Car park management companies

eddddy

I don't normally follow the Parking Board, so apologies if this topic has been discussed before.

(I'm bracing myself for any replies - I'm pulling on my flame-proof suit!!!)

If you ran your own business - perhaps a shop with a customers' car park - how would you deal with people that abused your car park?

Perhaps local office workers that parked in your car park all day, or shoppers that used your car park to visit other shops (where the shopkeepers were paying less rent than you, because they don't have a car park)?

Would you be tempted to use the services of a parking management company?


I was talking to a friend who helps out at a town centre church. Office workers regularly park in their car park - presumably to avoid town centre car park charges. When drivers return to their cars, they ask the drivers face-to-face not to park there. But the same drivers come back.

They have now resorted to using car park management company. But if the drivers just appeal and win every time, perhaps that won't help. What else should they do?

Coupon-mad

No I would not use a protection racket and it goes against all that a Church stands for anyway - highway robbery at its worst.

This has been covered several times before but the answers are:

- a gate with a buzzer

or (cheaper)

- parking posts which you can Google and see cost about £40.

- also some polite signs which could be written in quite an amusing way bearing in mind it's a church!

I always say that using a PPC is like the Church having crooked bouncers standing at an open door, letting people in then fleecing them. Just shut the door...

martmonk

No need for the suit! Nobody here will advocate parking abuse and I for one can sympathise with the problem described. The issue with most PPC's (if not all?) is that they are only interested in profit and you'll find genuine users receiving (fake) PCN's as well as any transgressors.

Time will tell if it actually resolves the problem - one solution (although I realise it has a cost), is a barrier with coded entry/exit - code being given by the church and changed regularly?

Redx

in your scenario, IF you were the legal landowner that the shop and car park is on then yes you can do what you like as far as trespassers go (within the law) so this would still apply at your home address never mind a business

if you ran the business and were a leaseholder and not the landowner, then you may be miffed at it happening and contact the landowner about it, I agree, but no you should not employ anybody to stop the trespassers as its nothing to do with your civil rights, even as a shop owner

most people who use these forums generally feel an injustice has happened because they are going about their lawful business and get penalised as a result of some discrepancy, be it being parked on the bay line instead of between it , overstayed due to giving the shops too much business , received a ticket when they should not have , have been legally parked and then exited the car parlk and restuned a few hours later and then get a ticket for parking "all day" , the list goes on and on

in my opinion if the short sighted councils still had their parking spaces for genuine shoppers to park at a business who is paying business rates, and that shopper has paid taxes on VED and vat and fuel etc then I believe they should be able to use those paid for items and legitimately shop in such a manner that everybody like the councils, petrol stations, retail parks , shops etc get a slice of the pie too

you should not be out shopping and have to constantly check your watch in case of an overstay due to the entrapment methods employed by these "cowboys" who "farm" car parks as a revenue stream

yes you will get people who deserve all they get, but most complaints on here are about genuine problems, including parking firms who have no right to actually conduct their trade at all, due to having no contract with the landowner, or like JLA who seem to "fine" you for stopping in traffic when queueing on a clearway waiting to turn onto a car park, or to exit it

there will always be "chancers" but the point is that landowners should be enforcing their rights, not anyone who thinks they can get away with it, otherwise there would not be so many POPLA decisions upheld in favour of the registered keepers and drivers

so they should all play fair, but many dont

there are plenty of methods used to enforce parking restrictions that do not rely on PCN notices , barriers etc, so any fair minded person could sort it out in a reasonable and effective manner if they wished to

thats my view anyway

mysterywoman10

You put it very well Redx and the problem does lie I agree in the Councils attitudes these days to parking whether that is off the back of the PPG13 or not.

It's the complete lack of sensible organisation in it all that gets me and the mentality of maximised parking which is having the opposite of what it should for businesses.

My other half getting a PCN last week has made me think about a lot of things I otherwise wouldn't have. For starters I'm totally fed up and have been for a while as you say constantly having to worry about parking when trying to have a nice shop.

