Parking ticket - help!

getting-sorted-sarah

I'm posting on behalf of an elderly lady who received a parking ticket when visiting a local swimming pool. She parked in the car park and before her swim she popped into a nearby chemist to pick up her prescription. After her swim she was shocked to find a parking ticket -the reason given when she queried it was that there was a sign in the car park saying that it was for use of pool customers who were not going anywhere else.

The ticket is for £85, and letters requesting leniency have been ignored. Does anyone have any ideas? Many thanks!

Doozergirl

Who was the ticket issued by? Is it a local council or a company?

getting-sorted-sarah

It is a company by the sounds of it - GT Parking Ltd, with a PO Box address.

mymatebob

Have a look on the pepipoo website - those guys know all there is to know about tickets

anewman

Sounds worth ignoring, but my bet is they'll send some nasty threatening letters.

g_parry

It's a private invoice and practically unenforcable - is the lady the keeper of the vehicle?

To enforce the charge, they have to prove who was driving and then prove that the driver had entered into a contract with them.

There will be threatening letters but not much else.

Doozergirl

Like the others said, she can ignore it completely but they will continue to send threatening letters which will eventually stop because they haven't got a legal leg to stand on.

www.pepipoo.com is where you will find a more full explanation

Conor_3

g_parry wrote: »

It's a private invoice and practically unenforcable - is the lady the keeper of the vehicle?

To enforce the charge, they have to prove who was driving

Which the lady has already admitted in the letters that have been sent to them explaining the situation...:rolleyes:

Goozelle

This wasn't at the Riverside pool in Exeter by any chance?

My wife got a "ticket" there for "walking away elsewhere" before going in.

She followed GT's procedure and sent a letter with SAE and evidence that she took our son to his swimming lesson after buying him some swimming armbands in a nearby shop. They didn't bother to reply.

Next thing, I get a letter (presumably as the registered keeper of the vehicle) from a firm of bailiffs demanding payment of the debt within seven days or they will come around to collect it.

I am happily ignoring these threats as they are no better than muggers. They issue tickets willy nilly and then try to extract payment with menaces.

The manager at the pool was sympathetic and said he had had many similar complaints but that there was nothing he could do.
But I cannot accept that they can just farm out the car parking to a private contractor and then wash their hands of any misdeeds committed by them.

They contracted them so they can sack them too!

The whole thing is cynical because thee is no problems with parking at the pool (there's lots of free parking all around it) - the pool have just taken this as an opportunity to make more money.
:mad: :mad:

nej

It can be ignored. A private company cannot issue a legally-binding fine - only an invoice (although they dress it up to look like a ticket).

Out of interest - is parking free at this place? It's against UK law to charge penalties. Any "fine" can only be sufficient to cover their losses - which in this case are the cost of parking. If parking was free.... there is no loss.

Anyway, just ignore them all. Or write one mega-snotty letter stating that it is an illegal attempt at exhortion and any further correspondence will be considered harrassment and reported to the police. And then ignore.

As everyone else has said - Pepipoo has the details.

Goozelle

Yes, parking is free