Hello
I went shopping in Kendal in July, tried to park in Booth's car park but it was full so drove out and immediately left into Wainwright's Yard car park, hadn't parked in there before. I went to buy a ticket and at the entrance to the car park there were people queuing at a ticket machine with a yellow sign above with Pay Here written on it. Got a ticket with Wainwright's Yard written on it. Did my shopping and returned within the allocated time. A couple of weeks later I got a PCN from Parking Eye saying I had parked in Wainwright's Yard without a valid ticket. The ticket was still in the car so I sent them a photo of it by way of appeal, thinking they would just say 'oh sorry our mistake' but they refused my appeal saying I had used the wrong machine. So I did the POPLA thing, and Parking Eye sent their evidence, showing an Evology machine and some signs supposedly in the car park I used, which have been there since May this year.
Sorry this is a long story - I contacted the company that owns the Wainwright's Yard area and they said 'we don't own the car parks, they are owned by Booth's and the council'. I contacted the council and they said that yes they owned some of the outer car park but not all of it, and that I had bought my ticket from the council owned machine. They did not know who owned the area of car park i had parked in. I emailed Booths and they replied that they owned some of the car park but not the bit I had parked in.
So today - I went to Booths and spoke to the manager - he said they are getting 3 - 4 emails a week about the same issue and that he thought the area of car park was owned by Westmoreland Gazette but not certain.
I photographed the ticket machines and tried to work out which ones serve which areas of the car park. There is an Evology machine outside the exit of the Booth's area of car park which says Pay on exit, and looks like you should pay there before leaving Booths. Wrong. The Booths Evology machine is not visible from outside, and is tucked away just inside the car park, under cover. The council machine is at the entrance to the car park I parked in so looks like that is where you get the ticket for that area. Wrong again. It serves the area in front of it, which is the council owned parking spaces. So the Evology machine outside the Booths exit actually serves the area of car park at the rear outside that I parked in. I took lots of photos that show how bizarre it is, and spoke to several confused people. Also, I'm relatively small and the signs weren't legible as they were too high for me to read all the small print.
I've already done an appeal with POPLA which is in process and also written to Trading Standards as this looks like deliberate confusion to make lots of money from fines. What else can I do?
