Dad completes challenge to park in every space at local parking lot

By Isobel Williams

A bored dad has completed a quest to park in all the bays at his local Sainsbury's - five years after accomplishing the same feat at another branch.

Gareth Wild previously spent six years mapping every spot at his local supermarket in Bromley, south-east London - completing the task in 2021.

And after moving to Devizes, Wilts., in 2024, the 44-year-old decided it was time to kick off the challenge again.

He mapped out all 108 spaces using a satellite image of the car park, logging every time he parked in one - with only the disabled and motorcycle spaces off limits.

Last weekend he finally finished the task, taking him a total of one year, seven months and two days, using only his weekly shopping trips and the occasional resupply stops.

Gareth said: “Boredom was probably the starting point. I have to do the weekly shop, so it keeps me amused doing little things like this.

“It was a little bit sad to see it end because it is part of your routine for so long that when it does finally end you have got to find the next thing to do.”

Gareth, who works for a marketing company, says he was more thorough this time, keeping all of his receipts and logging the exact times he parked up.

This car park cost 70p per hour to use, or £1 on Sundays, adding up to a total of £89.20 for all of the trips.

The dad also tallied how much he spent on food shopping across the challenge, which came to £9567.26.

With his knowledge from the previous attempt - which totalled 211 bays - Gareth says he found it much easier this time, as he made sure to park in the more desirable spaces first.

He added: “I made sure that I kept as much information as possible. Detail was the thing that I was really focused on doing more of.

“In terms of the parking, once you have parked in one car park you have parked in them all. There was not much difference. It is a bit quieter here, life is a bit of a slower pace.

“I would say it was probably easier this time because I knew what I was getting in to. I made sure to get the more sought after spaces first and everything else could follow on from that. It was plain sailing.”

The dad rated all of the spaces into categories of 'God Tier', 'Useful', and 'Avoid', with his favourite two being A1 and A2 - right by the entrance.

With two kids aged six and nine, he says this was probably the last year he could get away with parking in the family spaces.

Going forward the dad says he wants to keep challenging himself, with his eye on the local Morrisons next, which has over 400 spaces.

He says that the reaction online has been overwhelmingly positive, with lots of people commenting that they are now going to do the same.

He said: “It was nice the reaction the first one got. I thought given that I had moved to a new place and still had to do the boring weekly food shop I may as well resurrect it.

“People are really receptive to it. I don’t know what it is, people really like a spreadsheet. There is almost a universally positive response.

“I think it connects with something. There has definitely been an increase in ‘dull’ content. I think it is just celebrating the mundane. My wife is fully supportive of my peculiarities.

“Somebody online actually offered to take me down on their motorcycle, and my aunt offered to come with me so that I could use her blue badge, but I don’t want my stupid parking challenge getting in the way of people getting disabled spots.”