Going to the OP's point about small businesses I do feel very sorry for this group and in my case it has really effected them, because no parking for the pub and it's staff has meant people parking on the shop fronts where they only have one or two spaces for their own customers and staff.

A local Youth Group has put a car parking pay and display on their car park there are no cameras though and no one patrolling it. And I do respect the right for someone to charge you to park on their land, if they make it available to you as a service. It is the exorbitant charges for minor mistakes and the demise of pay when you leave which did really bring up the same problems because it was more or less impossible to get an charge in those circumstances.

With regards to our Youth Group it had two cars on it today yet the free council car park (all day) is always full of commuter's cars so shoppers can't use that anyway. Why not start thinking about schemes to give revenue to places like churches/clubs etc. that don't use the parking in the week day for commuters?

Then the other free car parks (unrestricted) could be used for shoppers or restrict them to a more sensible time limit i.e. 6 hours which would mean commuters couldn't use them if they were working full time.

I reject the policy completely that restricted maximising management of shopping car parks reduces traffic congestion, increases the use of public transport and it certainly does not help businesses either.

I do think on street parking offences should be enforced though. But if ample unrestricted, free or low cost parking was available then there would be less need to park on side streets or short waiting times etc.

It needs a complete rethink and parking maximising companies are sadly an off spin of misguided and ludicrous policies.

But they are not the only ones who are the baddies in it all, the big retailers and landowners, agents and councils sign up to their services. So they are creating a market/need for them.

Just complaining about the Parking Companies will achieve no change what so ever.

I'm not sure what you were saying Redx about barriers?! I think they are one of the best ways of a) detecting when a car park is full and b) pay on departure systems for which you do need a barrier for are much much fairer.

I'm very glad when our local hospital had a rebuild and installed much needed adequate parking that is a pay on departure barrier system at a machine that gives change, because that's another thing about pay and display it is always an odd amount so you end up not having exactly the right amount and feel you are paying more than you should because they don't get change.

Redx

I was a bit rushed so the barriers point was as you explained it, they could have a system as pay on exit in some way, shape or form and my local hospital has a system like that, as does manchester airport , the point being that you cannot overstay and are charged for time used, if blue badge exemptions are in place then you press a buzzer and security check cctv and then raise the barrier

as a blue badge holder myself I find that I can barely go anywhere now and use my blue badge, neither on street or off street , due to my local council charging for the first hour on their (reduced) car parks (selling them all off for flats - causing more parking issues) and generally splashing paint all over the local town centres on the streets to stop even blue badge holders getting anywhere near the shops , its got so bad even M & S have pulled out of the main shopping centre in favour of somewhere that shoppers can drive to and park on !!!

then my local hospital started charging for the dedicated blue badge spaces even though its a well known trust in crisis under interim new management , they had the cheek to say they were charging for blue badge parking because the local council was charging , a case of monkey see - monkey do

they never empty my black bin though , or teach my grandkids at school !!

if I won the lottery I would try to employ some legal eagle like the legalizer Gary Bell to take all the numpties on and teach them about the EQUALITY ACT and its predecessors like the DDA and show them the error of their discriminatory ways

so I do agree in having attendants or pay on exit barriers or some of the other solutions that abound, but ANPR has created a sit on your backside and watch the cash roll in culture, as will be seen on tonights cctv tv programme about it in bristol

ie:- the scam now is buy some private land , stick signs up , put ANPR cctv on it , photograph cars going in and out and use any excuse to bully the RK or driver out of up to £100 , no matter if they are injured or pregnant or disabled or whatever

I have every sympathy with a shop or business that actually owns some land and has parking for customers and gets put upon by numpties who arent giving them any business , usually to avoid on-street parking fines

if they dont own the land then they may rely on on street parking , as that shopping guru Mary Portas recently demonstrated to a few councils when she told them that their aggressive parking regs were closing high st shops due to low footfall

my local council have closed a free multi storey car park given to them by somebody or other and are going to knock it down and puts shops or flats there , yet they complain nobody is going to the revamped market they just spent millions on renovating it

there is no common sense any more !!

mysterywoman10

Lovely post Redx and I do so hope you win the lottery.

