MSE News: Legality of private parking fines to be tested in court today

I-LOV-MONEY

Iaino wrote: »

I've seen various people on here suggest alternative models to the current model, such as barriers, deposits etc, but all of these come with overheads, so the car park owners will need to make their money back somewhere. If they can no longer do this through penalties, they will do it through increased costs for parking. That's just common sense.

I thought the PPC receive and keep all the penalty charges.

Marktheshark

I-LOV-MONEY wrote: »

I thought the PPC receive and keep all the penalty charges.

Of course they do, start charging to park and you need planning permission, business rates assessment and liability and pay VAT.
So does the PPC, but as they get away with everything Scot free in England the landowner just waits for his cheque every month from the PPC.

DCodd

Iaino wrote: »

I can accept when supermarkets own their own car parks they will likely still offer free parking so that they don't lose customers. The issue will come with places like retail parks, where the car park is not owned by any of the shops, but is owned separately by a company that wants to make money out its investment. The shops may have no say whatsoever in how the car park is run.

.

In my experience of Landowners and their agents, it is rare that a free car park is a car park that the Land owner wants to make a profit out of. The free car park is there to to make their shopping centre / retail park more desirable to the shops and businesses. It is the rents where the investment makes a profit not the car park.

I-LOV-MONEY

Marktheshark wrote: »

the landowner just waits for his cheque every month from the PPC.

Pardon my ignorance, but I thought the PPC provide the 'service' f-o-c to the landowner, in return for collecting the penalties. If they have to pay the landowner as well, they must have to make a lot of money.

trisontana

Marktheshark wrote: »

......the landowner just waits for his cheque every month from the PPC.

Even then that's not always the case. Aldi have admitted several times on their FB page that they don't receive any money at all from Parking Eye's fake fines.

Cornucopia

I-LOV-MONEY wrote: »

Pardon my ignorance, but I thought the PPC provide the 'service' f-o-c to the landowner, in return for collecting the penalties. If they have to pay the landowner as well, they must have to make a lot of money.

Yes - most of them are F-O-C to the Landowner.

However, in this case (the Beavis case) the PPC pays the Landowner £1000 per week. This may make a legal difference sufficient to provide a materially different outcome (compared to the F-O-C model).

trisontana

Cornucopia wrote: »

Yes - most of them are F-O-C to the Landowner.

However, in this case (the Beavis case) the PPC pays the Landowner £1000 per week. This may make a legal difference sufficient to provide a materially different outcome (compared to the F-O-C model).

Even then it's a peculiar business model . The only way that PE can recoup that £1,000 is when motorists break their silly rules. If nobody breaks those rules then PE are in deep trouble . What other business operates like that?

trisontana

One particular PPC stated in a POPLA submission that the "average spend" in a particular store was something like £30. So they were claiming that as part of the "loss". Two slight problems with that. Firstly, do they pass that £30 on to the store owner. Secondly, only if all the parking spaces are full and a potential shopper is turned away can any "loss" be suffered.

Annie1960

trisontana wrote: »

One particular PPC stated in a POPLA submission that the "average spend" in a particular store was something like £30. So they were claiming that as part of the "loss". Two slight problems with that. Firstly, do they pass that £30 on to the store owner. Secondly, only if all the parking spaces are full and a potential shopper is turned away can any "loss" be suffered.

But a 'spend' in a supermarket is not the same as the profit the supermarket would make on a £30 spend. If this really was a loss (which I don't think it is) then the correct figure would be whatever the supermarket's profit is on a £30 spend, i.e. a much lower figure than £30.

bazster

Iaino wrote: »

I can accept when supermarkets own their own car parks they will likely still offer free parking so that they don't lose customers. The issue will come with places like retail parks, where the car park is not owned by any of the shops, but is owned separately by a company that wants to make money out its investment. The shops may have no say whatsoever in how the car park is run.

Owners of such car parks will pay a price for reducing the attractiveness of shopping there. They will pay a price in finding it harder to attract and retain tenants, and in having to accept lower rents. It may take time to filter through to the bottom line, but filter through it surely will eventually.

Iaino wrote: »

I've seen various people on here suggest alternative models to the current model, such as barriers, deposits etc, but all of these come with overheads, so the car park owners will need to make their money back somewhere. If they can no longer do this through penalties, they will do it through increased costs for parking. That's just common sense.

We all have to accept that if we have something of value then we need to invest in protecting it. If I had no locks on my front door then it wouldn't be my fault if someone strolled in and nicked all my valuables. It would still be a crime, even if I'd done nothing to prevent it. However, I don't want my valuables nicked therefore I accept that I have to pay for locks.

Many, many retail parks never had any parking problems anyway, the PPC con men simply rocked up and persuaded them they had a problem which could be "solved" for free (or even for a juicy kick-back). Even where there is a problem with car park abuse there are other ways of solving it than the lying, cheating, bullying, exploitative and frankly unlawful PPC model, which foists the entire cost of the operation (plus a healthy profit) onto mostly-innocent shoppers who are guilty of nothing beyond using all the facilities on offer and spending money at them. Remember, once abusive parkers have been seen off the PPC still wants its pound of flesh and can then only get it from genuine shoppers.

Installing barriers is one way of addressing a genuine problem. Another way is for the landowner to levy reasonable charges reflecting the true cost to them of a trespass and subsequent pursuit of the trespasser. Neither approach is cost-free to the landowner and if this means that, ultimately, prices to the consumer need to increase to cover it then so be it, at least it will be getting charged for in an honest, transparent way and consumers have the choice of going somewhere better located or better managed where they don't get charged quite so much.

Remember also that some businesses actively choose locations which are less-than-ideal and/or have insufficient parking. Aldi is notorious for this, deliberately placing its stores on plots which are too small simply because they are cheaper. They then palm off the problem onto their customers by installing ParkingEye to harass and bully them. The overall effect is that they artificially suppress the ticket prices of their products whilst making a small number of (often vulnerable) customers carry the can for that.