Parking Code evidence - pictures of signs with £50, £60 or £70 PCN and no £ DRA fee on the sign

Fruitcake

Saint Michael's Hospital, Bristol, underground car park. £60 charge reduced to £30 for early payment.

patient_dream

As we are showing car parks with no PPC, I expect a rush from their best "toilet paper" salesmen to feed rubbish into the minds of poor suckers

NCC1701-A

McDonald's & Aldi, High Road, seven Kings, London. £70

NCC1701-A

Tesco Extra, High Rd, seven kings, London. £70.

NCC1701-A

Safestore, High Rd, seven Kings, no PPC

NCC1701-A

Barking Hospital, Upney Lane, London. £50 PPC

patient_dream

What this thread is showing is that in areas where the charge is the same, it's probably a Cartel operation which is price fixing.

In my area all the charges are £100

PRICE FIXING IS ILLEGAL

Fruitcake

My first response to the "Call for evidence".

With regards to: -

Q 1.2 What is the average cost of producing signage?

Q1.3 What is the average cost of installing signage?

Q1.5 What is the average cost of maintaining signage?

Q1.6 Under the new code of practice, what proportion of signs do you expect will need to be updated?

Q1.7 Under the new code of practice, how many signs do you expect will need to be newly installed?

      These questions are irrelevant. A parking company taking on a new contract/site will need to produce and install new signage irrespective of whether a mandatory code of practice exists or not. The new mandatory code will not introduce nor impose any new nor additional costs to parking operators since these costs already exist as normal operating costs.

Signs will still need to be maintained and the cost of inspecting and maintaining them will not increase when a mandatory code of practice is introduced. The only question that is relevant is the cost of updating existing signs at a site due to new mandatory code of practice requirements.

With this in mind, the only relevant question is: -

1.4 What is the average cost of updating signage, and how often this is required?

      Since most parking operators update their signage by the addition of a sticker system, such as that shown below, the cost per sign is only a few pence plus the labour cost to attach the stickers in place. Even in a large car park it can only take a maximum of one hour, plus the cost of visiting the site which should in any case be a routine occurrence to inspect and maintain signage and equipment, and can therefore be written off as normal operating costs. 

The cost of amending signs in real terms can therefore be estimated to be less than £100 per site.

Example of stickers used to change the charge amount on an existing sign to "£90" and the word "request" used by a BPA ATA member parking operator.

Coupon-mad

NCC1701-A said:

Aldi & Tesco express on mawney rd, Romford, London, both £70.

That's another cheap sticker alteration too!  There are three stickers added there:

- the whole top line
- the free '2' hours
- the addition of the GDPR privacy data blurb.

They obviously changed the free time (down from 3 hours I expect).  Typical ParkingEye tactic.

THANKYOU and @Fruitcake for these latest photos - all fantastic evidence.

Nellymoser

Fruitcake said:

There's more. We should be highlighting any site where the PPC never bothered to obtain planning permission for ANPR systems and advertising consent for signs, or applied retrospectively once they were caught to show how they don't care to abide by the law.

I searched on 3 council websites. Couldn't find any info on past planning applications advertising consent on Angus or Perth and Kinross site. Found 1 on Dundee's from 2018 for 2 ANPR cameras in M&S Food 20 space carpark. May need  FOI request to councils unless anyone has other search suggestions.