A Middle Eastern royal has paid £21 million ($26.5 million) for his own car park a stone’s throw from luxury department store Harrods in central London.

The anonymous buyer is now the proud owner of the underground facility in Knightsbridge where he can safely keep his private collection of 80 sports cars and other classic models.

The extraordinary purchase – the most any person has ever paid for a private garage in Britain – is the latest in a string of big private property deals in the UK involving Gulf state billionaires.

The former public car park was upgraded substantially before the sale and includes extra-wide parking bays to prevent unfortunate scrapes, licence-plate recognition technology upon entry, and extensive CCTV.

A spokesman for the firm Waterbridge, which previously managed the car park, said that in view of the fact that individual car parking spaces can sell for as much as £450,000 ($565,000) in London, the new buyer has probably secured a bargain. “The value of his collection is significantly higher than the price he has paid for the parking,” he said.

The spokesman also reflected on the increasingly over-priced British property market, saying: “A car park in central London is being sold for more than entire streets and villages outside the capital’s centre, and yet even upper-middle class generations are finding it impossible to rent in London, let alone purchase in their lifetime.”

During the summer months in London, central London residents often have to contend with Arab “boy racers” who drive their super-charged vehicles at high speeds through popular areas late at night.

Source: heatst.com