Avoiding penalty charges in London - advice please

Iceweasel

melanieconway wrote: »

Appreciate the comments and responses but I think Dave's assumption is based on convenience rather than necessity. Someone having a bit of inconvenience to visit a newspaper stand is entirely different to a guy needing to carry out his work.

I appreciate where you are coming from - But NO it is no different at all.

Why is someone who wants to buy something any different from someone who wants to do something. Have you thought about the effect loading / parking and waiting restrictions may have on the newsvendors business?

Visiting a newspaper stand and doing a job of work are exactly the same in the eyes of the 'City Fathers' who dreamt up where to apply yellow lines and no loading /parking zones.

Workmen with vans are not seen as emergency services.

If you want to change the law - then in a democracy you should be talking to MPs and local councillors.

Nodding_Donkey

sinbad182 wrote: »

If they're loading heavy parts they don't have the same choice though do they - all the advice they needed was to use the nearest loading bay or unused residents bay to unload, before moving the van somewhere legal to park it.

What they didn't need was the half baked, faulty comparison wrapped up with a healthy dose of self righteousness.

They have exactly the same choice.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

The starting point is to contact the Mayor's office and seek their advice. It may be that there is some exemption if this is a genuine case (and I'm thinking delivery of hospital equipment or something else rather than gym equipment where you could argue that time is not of the essence).

Your problem is that in London people often have premises that are not really suitable for their purpose.

I guess that if you are supplying heavy equipment then it is reasonable to specify in the first instance that it is the buyer's responsibility to provide a means of access. When there is an issue of access, the individual company probably has solutions, so perhaps the first line of attack is to have an access plan as part of any agreement. If it is uneconomical for you to supply, you then can take a considered choice as to whether to seek a higher price or absorb the loss as you are still getting a contribution and potentially building the business reputation.

Just some thoughts...

melanieconway

IanMSpencer wrote: »

The starting point is to contact the Mayor's office and seek their advice. It may be that there is some exemption if this is a genuine case (and I'm thinking delivery of hospital equipment or something else rather than gym equipment where you could argue that time is not of the essence).

Your problem is that in London people often have premises that are not really suitable for their purpose.

I guess that if you are supplying heavy equipment then it is reasonable to specify in the first instance that it is the buyer's responsibility to provide a means of access. When there is an issue of access, the individual company probably has solutions, so perhaps the first line of attack is to have an access plan as part of any agreement. If it is uneconomical for you to supply, you then can take a considered choice as to whether to seek a higher price or absorb the loss as you are still getting a contribution and potentially building the business reputation.

Just some thoughts...

Thanks Ian. Probably worth the engineers calling in advance to discuss if they don't do it already.

AdrianC

If there's genuinely no option but to incur a parking penalty, then you build that cost into the fee you charge the customer for the service.

If it's an annual maintenance contract, then the pricing must be based on an assumed average number of call-outs. So add in the average number of tickets, too.
If you need to maintain pricing across all customers, then even that component out across your base pricing.
If that makes your service too expensive to be competitive, then it wasn't profitable in the first place, so look at reducing the costs which ARE in your control.

gilbert_and_sullivan

Between this sort of anti business daylight robbery, and the LEZ zone issues, i'm surprised any small business can be bothered within the zone.

dacouch

AdrianC wrote: »

If there's genuinely no option but to incur a parking penalty, then you build that cost into the fee you charge the customer for the service.

If it's an annual maintenance contract, then the pricing must be based on an assumed average number of call-outs. So add in the average number of tickets, too.
If you need to maintain pricing across all customers, then even that component out across your base pricing.
If that makes your service too expensive to be competitive, then it wasn't profitable in the first place, so look at reducing the costs which ARE in your control.

This is the answer and why many things in London are more expensive due to the extra costs being built in.

The other option is to do what other tradesmen do which is to use the nearest open loading bay to unload and then move the van to a parking meter