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Westminster's Alistair Gilchrist flew to to Denver today to attend the IPI's Annual International Parking Conference & Exposition in Denver, Colorado. His return flights to Denver were paid for by Verrus Mobile Technologies Inc.

Alistair was previously Head of Parking at WCC and he was responsible for arranging the lucrative "Pay By Phone" contract with Verrus.

Seems that Verrus are now showing their appreciation of the deal by paying for Alistair's flights to Denver. Gilchrist knows all about flying as he used to be an EasyJet executive. However, is this not a totally unacceptable, should questions not be asked about this arrangement?

Gilchrist is visiting the conference at the invitation of Verrus Co-Founder David Spittell. On Monday Spittell will be making a presentation entitled "Coin Today - Phone Tomorrow; Has Europe leaped ahead with Pay By Phone technology?" Gilchrist is also expected to endorse the same technology when he makes his presentation during the conference week. A kind of, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours arrangement no doubt.

We think Verus are sweetening Gilchrist because he has an influentual position at PiP - the Partners in Parking Initiative.  Set up in 2007 and led by WCC in conjunction with TFL and other London councils, PiP is a cross-authority partnership that aims to harmonise parking equipment, services, controls and practices across London. Westminster City Council has implemented Pay by Phone technology in partnership with Verrus and no doubt Verrus would like to see their technology taken up by other London councils. This would be extremely lucrative for Verrus as the contracts would be worth many millions of pounds.