Parking stories in the News/media

Nellymoser

I thought it was April fools day when I read this article.

Sheffield shopping centre Meadowhall which has 12,000 spaces, now imposes a £100 charge on drivers who visit for more than 14 hours in a week

Gillian Worton said: “If the intention is 14 hours-a-week they shouldn’t have cinemas, a bowling alley, pubs, food halls and shops.”

The new policy will be enforced by cameras and Minster Baywatch. That will give motorists confidence...a system that can't identify a motorist's 2 visits in the same day is somehow going to monitor motorists timed visits over a week.

Meadowhall should really just close the car park completely if it doesn't want motorists to use its 12,000 parking spaces.

https://www.thestar.co.uk/business/consumer/meadowhall-parking-concerns-raised-over-new-parking-time-limit-backed-by-ps100-charge-4897591

Castle

Nellymoser said:

I thought it was April fools day when I read this article.

Sheffield shopping centre Meadowhall which has 12,000 spaces, now imposes a £100 charge on drivers who visit for more than 14 hours in a week

Gillian Worton said: “If the intention is 14 hours-a-week they shouldn’t have cinemas, a bowling alley, pubs, food halls and shops.”

The new policy will be enforced by cameras and Minster Baywatch. That will give motorists confidence...a system that can't identify a motorist's 2 visits in the same day is somehow going to monitor motorists timed visits over a week.

Meadowhall should really just close the car park completely if it doesn't want motorists to use its 12,000 parking spaces.

https://www.thestar.co.uk/business/consumer/meadowhall-parking-concerns-raised-over-new-parking-time-limit-backed-by-ps100-charge-4897591

And how is it going to cope with multiple drivers of the same vehicle?

Coupon-mad

That's ludicrous.  Quite possibly illegal: excessive use of cameras breaches the DPA and the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice.

No camera surveillance impact assessment (to justify the use of surveillance instead of less obtrusive methods) nor EA 2010 disability considerations will have been undertaken.

Guess how to identify possible people (non-staff) who might park "all day"?

Yep: not use ANPR camera surveillance and instead have a couple of staff on foot...

KoalaMSEF

Excel is pretty hot recently. 

Another discontinuation but reported by Beeb

'I fought £255 parking charge and won'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czenn548x1no

NCC1701-A

KoalaMSEF said:

Excel is pretty hot recently. 

Another discontinuation but reported by Beeb

'I fought £255 parking charge and won'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czenn548x1no

I love the sarcasm at the end of the article

Umkomaas

I'm convinced that it will be Excel themselves to be the final straw on the camel's back tipping this Govt into action. 

Grizebeck

NCC1701-A said:

KoalaMSEF said:

Excel is pretty hot recently. 

Another discontinuation but reported by Beeb

'I fought £255 parking charge and won'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czenn548x1no

I love the sarcasm at the end of the article

Yes it's a really good comment

Kite2010

Poor Excel, probably having meetings to try and come up with something 'reasonable' to explain why they have a "You must pay within 5 minutes" rule, only coming up blanks.  Hopefully the BBC will keep the pressure on and won't simply drop the story.

-----

As for Meadowhall wanting to stop multiple uses over 14 hours, just how will they determine it's the same driver for vehicles which have more than one driver.  Are they trying to get greedy, knowing that commuters have started to use the car park as it's free and doesn't mean they have to rely on Northern operating trains?

Johnersh

Top trolling by the BBC. Love that it got past the editorial process. 😀

The BBC contacted Excel Parking and asked a number of questions, including why it had discontinued its court claim against Mr Kay.

The company - which expects drivers to pay for parking within five minutes - responded to the BBC after 21 hours and 18 minutes.

However, Excel Parking did not respond to our questions and asked for an "extension", saying it would need "a minimum of 48 hrs notice".

Nellymoser

‘Rip-off private parking fines needs to go’, Catherine Atkinson MP tells Parliament

https://www.derbyworld.co.uk/community/rip-off-private-parking-fines-needs-to-go-catherine-atkinson-mp-tells-parliament-4897790

Following her remarks to Parliament, the MP said:

“I’m frustrated on behalf of constituents who’ve shared their experiences of being fined for not managing to pay for parking within five minutes. Let’s be clear - this isn’t about drivers refusing to pay."

“Despite this being a failure of the parking companies’ own processes, it’s drivers who are being hit with extortionate fines for not managing to beat this totally unnecessary race against the clock set by parking companies themselves." 

“It’s completely unacceptable for private parking companies to penalise people for their own system flaws."

View the Hansard contribution by Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab) on Thursday 5 December 2024 https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2024-12-05/debates/AE1015B5-A0E8-4AA8-B299-E3ABCF907DBE/BusinessOfTheHouse#contribution-F204A476-96AF-4272-9EB8-630AB4DD0375