Rail issues leading to London Congestion and ULEZ

PThomas_2

Apologies in advance for the long post, maybe a bit of a rant too!

We booked months ago to go to Paris on the Eurostar, well before any rail strikes were planned. Also included some local trains from our Worcestershire village into Birmingham and then down to London. (Thursday 15th)
We thought ourselves very lucky when we saw that our travel days were in between the strike days, even checking on the morning of travel that trains seemed to be running ok. (app said they were)
Arrived at local station to find a board showing cancellations into Birmingham. Decided to jump back in the car and go to Birmingham International and catch the direct train to London from there, parked in long stay and entered the station. After some waiting around, finally spoke to somebody and she confirmed big issues on the lines and all London trains were being cancelled with no idea if any would actually make it through. Also could not guarantee if we went to a closer station to London, if that would be running either. 
Made difficult decision to get back in car and drive all the way to London. Four and a half hours later, found a NCP car park in London and made our way to St Pancreas just in time for our train. 
I was aware we would likely to need to pay some congestion charges and possibly ULEZ (Its an old car) and thought I would be able to sort it out when we got back (only 4 days later).
Made it back to UK ok Sunday and drove back home safely.
This morning (Monday) went online to try and figure out what I may need to pay for London congestion charges, bearing in mind I have never driven there before, always used trains. Firstly, its really unclear what to do. I just followed a satnav to a car park, in busy traffic so extremely hard to notice any congestion signs, let alone ULEZ. No idea which way I went in as the Satnav took care of it.
Even creating a online account doesn't allow you to see what your vehicle may have racked up in terms of charges. You have to make a best guess and just pay it, how very bizarre. I managed to pay for Sundays, but it won't let be go back to pay Thursdays as you only get 3 days in which to pay (I wasn't even in the UK then...)
Website then went down for me, making it even more difficult to sort out.

Finally managed to speak to somebody on phone who says I will now have to wait for the fine to come through, £160 for congestion charging AND £160 for ULEZ! But, if I pay them within 14 days I get them for £80 each!!!

So not only are we almost £100 out of pocket for parking, plus £30 for Sundays congestion and ULEZ, fuel for > 260 miles round trip, taxi in London but I am now expected t sped an additional £160 because I did not pay a congestion charge in time! All because the train company could not get me into London for my holiday.

We were trying to just do the right thing and not miss our much needed holiday, it seems extremely unreasonable to be so much out of pocket.

• Can I challenge the fines when they come through? In no way am I saying I would not be prepared to  pay the day charges, but I feel its unreasonable to pay more than that.

• Can we claim compensation for any/all from train companies (not just our money back) as they have caused us to spend all these additional costs.

• Is my holiday insurance (annual cover) likely to compensate for any of this?

Thank you for ideas and thoughts (and reading this far).

Umkomaas

As we major on private parking tickets here, PePiPoo will be your best bet for council tickets. Register there but please note that a Hotmail address won't work - try using a throwaway Gmail account instead if you do have trouble registering, and post a new thread; here's your link:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?act=SF&s=&f=30

Have a read through some of the other threads there before you post your own, to get the hang of what information they need from you in your opening post - but as a minimum you will need to post redacted photos/scans of all correspondence you've received from the council (both sides, if appropriate), as they need to see all the small print.

• Can we claim compensation for any/all from train companies (not just our money back) as they have caused us to spend all these additional costs.

• Is my holiday insurance (annual cover) likely to compensate for any of this?

MSE has its own Travel forum, so you might be best to pose those questions there. Good luck.

Le_Kirk

Since we concentrate on parking charge notices from unregulated private parking companies, you would be better off taking this over to our friends on Pepipoo.com as they are the experts on council and police issues.

You will need to sign up on Pepipoo with a non-Hotmail email address before reading the FAQs, then posting both sides of your PCN with your query.

Private

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=60

Council

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=30

Police

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=5