private parking companies

magpies1951

I have read a lot of the comments regarding these companies now for my side of things! I have a small shop on a main road with a car park in front which will hold at a squeeze 5 cars I paid for 4 No Parking customers only signs at 20.00 each still folk come and park and go off this shop is my livelyhood -no customers = no takings! The amount of abuse I get If I ask them to move is unbeleivable! So I have registered with one of these companies paid £40 for legally worded sign and so far so good so please think of small businesses before parking I pay the business rates and the maintainance and at the age of 61 can spend 1.5 hours clearing snow in the winter I dont see these parkers then do I???

pogofish

So you have paid forty quid for nothing! These signs are in no way legal and you seem happy to to be the starting point for fraud and extortion.

Maybe running your own business is not the best idea for you?

There are plenty threads here discussing what you can do to control parking legally - why didn't you read some of them?

victor2

If it keeps your allocated spaces free for genuine customers then it's £40 well spent. I'm probably one of many who would respect places reserved for businesses, but there are clearly those who don't. You'll doubtless still get a small number who know it can't be legally enforced, but hopefully not too many. It's only when outrageous penalties for genuine minor infractions are imposed that people rebel against them, and rightly so.

Stephen_Leak

I have every sympathy for any car park owner, who spends good money providing a service for their customers, only to see it being used by non-customers.

If the new £40 sign deters non-customers from parking at the same time as customers need to park, then, eventually, it should pay for itself.

However, if a non-customer still parks there, there is still nothing that you can really legally do. Theoretically, you ought be able to sue them for trespass, but the usual nominal damages for this is £1.00. Loss of business would be speculative, and you can't sue for speculative losses.

PS. Please tell me that you haven't allowed a PPC to ticket non-customers?

taffy056

It is frustrating for traders when they get obviously inconsiderate people parking like this, but there are things that could help without going to these companies. Maybe if you printed out something that you could have put on screens ? Or paid the £40 on signs that says parking for customers use only. Or maybe bollards or cones may help.

Getting one of these companies seems like a solution, but you know what happens if you ticket a legitimate vehicle by mistake don't you ? You have an option to cancel that ticket, but very often they ignore that and still chase the person involved. And if that person comes here we will tell him to ignore. And you probably would have lost a paying customer.


There are no real straight forward answers, but these companies very often cause the problem, not fix it.

Stephen_Leak

taffy056 wrote: »

<snip> And you probably would have lost a paying customer. <snip>

And probably gained a law suit under the terms of The Protection from Harassment Act 1997. If they're disabled, The Equality Act 2010 as well.

Out of interest, I'd love to know exactly what your new sign says.

mikey72

Stephen_Leak wrote: »

And probably gained a law suit under the terms of The Protection from Harassment Act 1997. If they're disabled, The Equality Act 2010 as well.

Out of interest, I'd love to know exactly what your new sign says.

Still waiting for proof of a case won for that. You can give a link for anyone having been to court over The Equality Act with regard to a parking sign on private property as well.

As with the other thread, on here we support the op trying to run the business correctly, and enabling true customers to park don't we?

Trebor16

Yes we do support that, but two wrongs don't make a right, and using a PPC with their threatograms is most certainly a wrong.