Town Centre Car Parks / High View Parking

rm2mr

If this has been posted before forgive me. Having had some great advice yesterday with a pcn issue from all the great folk on here i stumbled on this by accident....

High View Parking run a couple of car parks (Templer & Edward Street), in Leeds, for a company called "Town Centre Car Parks". TCCP have had to issue apologies / refunds to customers who received 'penalty notices' because High View's anpr system malfunctioned.

towncentrecarparks (dot) com/news/apology#.UWCPjpOkqoo

What struck me most was the wording of TCCP's apology and the use of the words 'penalty' & 'fine' when describing the speculative receipts issued by Highview :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Stroma

http://towncentrecarparks.com/news/apology#.UWCPjpOkqoo

Coupon-mad

Apparently ''Highview Parking are an official body with expertise in ANPR parking.''

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

...tell us another, my sides are splitting!

rm2mr

Maybe it's just cynical old me but.......

Town Centre Car Parks are a subsidiary of Town Centre Securities PLC. In TCS's Report and Accounts for 2012, Page 13 Column 3 it states that, "We plan to make further investment in the
business during the new financial year.
We have recently recruited a new operations
manager to drive performance and efficiencies
at our sites. We have also commenced the
first installation of new parking management
equipment at a site in Leeds as we see this
as an opportunity to improve revenues and
operating efficiencies across our portfolio."

New Parking management equipment to improve revenues?!?!

rm2mr

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Apparently ''Highview Parking are an official body with expertise in ANPR parking.''

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

...tell us another, my sides are splitting!

You wanted another!

Take a look at High Views website

Go to - Case Studies - Private Landowner

Under the heading "Value delivered" it mentions in the first two months £20,000 income was generated from unauthorised parking alone

Half_way

From that site
http://towncentrecarparks.com/news/apology#.UWCocMpc1LF

The penalties were issued by Highview Parking Ltd. We employ Highview Parking to manage our systems on Templar & Edward Street and they are responsible for issuing penalties to those that don’t pay for parking. Highview Parking are an official body with expertise in ANPR parking.

And just in case you werent sure ...

Everyone that received a fine incorrectly has had their penalty cancelled.

So what statory authority are Town Centre car parks and Highview Parking Ltd opperating under?


edit - they are also memebers of the British parking association Limited, see here:
http://towncentrecarparks.com/pages/about does this mean the websites in breach of the British parking association Limiteds own code of practice?

more gems on the Terms and conditions page

6. COURTESY TO OTHER CUSTOMERS
You must only park in a disabled parking space if you have a disabled badge. If you do park in a disabled parking space, you must ensure that your disabled badge is displayed on the windscreen of your vehicle at all times.

Equalites act breach anyone??

12. UNPAID CHARGES
a) We may keep hold of your vehicle until you have paid all the charges that you owe us.
b) If we keep hold of your vehicle, and you still do not pay the charges that you owe to us, we will write to you to let you know that if the charges are not paid within 28 days, we will sell your vehicle to recover the amount that you owe. If we intend to sell your vehicle, we will write to the last known address of the registered keeper of your vehicle.
c) If we do sell your vehicle, and the proceeds from sale are more than the amount you owe us, we will hold the excess amount for the registered keeper of the vehicle, after taking off the costs of selling the vehicle. This will include any reasonable charges that we had to pay whilst the vehicle was in our possession.

didnt NCP get into soem serious trouble over something like this, and that was before clamping and towing were outlawed under the Protection of freedoms act?

more on that

16. PENALTIES
If you park your vehicle in the car park, but do not comply with or breach these Terms a clamp may be put on one of the wheels of your vehicle. You will have to pay to have the
clamp removed. We accept no responsibility for any losses suffered or costs incurred by you as a result of the clamping.

and under Section 8 - Prohibited activites, what would happen if you broke down and had to call out the RAC/AA or any other breakdown service

b) You are not allowed to carry out or authorise anyone else to carry out any work, maintenance or repairs to your vehicle whilst it is in the car park

Coupon-mad

rm2mr wrote: »

You wanted another!

Take a look at High Views website

Go to - Case Studies - Private Landowner

Under the heading "Value delivered" it mentions in the first two months £20,000 income was generated from unauthorised parking alone

Oh yes...!

http://www.highviewparking.co.uk/case-studies/case-study-parking-revenue-for-private-landowner/

But surely 'unauthorised parking' is trespass (not contract) and as such they can only claim damages for LOSSES? Oh wait, this is a PPC and they make it up as they go along and the British Public are stupid enough to pay them. :mad:

Fergie76

The £20k was for the Land Owner, so how much was actually raised, as I'm sure HP were not doing out of Community Spirit?

rm2mr

Fergie76 wrote: »

The £20k was for the Land Owner, so how much was actually raised, as I'm sure HP were not doing out of Community Spirit?

