and aesthetics.

Key features include:

Sustainable technology
- Solar-powered ANPR cameras and payment machine to minimise environmental impact
- Wooden signage posts to complement the natural setting
- On-site tablets for real-time customer exemptions
Community-focused enforcement
- Whitelisting for wine club members and spend-based exemptions across all businesses
- Non-enforcement during local events (e.g. weddings, fairs, local community events) to support community use
- An enhanced grace period at launch – no PCNs issued, supported by signage and outreach, for a specific period for customers to become accustomed to the new parking rules
Fair and flexible access
- Payment options via Ringo, card, or same-day delayed payment until 23:59
- Restricted parking access for the vineyard’s car park, which is now protected for their customers
Tenant-driven flexibility
- Each tenant sets their spend thresholds for customer exemptions

The system allows ongoing changes in line with seasonal or business needs.

Silent Pool’s popularity as a visitor destination brought with it a set of persistent challenges:

Unregulated parking: Long stays by non-customers of the estate, particularly dog walkers, filled up limited spaces and generated no income
Late-night misuse: Isolated location led to anti-social behaviour after dark
No revenue stream: The estate had no system in place to support maintenance or reinvestment.
Tenant pressure: Each business had its own specific set of needs – for example, different exemption criteria. Parking rules needed to be fair without deterring paying customers for each tenant.

Albury Estate needed a system that was environmentally sensitive, adaptable for tenants, financially viable and acceptable to the local community.

Ocean continues to manage and fine-tune the system at Silent Pool with ongoing tenant feedback and visitor data. This solution is a model for ethical, community-driven estate management.

Ocean’s approach was refreshingly collaborative. They understood that this wasn’t just about enforcing rules, it was about creating a system that worked for us, our customers and our community. From day one, they listened, adapted and delivered something that genuinely fits the site.

Estates Manager

Albury Estate

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Do you have a location that you are considering for some ethical car park management? Our team would love to talk to you about how Ocean Parking can help you leverage excellent passive income without the need to get involved with any negative press.