WARNING Avoid Changegate Car Park, Haworth. Notorious for Clamping

At least these jokers will be gone when the law comes into force, and it won't be too soon. I wonder if we'll hear more from companies like this as they try in desperation up to midnight before the new law comes into force to squeeze as much as possible out of it. Since the law will change against them, they won't have anything to lose by clamping people who have valid tickets on display, and they might get a clamp release fee out of it.

I had a run in with these goons today.

I brought it all on myself, obviously.

We had paid for a parking ticket and left it on the dash, left our vehicle and headed off walking into Haworth. After a short time we realised it was colder outside than we had thought and headed back to our vehicle to put on some warmer clothes.

As we were leaving the vehicle again, another carpark user advised us not to park there as we would get clamped. I asked why, as we had paid and displayed. She said that she had also paid and displayed but her ticket had blown off in the wind and has been upside down on her dash so she had been clamped.

We thought this was obviously a load of rubbish but checked on our ticket and it was still on the dash facing up as we had originally left it. Happy with this we headed off again on foot in search of some much-needed food.

Once we had found somewhere to eat and were seated and had ordered I took the opportunity to use my mobile phone to Google 'Haworth clamp' to which this thread/forum was one of the first of many links. I saw then that other people had been clamped previously for failing to stick their parking ticket to the windscreen among other minor things. I left my friend in the Cafe and jogged back to the car park in hope of getting there before the clampers had noticed my horrific crime of not sticking the ticket to the window. Luckily for me my car had not been clamped in the 10 minutes since I had left it, so I stuck the ticket to the windscreen and exited my car.

As I did so I noticed the car next to me had a clamp on it and documentation underneath the wipers. I had a look at the paperwork and it stated 'Reason for Clamping- parked incorrectly in bay' or something along those lines. The car was parked well within the bay in my opinion, so I decided I was in Cowboy country and it was too risky and drove away from the car park to find somewhere else.

I parked on a road around 10 minutes walk away (possibly illegally- not recommended) where there were other vehicles parked and I jogged/walked back to Haworth where my food was waiting for me getting cold. I took a short cut back across the Changegate car park where two chaps in a black 4x4/pick up truck were parked looking at me, I mouthed 'W*nkers' as I passed, and as I continued walking across the car park, I heard an engine speeding up behind me. the black vehicle pulled up alongside me and the gentleman in the passenger seat, a chap of around 50, said to me "Did you say something?" to which I replied "No", then the driver, a younger man possibly late 20s/early 30s with yellow teeth said "if you are going to say something to us, don't be a p*ssy about it" so I said "I called you w*nkers". When I said this the younger man said to me "If you are such a hard man how about 5 minutes in our shed?" and he got out of his vehicle, the other side to where I was stood, and hurried around the front. By this time I was on my toes and out of reach.

He hurled a few obsceneties at me, but I made it back to the Cafe unscathed and only £3-00 out of pocket, wolfed down my meal and walked back to our car and left Haworth, headed back home to Merseyside, never to return again.

I have no idea what would've happened if he had me for 5 minutes in his shed, but I would probably have wound up beaten and/or B*ggered.

Moral of the story; don't go to Haworth, and if you do don't park at Changegate and if you DO, don't call the nice chaps any naughty names for clamping people for no reason.

I'm amazed anyone actually uses that car park any more since every shop has a poster on the door telling you not to.

sarahg1969 wrote: »

Just reading about the practices of Evans and his cronies. He has men stationed in the car park, pretending to be drivers leaving rhe car park, and offering used tickets to unsuspecting drivers who are entering. They are then clamping the cars because the drivers have used the tickets, which are non-transferable. Quite simply, if you park there, you WILL be clamped, for one "reason" or another.

I cannot believe that he's never been dealt with.

http://bronteparsonage.blogspot.com/2007/05/haworth-clampers.html

That Ted Evans was, or still is, a magistrate in Leeds !!

NigelGresley wrote: »

There's an article about Changegates in the Bradford Telegraph & Argus today:

(I can't post a link - search for the paper and then search on "Ted Evans")

They accept comments - and need a few more telling it like it is, from what I can see.

Here's the link - what a complete prat that man is, especially if he deliberately sets people up as well. What goes around comes around in life, I hope.:mad: