help...what is the best course of action

helppls

hi all
i wander what would be the advise on the best course of action. i am a medical practitioner and has been given 3 parking tickets due to overstay in my hospital ground (workplace). The reason i overstay were simply because i was busy with the patients in the ward and didnt have time to move my car after parking for more than 4 hrs. the ticket was issued by a private company who manage the car park in the hospital ground.

i received in the mail today 3 similar letters from the private company appointed 'solicitor' for the three tickets that were initially issued 3-4 weeks ago which i completely ignored asking to pay total £120 for all the three tickets. They manage to get my contact detail from DVLA. in the letter it says/threats if i ignore the notice, this may result in court proceeding being issued.

Not sure what to do next. should i write an appeal to them or continue to ignore and not making any contact with them.? obviously i dont way to pay and i think the charging is unjust/unfair.

many thanks

bargepole

helppls wrote: »

Not sure what to do next. should i write an appeal to them or continue to ignore and not making any contact with them.? obviously i dont way to pay and i think the charging is unjust/unfair.

Have a read of some of the other threads on this subject, and you'll soon realise that there is no appeal process with private parking companies, they just want to scam you out of your cash.

They "may" issue court proceedings, but then again, the moon may be made of green cheese. Best advice is to ignore their rubbish letters, they have to prove the debt is owed. I'd also see whether your Union can put pressure on the hospital management to stop this sort of nonsense.

Gordon861

Have you tried talking to the site manager(or whoever is in charge) of the Hospital you work at?

Because if you don't pay the fines and just ignore them, or take on some of the tactics that are discussed in these forums you might end up causing issues between yourself and your employer.

You might also want to get your staff side rep involved because you are going to have to stop dealing with the ward duties and move your car if they are going to continue issuing these tickets.

bargepole

Gordon861 wrote: »

Because if you don't pay the fines and just ignore them, or take on some of the tactics that are discussed in these forums you might end up causing issues between yourself and your employer.

Firstly, these are NOT fines - they are invoices based on an alleged breach of contract.

Secondly, the issues have already been caused by the actions of the employer, who have engaged the PPC to issue these "tickets" without making adequate provision for staff to perform their duties properly.

Gordon861

Fines/penalties it doesn't really matter in this case.

Whatever solution he is going to come up with, he needs to make sure that it doesn't interfere with his working relationship with his employer.

But I wonder if the issue might have arisen due to the fact that he doesn't have a works parking permit and is therefore using the free 4hr max stay that is supposed to be reserved for patients that are visiting the hospital instead and moving the car every 4 hrs to get around the rules. Most hospitals try to encourage staff to use public transport to get to/from work as the parking space at them is often very limited.

helppls

Thank you for the response so far guys. the issue with the staff parking permit is that apparently they only issue it to the consultants and not to the junior member of staffs. furthermore there are only limited number of spaces available so one will have to fight for spaces every morning and on most days it will be impossible to get. There have been complaints made regarding the parking situation in my workplace and i remember signing a petition not so long ago.

Public transport link to the hospital as far as i'm concern isn't great so geting to work from where i live in the morning is a nightmare.

i'm not so worried about the relationship with the employer because all this while i work with them, parking has always been a problem and they have not been making the situation easier for their employee to come to work everyday. In addition the hospital is located in quite a 'rough' area so to park outwith hospital ground is quite dangerous and i would rather avoid.