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Parking – the bane of my life!

Today we returned to the subject of parking, one of the banes of my life.

First off we heard about the man who after battling unsuccessfully with one of those parking machines where you have to put in your registration number, ended up with a £60 fine.

After 4 failed attempts to persuade the machine to accept his reg number, 63-year old Ian Dykes from Nottingham gave up and drove off to a near-by multi-storey carpark.

But then a week later he received a £60 fine for the period of 8 minutes that he spent trying to get the machine to accept his parking fee.

As you would expect , Ian has appealed the fine, even presenting the company with a ticket evidencing the fact that he moved on to another car park less than 10 minutes later, but the parking company are adamant that he has to pay up as according to them the machine was working correctly.

Meanwhile from Gateshead comes news of Spencer Barclay who has been fined £100 for visiting McDonalds twice in one day!

First off he went to the Metro Retail Park in Gateshead for a coffee in the morning, but headed back there after work to get a Happy Meal for his six-year-old son.

Despite there being a decent length of time between the visits – a full workday – he was still sent a parking fine by UKPC, which claimed he’d been parked there for nearly nine hours.

In truth, he’d been parked in the free car park at Metropolitan House, where he works.

“I think they have got a camera that photographs you, but the camera is a snapshot in time. It photographs you coming in and leaving and that’s fine but what if you visit twice?” he said.

So, the first visit was at 8.25am on June 24, at which time Spencer bought a coffee and was in the car park while he drank some of it.

Then, he was off to work, and didn’t return until just after 5.00pm when he turned up to grab a treat for his son.

On July 2 he received the fine in the post, which included pictures of his car captured at 8.25am and 5.09pm, implying that he’d simply left his car parked there all day whilst he was actually at work.

Unsurprisingly Spencer has challenged the fine and demanded to see a video to prove that he was there all day long, pointing out that, ‘the information is wrong, I arrived at that time and I left at that time but you’ve got to be a complete moron if you park in that car park and walk to work where there’s a free car park’.

A spokesperson for McDonalds said,  “We are sorry to hear about this customer’s experience. The car park at our Metro Retail Park restaurant is run by a third party provider and we have made them aware of this issue. We understand that if the customer contacts the provider directly, their case will be considered under the appeals process.”

Well let’s hope so!

The car park for a supermarket close to where I live has installed cameras which specify a maximum time you can spend there – fair enough – but they do not allow a return visit to the store within a period of some hours, so if on getting home you discover that you forgot an item, or something was faulty you cannot return to the supermarket straight away. Surely can’t be good for business!

Mercifully the car park here at THE BRENTWOOD CENTRE is free, but I’m off now anyway and hope to have your company again tomorrow,
Scott

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Parking – the bane of my life!

Today we returned to the subject of parking, one of the banes of my life.

First off we heard about the man who after battling unsuccessfully with one of those parking machines where you have to put in your registration number, ended up with a £60 fine.

After 4 failed attempts to persuade the machine to accept his reg number, 63-year old Ian Dykes from Nottingham gave up and drove off to a near-by multi-storey carpark.

But then a week later he received a £60 fine for the period of 8 minutes that he spent trying to get the machine to accept his parking fee.

As you would expect , Ian has appealed the fine, even presenting the company with a ticket evidencing the fact that he moved on to another car park less than 10 minutes later, but the parking company are adamant that he has to pay up as according to them the machine was working correctly.

Meanwhile from Gateshead comes news of Spencer Barclay who has been fined £100 for visiting McDonalds twice in one day!

First off he went to the Metro Retail Park in Gateshead for a coffee in the morning, but headed back there after work to get a Happy Meal for his six-year-old son.

Despite there being a decent length of time between the visits – a full workday – he was still sent a parking fine by UKPC, which claimed he’d been parked there for nearly nine hours.

In truth, he’d been parked in the free car park at Metropolitan House, where he works.

“I think they have got a camera that photographs you, but the camera is a snapshot in time. It photographs you coming in and leaving and that’s fine but what if you visit twice?” he said.

So, the first visit was at 8.25am on June 24, at which time Spencer bought a coffee and was in the car park while he drank some of it.

Then, he was off to work, and didn’t return until just after 5.00pm when he turned up to grab a treat for his son.

On July 2 he received the fine in the post, which included pictures of his car captured at 8.25am and 5.09pm, implying that he’d simply left his car parked there all day whilst he was actually at work.

Unsurprisingly Spencer has challenged the fine and demanded to see a video to prove that he was there all day long, pointing out that, ‘the information is wrong, I arrived at that time and I left at that time but you’ve got to be a complete moron if you park in that car park and walk to work where there’s a free car park’.

A spokesperson for McDonalds said,  “We are sorry to hear about this customer’s experience. The car park at our Metro Retail Park restaurant is run by a third party provider and we have made them aware of this issue. We understand that if the customer contacts the provider directly, their case will be considered under the appeals process.”

Well let’s hope so!

The car park for a supermarket close to where I live has installed cameras which specify a maximum time you can spend there – fair enough – but they do not allow a return visit to the store within a period of some hours, so if on getting home you discover that you forgot an item, or something was faulty you cannot return to the supermarket straight away. Surely can’t be good for business!

Mercifully the car park here at THE BRENTWOOD CENTRE is free, but I’m off now anyway and hope to have your company again tomorrow,
Scott

Subscribe to our newsletter!
One a month, no spam, honest

Now on air
Coming up
More from One 2 Three
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More from Phoenix FM


Parking – the bane of my life!

Today we returned to the subject of parking, one of the banes of my life.

