Premier Inn Slough West (Trading Estate) - Free parking? I think not.

GavHTFC

UPDATE (30/01/2024): In writing from park Direct UK: Premier Inn are paying the PCNs and I no longer have any liability towards them

Well, where to even begin with this one?

(Edited 16/01/2024 for brevity)

We drove down for a few days at Legoland at the start of November, staying at PI on a night, and we ended up staying 3 nights, 1st-4th November. It advertised (and still does) free parking, and the requirements are to enter your reg at check-in and park in a space in the car park across the road with a big purple dot. I made sure to film myself entering the reg so it couldn't be disputed later on that I had done. I always do this and recommend that you do to if you aren't already.

All straightforward enough, we enjoyed our time in the hotel, and especially our time in the park (I particularly enjoyed the shop!)

All straightforward, that is, until the parking letters landed through the letterbox a week later.

Anyway, that's enough backstory, I'll just get Premier Inn to step in

Premier Inn will step in, right? Right?!

No. The way it works is that the car park is owned by a separate landlord, who has contracted the parking company. None of that is news to me, in fact it's what I expected when researching the parking arrangements in the first place. It would in fact be a surprise if Premier Inn did own a multi-storey on the other side of a public road that also offers paid public parking on the higher levels. None of this part is a surprise or a problem.

What is a surprise, and a huge problem, is that, considering that the the car park has 3 levels, and 2 whole levels are dedicated to Premier Inn spots, there will be a lot of money changing hands each month. I don't know what sort of figures we're talking, but considering the proximity to tourist hotspots like Legoland, I can't imagine it's cheap. Surely then, surely, this means that someone at Premier Inn has had the foresight to ensure that they can get any charges issued to their customers cancelled. Not "cancel x number a month", not "request cancellation", get them cancelled. They say "cancel charge number 1234" and the parking company says "right away madam". They've had this written into their agreement before signing anything.

Well, that's the problem. After having spoken with the current hotel manager (more on her thoughts on the whole situation later) it turns out that her predecessor entered into an agreement with the car park landlord 6/7 years ago, seemingly with no end date (to anyone more knowledgable in these matters: surely that cannot be right? No end date? Really?), and didn't bother with any of that. He trusted them. He trusted a landlord to bring in a parking company, and that they'd behave.

What did Premier Inn do then, if anything?

Well, as much as they could do, which, thanks to that idiot, is nothing. They gave me an email address for the parking company, which was wrong, so of course I've made them aware of that. The response I got from that email address was that appeals cannot be submitted that way. Highly useful when the letters only offer postal appeals and you're trying to send a video!

Luckily they do have an online form, although I did have to ask some rather probing questions before being directed to it.

Now onto the current manager: it's safe to say she is at her wit's end with this whole situation. She was brought in a few years after McMoron signed away their ability to do anything. We were on the phone for what felt like half an hour with her just unloading about the whole situation, the lack of support from HQ, the fact that she's the one bearing the brunt of the complaints and absolutely powerless to do anything about them. I went into that call thinking "you're lying to me" and came away thinking "Christ, she really has been put in a spot here!"

The one thing that really irks me though, is the fact that they were, and still are, advertising free parking! We've just established that they simply cannot offer it. I've spoken to a few other people who got these letters and, understandably, didn't want the hassle so paid up. I am even seeing more recent TripAdvisor complaints than mine,

So, where am I currently?

Because the hotel manager gave me the details of Whitbread's privacy team in order to request the CCTV of when we checked in (what ever difference that would even make), the matter is currently with them. I'm reluctant to say too much more on what's going on behind the scenes just yet!

KeithP

Is there a question in there somewhere?

swingaloo

KeithP said:

Is there a question in there somewhere?

No, but its quite nicely written till you give up a third of the way through.

fisherjim

I'm sorry life is too short to read all that!

Not_A_Hope

Well I think that saga deserves a rating on Tripadvisor. Eventually some numpty at Premier Inn might step in to sort out these issues for 5geir customers.

Coupon-mad

I read it all.  Well written.  

How about getting this into a newspaper with your evidence?

GavHTFC

Not_A_Hope said:

Well I think that saga deserves a rating on Tripadvisor. Eventually some numpty at Premier Inn might step in to sort out these issues for 5geir customers.

Thanks, it's already up! Although TripAdvisor's character limit is considerably lower than MSE's. There are some even more recent than mine on there as well.

GavHTFC

Coupon-mad said:

I read it all.  Well written.  

How about getting this into a newspaper with your evidence?

Thanks!

I had considered the newspaper route but don't really know where I'd begin. I'm not familiar with which papers are the "big" ones around Slough, and the only journo I do know how to get hold of who's covering these companies is based in Sheffield and therefore more focused on Excel/VCS (who aren't involved here I must be clear).

Unless of course I were to go national.

Johnersh

If the o/p has a contract with premier inn which includes free parking, then they are in breach of contract for not providing it - if the collateral terms (registration entry) were complied with.

One assumes that if the o/p is getting no joy with a local manager he has sent a covering letter and supporting documents to the registered address of premier inn?  

An SAR to the parking company for redacted logs for the date in question but to include the reg should yield the goods.

Ie. Nothing that isn't already covered in the form intro.

General points (applicable to all) If people get angry their writing or advocacy will go to [brown emoji] so calm down and deal only with the facts. 

General points (to all, but esp the o/p) Top tip, if you are safely able to tell a reader to ignore 50% of your writing then use the delete button less sparingly. The good information just gets lost.

fisherjim

I can give you a little background here, that Premier Inn is on Slough Trading Estate owned by SEGRO the largest private business estate in Europe.

I used to have an office there, and everything is owned by them the buildings, the power station, the water supply (which comes from a reservoir on the South side of the M4), you even have to insure the building with them.

They are quite ruthless and greedy, at least they were when I dealt with them.

So that car park will belong to them, no question I have an idea even the roads are private though there is nothing to say so.

The PI is a converted office block, Park Direct are the PPC and they will have been engaged by SEGRO I remember the bank and the Greggs around the corner warning everybody about them when they were first brought in.

GavHTFC

Johnersh said:

If the o/p has a contract with premier inn which includes free parking, then they are in breach of contract for not providing it - if the collateral terms (registration entry) were complied with.

That was one of my first thoughts as well. I do wonder if paying them then claiming the money back from Premier Inn (likely via court given their "we don't reimburse parking charges" line) would have been a way to go, however that would of course open me up to the risk of being down £180 that I didn't owe.

The terms were indeed complied with, reg entry and parking in an allocated space, so what really gets me about all this is that I submitted literal video evidence of that fact.

One assumes that if the o/p is getting no joy with a local manager he has sent a covering letter and supporting documents to the registered address of premier inn?

Watch this space. Whitbread's data privacy team (long story!) are involved.

General points (to all, but esp the o/p) Top tip, if you are safely able to tell a reader to ignore 50% of your writing then use the delete button less sparingly. The good information just gets lost.

Point taken!