Hi all,
I've been directed to get some advice here by some users on r/LegalAdviceUK.
My situation is as follows:
I arrived in the car park at 18:20. The image below shows the sign with the terms and conditions of the car park.
https://ibb.co/xtZDJjV7As I planned to stay for about 2 hours, I went to the machine and pressed the PLUS button to reach the £2 fair for a 2-hour stay. However, the time displayed as the end time on the machine was 20:00.
I realised this was because parking is split into 2 time periods - 08:00-20:00 and 20:00-08:00. It seemed that the machine was expecting me to pay the overnight charge in addition to the 2 hour charge. However, pressing the PLUS button on the machine did not allow me to add any extra time. The maximum I could pay was £2.
I paid the £2, and the ticket printed, with 20:00 printed on it as an implied end time. As there was no option to pay more I had no other options. I returned to the car park after just under 2 hours. Left at 20:20, just a few seconds short of 2 hours after arriving.
Got a letter in the post with a charge of £100 claiming that I had "failed to make a valid payment". Appealed to the company, but failed. They also said we could have paid the overnight charge
after our stay which is not at all clear from the sign.
I would like to challenge this further. I believe there are several grounds for challenging this, which I'll list below. It would be great to get ideas on the best way to approach this.
- The sign clearly says "Pay on arrival". I attempted this and paid the maximum that the machine allowed me to pay
- If staying past 20:00 necessitates paying for a additional (overnight) stay then the only way to be compliant with the instruction to "Pay on arrival" is to return at exactly 20:00, at which point the machine will allow you to pay this. Paying any later would mean paying too late. Paired with the issue with the payment machine, this seems like a purposefully difficult and predatory restriction.
- Paying for 2 hours of parking on arrival should entitle you to 2 hours of parking, whether or not you go past 20:00. Otherwise paying for an hour of parking at 19:59 would only entitle you to 1 minute of parking.
I would very much appreciate any insight into the best approach to take here, and best ways to word my POPLA appeal.
Thank you very much.
