Have you had trouble with those awful private parking companies? So asks a good friend who's fallen victim to their misleading signage, unreasonable fines and opaque appeals process. And indeed I have. Recently I had to drop my dogs round to a friend who was looking after them while I went away for a couple of days. She lives in a little enclave containing low level blocks of flats. A sign warned it was private parking, but I don't recall any mention of time limits or possible fines. Anyway, as a blue disabled badge holder visiting a resident, I assumed I'd be able to stay long enough to drop off my animals.
After all, as the badge indicates, I would not have been able to manage the quite long walk from the main road to her house. I had a quick cup of tea and left. But a few days later I received, via email, a parking ticket for a staggering £100. I was shocked – by the amount and because I genuinely had no idea I'd done anything wrong. My friend and I were stunned to discover, on looking up the rules online, that I should have stayed for no more than 20 minutes. The parking ticket I received was for the crime of spending 40 minutes more than the allocated time.
My friend didn't realise the short time he spent driving around the complex, looking for a space, would count towards his total – leading to him receiving a £60 fine. So I can empathise with my friend who emailed. He'd been caught out in a car park in west London, run by a private firm. He'd driven to the area to pick up an item he'd bought on eBay. The seller had told him he'd have 20 minutes' parking and when he arrived he checked the sign to make sure that was the case.
The sign listing Parking Conditions said: 'All motorists must enter their full and correct registration into the tablet in concierge upon arrival for a maximum stay of 20 minutes.'. He did so and then, quite reasonably, assumed he had 20 minutes to park. He didn't realise the short time he spent driving around the complex, looking for a space, would count towards his total – leading to him receiving a £60 fine.
Quite clearly, 'parking' means your vehicle has come to a halt. The photographs sent to him as evidence show his car moving with its lights on in two different locations – in other words, not parked. There was no indication that 20 minutes' 'parking' would cover the time of driving in, finding a space and then driving out again. The sign, my friend wrote, was at best confusing and at worst fraudulent. He has appealed, but holds out little hope of success.
It's a scandal that private companies are allowed to issue astronomical fines to drivers doing their best to obey the rules. And it's one ministers are aware of. The foreword to the Government's 2022 Private Parking Code of Practice (currently under review) states: 'Private firms issue roughly 22,000 parking tickets every day, often adopting a labyrinthine system of misleading and confusing signage, opaque appeals services, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees designed to extort money from motorists. Apart from their inherent unfairness these practices damage our high streets, our towns and our city centres. We are determined to bring them to an end.'.
Well, clearly that has not happened. Why not?. My friend, trying to work out how much these private parking firms are making, said: 'If each of these 22,000 fines is £60 that is £1.32million a day – nearly half a billion pounds a year.'. Reviews of the company that fined him are uniformly appalling and there are hundreds of them online from all over the country. 'Bunch of scammers' says one. 'Absolutely criminal and unfair parking company' says another. 'As a disabled person I used a disabled parking space and overstayed by 7 minutes. Now I need to pay £170' wrote another.
One woman spent a year fighting another firm which took her to court over £1,900 of fines because she was unable to pay her parking tariff within the five minutes they demanded. Amid an outcry, the company dropped the case and the unfair 'five-minute' rule is now set to be scrapped. What's worse, these firms operate in many hospital car parks with horrific results for sick and grieving people. Like the father charged a king's ransom after his wife had to be rushed into hospital for an emergency Caesarean.
But it's important to note that you can fight back. In my own case, I'm lucky that my friend is a pushy sort who knows her landlord well. She made a complaint to him, insisting that she'd been ignorant of the rule and thought it appalling that she couldn't have visitors park outside her house, especially those with a clearly obvious blue badge. The landlord managed to have my demand for £100 cancelled, but insisted the company had said this would only be allowed this time. In future I must not exceed the 20 minutes or simply park on the main road and walk.
