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Being the person in the "other" Morrisons Euro Car Parks thread, I thought it appropriate to put this comment here:

I do wonder how much hassle supermarket chains get from these third-party operators of their car parks.

Without knowing whether Morrisons get any money at all from the operating companies, I'm wondering what else might make it worthwhile if there's a steady stream of complaints from customers feeling they've been treated unjustly.

That said, I'm not sure how many supermarkets own the sites on which they operate. Many a company has sold its premises to raise capital, and then lease it back from the new owners.

Without having looked, it is entirely plausible Morrisons have taken this measure, given they are in financial distress presently. So if Morrisons don't own the land on which a store is located, they may have no say over who administers the store's car park.

Actually - that didn't take long to answer at all (and the company has debts of £3.6bn):

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/26/morrisons-agrees-property-deal-on-extra-long-leases-to-cut-debt-pile

That said, the 3rd party management of the car park at the store in Wells goes back some years, and not so long ago the "free" period was cut from 3 hours to 2.

It does seem very underhand to issue a PCN, when the app to which they direct customers, is rejecting bookings for an obscure reason.

This is an unnecessary complication, especially given what it's led to!

I am reluctant to engage with Euro Car Parks directly, which is another reason why taking it to Morrisons looks more attractive.

I cannot identify other examples of the YourParkingSpace app behaving in this way which makes me wonder if this is an issue specific to this car park.

I have received a Parking Charge Notice from Euro Car Parks Ltd, the operators of the car park at Morrisons in Wells, Somerset.



The vehicle referenced was parked at this location on 16th November 2024, for over 4 hours.

The car park has an initial 2-hour free parking period.

After two hours, while in town, I opened the YourParkingSpace app to purchase more parking time.

The app refused to let me buy parking time, displaying a message “Unfortunately, all of our allocated bays have been booked at this time. To guarantee space in future, please pre-book in advance.”



This makes no sense to me, when the vehicle had been parked in a marked bay throughout.

There is no mention of a need to pre-book parking spaces on the signs in the car park. It’s presented as optional on the sign.

I include photographs of the signs from Euro Car Parks and YourParkingSpace: (click to enlarge)



There are no machines in the car park to buy tickets instead of using the app.

The PCN’s date of issue is Friday November 22nd.
The PCN did not arrive in the post until Friday November 29th.
This leaves only a week until the deadline for the reduced parking charge of Friday 6th December. It sounds like this could be a standard “tactic” of private parking companies.

I do not understand why it was not possible to buy parking. I did as instructed on the signs.

Sensing trouble ahead, I captured the screenshot of the app above, and even purchased parking for the following day instead, even though this vehicle has not returned to that car park since.