Mind you I think it started before the cameras because if you think back clamping on private land was even worse, you really had no redress, no appeal you either paid up and were confronted by basically big scary bouncers. So I'm glad that has more or less gone because of licensing to clamp. We had an horrific experience more than 10 years ago as a blue badge holder and our severely disabled daughter on board on private land, which was craftily off a Council car park signs so small they were unreadable and 40' up on a building. The council car park was free for disabled but was full. So wrongly we thought it was part of the council pay and display (which was free to blue badge holders!) The guys who clamped it were horrible, probably the same ones who are now running PPC's!!!

Our Hospital no longer owns the hospital or the land, it was the trade off with the company that built it! They lease/rent it back. I do think a system should be in place for blue badge holders who regularly use the hospital to have at least a discount, if not free.

One of the things I was going to raise was signage and blue badge holders because all the signs I've now seen in a lot of private car parks do not make it clear whether or not the blue badge holders are allowed to overstay or have to pay or not. They just say about not parking in disabled bays without a blue badge. So very misleading.

Yes they are killing our high streets, I'm going to take the whole thing up with my Council, and put in a whole plan !! Our District High street in the could be car free with the right parking elsewhere. It will be interesting to see what they do when confronted with all the planning breeches especially the cycle store being missing! To be fair to our privately owned shopping centre in the District although they have signs up saying 3 hours free (no returns etc.) they don't have enforcement or cameras or threats of charges if breeched. I think they have put them up probably to appease the Council. I'm going to phone them and find out.

The guru is so right, with her lack of footfall. The big chains particularly the supermarkets on the edges do ok with their own parking so I guess they don't care if its limited as long as they get there business. Small business really don't stand a chance. Some smaller more rural towns do seem to have a better mix though and have thought it through more and smaller business are thriving.

As you say they do up markets, parks, waterfronts, canals and yet no one can enjoy them because they don't have time to because of parking! The bus systems are usually hopeless and even more expensive than parking as well. No common sense indeed.

What Channel and time is the programme on tonight? I'm from Bristol originally so that will be interesting, I remember we always used to go every Saturday to the shops, parked in one of the multi storey car parks to the department store and it was completely free.

We would spend the morning shopping, then have a big lunch in Jone's Department Store Restaurant I think that building is John Lewis now. All the multi storey car parks were free then up until about the beginning of the 80's. Happy Days
http://mshed.org/explore-contribute/themes/transforming/transforming-places-of-work-shops/the-new-broadmead/

A little bit of history

Redx

here you go

The CCTV Traffic Wardens: Caught on Camera
Documentary following council efforts to improve Bristol's gridlocked roads, which were branded the worst in England in a recent survey. The programme gains access to a state-of-the-art CCTV control centre staffed by covert traffic wardens, and reveals what happens when the city's mayor George Ferguson attempts controversial reforms that put him on a collision course with drivers
Category Documentary

Channel 4 9:00pm-10:00pm (1 hour ) Mon 25 Nov

mysterywoman10

Thank you I shall watch it with interest.

Redx

here is an excellent link that says EXACTLY why these scammers need to be kicked out of car parks due to their aggressive tactics in profit making as opposed to fair minded car parking enforcement

http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/10103794.Lake_District_National_Park_Authority_ditches_Parking_Eye_at_car_parks/

compare what went on before and what is envisaged for the future to see the sensible difference

fair play on both sides of the argument ? - I think so yes

thanks to coupon-mad for posting the link in another thread

so perhaps if the church landowner employed a similar type of system that is fair to all then these companies wouldnt get such a bad press

Coupon-mad

The Parking Prankster explains it best:

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/parkingeye-enforcing-maximum-value.html

HTH