Our young son attended two week long Football Courses at Washington Leisure Centre during the school summer holidays. They were held at the All Weather pitches on the site. The person running the courses had a course registration table at the pitches so there was no need to go into the Centre. My son was dropped off in the morning and picked up again in the afternoon.
On the Monday evening of the second week, we saw on Facebook that the parking rules for the Leisure Centre had changed, and you had to register your Reg number within the centre itself. There is a 15-minute grace period before registration is necessary. The Facebook posting was from someone who had received a PCN and was warning others as they weren’t aware the parking rules had changed. Turns out many people weren’t aware including ourselves. Parking had always been free without a time limit.
We weren’t sure if we had overstayed the 15-minute period so the next morning we went into the Centre. There was a lot of signage saying register your number. We spoke with some staff and they explained why these restrictions were introduced. Trying to get parked was a nightmare a lot of times. They said some workers from the nearby shopping centre used to park there all day as there was a 4-hour limit at the shopping centre, however, we were genuine users of the centre. Our reg number was added to a list for the previous day and we made sure for the rest of the week we registered if we were anywhere close to the 15 minutes. I checked the signage and there was an addition to the bottom of the signs saying you had to register your car reg. I guess ignorance is not an excuse though who checks the signage of a car park they’ve used plenty of times previously?
Fast forward nearly three months later and we have received a PCN for not registering the car. This was for the Friday afternoon of the first week. This is when the presentations were being handed out so according to the PCN we had stayed 26 minutes, but with a valid reason.
I an om here to see if there is any way we can challenge this? Others have had their appeals kicked out though some people were offered a reduced charge of £20.
This is the notice we were sent:
This is an overview of the site:
This is the current signage, which is quite clear but we are certain this wasn't the signage at the time of the incident though as I have written, on inspection it did mention needing to register your car.
Apologies if this is long winded and thank you in advance for any advice given even if it is that we haven't got a leg to stand on.
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