Don't you just love the fact that they're using the revenue raised from pcn's as a selling point....... :mad:

rm2mr

Fines to be cancelled after computer glitch at two Leeds city centre car parks

By Sophie Hazan (Yorkshire Evening Post)
Published on 14/01/2013 11:11

Dozens – if not hundreds – of drivers have wrongly been issued fines after a ‘glitch’ in a car park ticketing system.

Most motorists parking at Edward Street and Templar Street car parks in Leeds city centre during November were affected by the system malfunction.

Despite correctly paying and displaying up to £6.50 each, they received a £95 charge notice at home up to six weeks later.

Now Consumerwatch has spoken to Highview Parking Ltd that is responsible for the ticketing technology.

And they have assured the column that champions your rights that all drivers who parked correctly at the two sites and were wrongly issued with a ticket will have their notice cancelled.

Anyone who gets in touch by email or post to raise the issue will have this confirmed in writing, said Adam Harris.

He told Consumerwatch that the issue only affected those paying by card, and these people will have proof of payment on their bank statement if they no longer have their payment ticket.

But Joan McCutcheon, 56, from Horsforth, paid £6.50 in cash for a full day’s parking at Edward Street car park on November 8.

And on December 22 she received a notice demanding payment for £95 from Highview Parking as she had paid ‘insufficient funds’ for her stay.

Mr Harris stressed that all cases - even where people paid cash and had not kept their pay& display ticket - would be cancelled.

He said: “Anyone who paid, I am 100 per cent they will have already been cancelled, and we have apologised sincerely for any stress caused.

“Now it’s about getting people’s confidence back and making people see that it’s a good system that’s there to increase traffic flow for both customers and our client and hopefully in a short period of time you will see that.”

As previously reported in Consumerwatch, automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology is used at the two city centre car parks to record the date and time the various cars enter and leave the sites.

Customers who then choose to park must enter their car’s registration plate number into the ticket machine when buying a pay and display ticket .

The ANPR camera and ticket machine then share information and notices for £95 are automatically sent to drivers who have not paid enough.

Edward Street and Templar Street car parks are managed by Leeds-based Town Centre Car Parks, who employed Highviews to provide the ANPR ticketing technology.

Andy White, operations manager at Town Centre Car Parks, said: “We operate more than 4,500 car park spaces in Leeds and use ANPR on some of these and there have been no issues.

“We are not happy [with what has happened] and we have told [Highview] this.”

He added: “We are assured that any customers incorrectly ticketed, those charge notices are cancelled.”

Motorists who got in touch with Consumerwatch all said the system was weighted on the side of Highviews and not the customer who is left to prove they paid.

You told us:

* Tickets are issued up to six weeks after the alleged parking offence making it difficult to appeal for those who paid by cash;

* Motorists have just two weeks to pay if they want to qualify for a reduced fine rate of £75;

* After 28 days drivers are chased for a further £40;

* The telephone number provided is an unmanned automated service with no-one to speak to;

* Highviews is slow to confirm if an appeal has succeeded or failed.

Mr Harris said: “I completely understand that people feel aggrieved. Anyone who has been issued a notice when they bought a ticket will have them cancelled.

“There was a technical issue that resulted in these errors but the data we have received says this has now been resolved.

“It’s nothing more sinister than a glitch in a new system that’s been running for a few months. The people who paid by cash, we have received all their details.”

Mr Harris said occasionally drivers enter the wrong registration numbers, but the system is programmed to allow for one wrong digit.

Mrs McCutcheon, who was ticketed, said: “There’s a very blase approach to all of this.

“We shouldn’t have to keep a ticket for weeks to prove anything. You should be able to pay your money and that’s that.”

Amanda Barnes, 46, of Wakefield, was billed £95 five weeks after parking at Templar Street.

She said: “What’s so annoying about this is I stood and queued at that machine for ages because if you are new to the car park the ticket machine is fairly complicated.

“I couldn’t believe it [when I got a charge notice]. Then I started panicking I haven’t got the ticket because you don’t keep it for a month.”

Alyson Squire, 49, from Bardsey, got a ticket 30 days after parking in Templar Street.

She said: “What makes it even more difficult is the debit shows on your bank statement as UPT Town Centre, not Highviews.

I also don’t like the idea of paying a fine over the phone using an automated system as clearly things can go wrong.”

Thomas Charlesworth, 23, from Sheffield, who parked in Edward Street car park, was lucky that his pay&display ticket was still in his car so he was able to appeal.

Jason Backhouse was waiting on a reply to his appeal against his charge notice at the time we went to print.

Huma Akhtar said: “I received a letter [from Highview] stating they have cancelled the fine but no apology or explanation was given.”

Shock Horror - PPC doesn't apologise!!