Jurys Inn Southampton Loading Area

FrankCannon

I am posting on behalf of my friend, who is a single mum of 2 young children aged 2 and 5, the older child being disabled and qualifies for a blue badge. My friend decided to treat the children to a visit to Peppa Pig World near Southampton, and chose to stay overnight in the city as they live in the north of England. The hotel has no parking of its own, but offers a loading area in its advertising, here ;

https://www.jurysinns.com/hotels/southampton/map

The loading area can be seen on Google Maps ;

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.9106818,-1.4015346,3a,75y,42.21h,92.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sVXapK_gDWH1Ue0nkJN82kA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

A few days after returning home, my friend received a PCN from Countrywide Parking Management (IPC member) claiming £100 for "Overstaying Free Parking Limit". Before I became involved, my friend sent an initial appeal to Countrywide provided an image of her child's blue badge, but Countrywide rejected her appeal ; "The terms & conditions of parking at Charlotte Place have been exceptionally well advertised and are brought to the attention of the driver by way of the onsite warning signs. They inform the driver that there is a 15-minute maximum stay with no grace period after 15 minutes. At the time of the contravention, you overstayed the maximum stay period which is a direct breach of the terms & conditions and therefore issued a Parking Charge Notice (PCN). After reviewing the evidence, we are satisfied that the PCN was issued correctly and must now be paid in full."

My friend's recollection of events is that when she arrived at the hotel, she felt that she couldn’t leave her two children in her car as the 5-year-old can undo his seat belt and climb all over handbrake, etc., so it wouldn’t have been safe. Having got the two children and some of the luggage out of the car and into the reception area, there was somebody in the queue in front of her checking in. Once she had checked in and been given the room key, she took the children up to the room, dumped the luggage, and rushed back to car with the children. She felt that the staff knew that she was in the loading bay as she was rushing with the children, and she had even asked a member of staff about the nearest parking, but not one member of staff helped her with her luggage nor did they offer to look after it in reception while she took the children off to park the car. By the time she had got the children back in the car and driven past the exit ANPR camera round the other side of the roundabout, 20 minutes had elapsed.

I contacted the hotel on my friend's behalf to see if they would be able to cancel the PCN, but their reply was slopey-shouldered ; "I would like to clarify that the parking around the hotel doesn’t belong to us, but rather arranged & managed by the local authorities and the landlord of the buildings/ blocks at the roundabout. This has been put in place to ease the inner driveway traffic and I am afraid we won’t be able to fight/appeal this parking ticket for you as we don’t have any power or jurisdiction to do so. I can only advise you to contact Countrywide Parking and give them your appealing reference number which should be on the back of the parking fine. Unfortunately, at this time there is not much we can do to help."

I wrote back advising them that it's an invoice not a fine and that loading/unloading is not parking, etc., but they have ignored me twice.

I think this scam has only recently been set up as there are only 2 negative reviews on Tripadvisor about "fines" at this hotel, whose response seems to be, "stuff like this happens, what can you do ? We hope to see you again soon."

I was wondering whether it would be worth appealing to the IAS in these circumstance, and would welcome your advice. I have checked the IPC CoP, and it makes no mention of the difference between loading and parking. It does mention disabled access and that operators have a duty to make “reasonable adjustments” to assist disabled people to use any services they provide. The double quotes around "reasonable adjustments" are in the CoP, and I don't know why they felt the need to put those words in quotes.

I have checked the Southampton City Council’s planning portal, and there are no applications for ANPR cameras, advertising consent for the signs or changing of use of the land from service road to car park. Would it be worth bringing this and the apparent entrapment of the loading area to the attention of Trading Standards ?

Finally, I would be grateful to anybody in the Southampton area who could post images of the entrance signs and T&Cs that Countrywide have installed at the Jurys Inn.

FrankCannon

Any advice from anybody ? I'm particularly keen to hear from @Coupon-mad if she can spare the time.

Coupon-mad

I'd report the site to the Council for no advertising consent for the signs and no planning permission for any ANPR cameras on poles. 

I would not try IAS.  I'd complain to whoever does own or run the land and talk about disability discrimination by their agent.

char1978

Hi Frank I’ve had a similar issue. Received. PCN from countrywide parking. Did you appeal? Did you get anywhere with them? 

Le_Kirk

This thread is over one year old; you might get a response if you send @Frank_Cannon a PM using the envelope symbol at the top of the page.

FrankCannon

I did get the PCN cancelled by writing to a director of one of the companies that own the hotel building. He passed it on to the managing agents, who told Countrywide to cancel it.

The managing agents contact was (Removed by Forum Team) and the director of the land owner was (Removed by Forum Team). I don't know for sure that these people are still the right contacts, because the hotel name has changed to Leonardo, but I believe they are still part of the same chain.

Coupon-mad

char1978 said:

Hi Frank I’ve had a similar issue. Received. PCN from countrywide parking. Did you appeal? Did you get anywhere with them? 

Have you got a 2023 version of a Countrywide NTK?  We are currently missing that one here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6483542/a-thread-of-pictures-of-2023-parking-firm-ntks/p7