First off we heard about the man who after battling unsuccessfully with one of those parking machines where you have to put in your registration number, ended up with a £60 fine.

After 4 failed attempts to persuade the machine to accept his reg number, 63-year old Ian Dykes from Nottingham gave up and drove off to a near-by multi-storey carpark.

But then a week later he received a £60 fine for the period of 8 minutes that he spent trying to get the machine to accept his parking fee.

As you would expect , Ian has appealed the fine, even presenting the company with a ticket evidencing the fact that he moved on to another car park less than 10 minutes later, but the parking company are adamant that he has to pay up as according to them the machine was working correctly.

Meanwhile from Gateshead comes news of Spencer Barclay who has been fined £100 for visiting McDonalds twice in one day!

First off he went to the Metro Retail Park in Gateshead for a coffee in the morning, but headed back there after work to get a Happy Meal for his six-year-old son.

Despite there being a decent length of time between the visits – a full workday – he was still sent a parking fine by UKPC, which claimed he’d been parked there for nearly nine hours.

In truth, he’d been parked in the free car park at Metropolitan House, where he works.

“I think they have got a camera that photographs you, but the camera is a snapshot in time. It photographs you coming in and leaving and that’s fine but what if you visit twice?” he said.

So, the first visit was at 8.25am on June 24, at which time Spencer bought a coffee and was in the car park while he drank some of it.

Then, he was off to work, and didn’t return until just after 5.00pm when he turned up to grab a treat for his son.

On July 2 he received the fine in the post, which included pictures of his car captured at 8.25am and 5.09pm, implying that he’d simply left his car parked there all day whilst he was actually at work.

Unsurprisingly Spencer has challenged the fine and demanded to see a video to prove that he was there all day long, pointing out that, ‘the information is wrong, I arrived at that time and I left at that time but you’ve got to be a complete moron if you park in that car park and walk to work where there’s a free car park’.

A spokesperson for McDonalds said,  “We are sorry to hear about this customer’s experience. The car park at our Metro Retail Park restaurant is run by a third party provider and we have made them aware of this issue. We understand that if the customer contacts the provider directly, their case will be considered under the appeals process.”

Well let’s hope so!

The car park for a supermarket close to where I live has installed cameras which specify a maximum time you can spend there – fair enough – but they do not allow a return visit to the store within a period of some hours, so if on getting home you discover that you forgot an item, or something was faulty you cannot return to the supermarket straight away. Surely can’t be good for business!

Mercifully the car park here at THE BRENTWOOD CENTRE is free, but I’m off now anyway and hope to have your company again tomorrow,
Scott

Subscribe to our newsletter!
One a month, no spam, honest

Now on air
Coming up
More from One 2 Three
More from
More from Phoenix FM


Parking – the bane of my life!

Today we returned to the subject of parking, one of the banes of my life.

First off we heard about the man who after battling unsuccessfully with one of those parking machines where you have to put in your registration number, ended up with a £60 fine.

After 4 failed attempts to persuade the machine to accept his reg number, 63-year old Ian Dykes from Nottingham gave up and drove off to a near-by multi-storey carpark.

But then a week later he received a £60 fine for the period of 8 minutes that he spent trying to get the machine to accept his parking fee.

As you would expect , Ian has appealed the fine, even presenting the company with a ticket evidencing the fact that he moved on to another car park less than 10 minutes later, but the parking company are adamant that he has to pay up as according to them the machine was working correctly.

Meanwhile from Gateshead comes news of Spencer Barclay who has been fined £100 for visiting McDonalds twice in one day!

First off he went to the Metro Retail Park in Gateshead for a coffee in the morning, but headed back there after work to get a Happy Meal for his six-year-old son.

Despite there being a decent length of time between the visits – a full workday – he was still sent a parking fine by UKPC, which claimed he’d been parked there for nearly nine hours.

In truth, he’d been parked in the free car park at Metropolitan House, where he works.

“I think they have got a camera that photographs you, but the camera is a snapshot in time. It photographs you coming in and leaving and that’s fine but what if you visit twice?” he said.

So, the first visit was at 8.25am on June 24, at which time Spencer bought a coffee and was in the car park while he drank some of it.

Then, he was off to work, and didn’t return until just after 5.00pm when he turned up to grab a treat for his son.

On July 2 he received the fine in the post, which included pictures of his car captured at 8.25am and 5.09pm, implying that he’d simply left his car parked there all day whilst he was actually at work.

Unsurprisingly Spencer has challenged the fine and demanded to see a video to prove that he was there all day long, pointing out that, ‘the information is wrong, I arrived at that time and I left at that time but you’ve got to be a complete moron if you park in that car park and walk to work where there’s a free car park’.

A spokesperson for McDonalds said,  “We are sorry to hear about this customer’s experience. The car park at our Metro Retail Park restaurant is run by a third party provider and we have made them aware of this issue. We understand that if the customer contacts the provider directly, their case will be considered under the appeals process.”

Well let’s hope so!

The car park for a supermarket close to where I live has installed cameras which specify a maximum time you can spend there – fair enough – but they do not allow a return visit to the store within a period of some hours, so if on getting home you discover that you forgot an item, or something was faulty you cannot return to the supermarket straight away. Surely can’t be good for business!

Mercifully the car park here at THE BRENTWOOD CENTRE is free, but I’m off now anyway and hope to have your company again tomorrow,
Scott

Subscribe to our newsletter!
One a month, no spam, honest

Now on air
Coming up
More from One 2 Three
More from
More from Phoenix FM