New safety measures on menu at service stations
Safety measures worth £250,000 have been installed at two service stations on the M1.
Watford Gap and Northampton Services, both in Northamptonshire, now have advanced automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) systems, more CCTV cameras and better fencing.
The work has been funded by the county's police, fire and crime commissioner (PFCC).
Roadchef, which owns the two sites, said the improvements would create "safer, more secure environments for drivers".
Watford Gap Services opened in 1959 and became a meeting place for musicians in the 1960s, including The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix.
The 50th anniversary of the site inspired a musical in 2009.
Northampton Services, formerly known as Rothersthorpe, was originally due to be the UK's first service station, but did not open until 1979.
A Crimestoppers campaign has been launched to publicise information via leaflets and display boards on how to secure vehicles and prevent them being targeted by criminals.
The PFCC's office applied for the funding from the government's Safer Streets scheme.
Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Danielle Stone said: "This will make the venues more secure and help to deter criminal behaviour.
"This will then free up our police officers to spend more time being visible and accessible in their local communities."
Darrell Wade, from Roadchef, said: "These upgrades are vital in creating safer, more secure environments for drivers."
Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
One of the UK's first service stations 'not going anywhere'
Goodbye to the 'iconic' Watford Gap services
UK's first service station 'never been so quiet'
Office of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner
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The pay heathrow drop off is a £6 charge applied when you use terminal forecourts to drop off passengers. It's part of the airport's congestion reduction strategy and applies to all four terminals, including Terminal 5 drop off. Paying this charge is mandatory unless you're exempt, and you must pay online by 11:59 PM the next day to avoid fines. If you're dropping someone off directly outside Heathrow's terminals, you're required to pay the Heathrow drop off fee. It's enforced through ANPR cameras and failure to pay results in an £80 fine. Whether it's Terminal 2, 3, 4, or 5, paying the charge ensures smooth entry and exit without legal or financial trouble. The fee applies at all terminal forecourts, including Terminal 5 drop off. Each terminal has a designated zone where the fee is triggered automatically. Simply driving through these areas even briefly means the system logs your number plate and you're expected to pay. There are no pay booths on-site, so payment is online only. 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Yahoo
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Parking boss blames drivers for record number tickets issued
MIDNIGHT EMBARGO - please schedule for 6.15am by Telegraph Reporters A parking boss appeared to blame drivers for record numbers of tickets, with some 41,000 handed out in Britain each day. Will Hurley, chief executive of trade body the International Parking Community (IPC), insisted that private parking companies 'don't want to issue parking charges'. Private parking businesses have been accused of using misleading and confusing signs, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees. They chase vehicle owners for alleged infringements in private car parks, such as at shopping centres, leisure facilities and motorway service areas. The firms issue parking charge notices (PCNs) - which are invoices or demands for money - when they claim someone has breached the land owner's rules, for example not entering their registration correctly into a machine, overstaying or not parking within a bay. Each ticket can be up to £100, with a minimum discount of 40 per cent if paid within 14 days. It is 'easy to beat the system' for anyone who believes parking operators may attempt to profit by sending them a PCN, Mr Hurley said. He went on: 'If you're thinking about it, just don't park in a way that gets a parking charge. 'If you're really that upset by it, just follow the signs. If the signs are unclear, go and park somewhere else.' He added: 'Parking operators don't want to issue charges. They want people to park where they need to, when they need to.' In the six months to the end of September 2024, car park management companies made 7.2 million requests to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) for vehicle keeper records, which they use to send PCNs. That is up 12 per cent from the same period a year earlier and represents an average of 41,000 requests per day. In the six months to the end of September 2019 the average daily rate was 24,000. The figures are indicative of the number of PCNs being issued by private companies. The IPC insists the jump in tickets is 'directly linked' to the number of UK locations being managed by parking companies being more than five times higher than in 2012, and a 21 per cent increase in the number of registered vehicles over the same period. It emerged last month that many drivers are being sent tickets they claim are unfair because of how some payment machines operate, with one campaigner claiming the devices are 'set up to trap people'. Some machines which require users to input their vehicle registration accept payment after only one letter being entered. This has led to multiple cases of drivers paying the required parking fee but still being sent a PCN when their vehicle was detected by automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras. Mr Hurley said 'I don't think that's helpful' and revealed he wants to see the issue eradicated as part of payment machine 'minimum standards' being developed by the IPC. He continued: 'I believe that the minimum thing that should happen if you're required to put a registration number in, is you should be required to confirm your registration number before you go on to the payment bit. 'How quickly can that be implicated across 50,000 locations in the country? 'Not overnight, but we've got to take steps in that direction.' A Bill to enable the introduction of a Government-backed code for private parking companies received royal assent under the Conservative government in March 2019. The code was withdrawn in June 2022 after a legal challenge by parking companies. The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government has said it will set out further details on re-introducing the code 'as soon as possible'. Mr Hurley insisted that 'there's nobody that's supported the Government more than us in terms of introducing a single code of practice'. Simon Williams, the RAC head of policy, said: 'If private companies really don't want to issue tickets, they should make their signs clearer and easier to understand. 'Avoiding a charge is the opposite of easy in some locations. 'We've heard stories of machines that aren't working, as well as ones that skip ahead to payment after entering one or two numbers or letters, or ones that record different letters to those keyed in. 'The fact remains the Government's code of practice needs to be brought in as soon as possible.' Mr Williams also called for the parking industry to be 'transparent about the number of complaints it receives from drivers who believe they've been treated unfairly'. Parliament will host a Westminster Hall debate on the sector on Tuesday. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
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‘They set the motorist up to fail': How car parks became a cash cow
It was a simpler time. You'd drive to your local shops, find that elusive parking space and take time to sort your bags out, get your children out and put everyone's coats on. A gentle stroll across the car park later, armed with 20 pence pieces, you'd drop the right amount into the meter for the time you wanted and collect your ticket to display. Sometimes, and it's incredible to think of this in 2025 – you might even pay an actual, real-life parking warden. Or, of course, your local supermarket, shopping centre or hospital might not even charge you at all. Certainly there weren't automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras giving you five minutes to gather your stuff and pay. There were no apps requiring correct parking codes, sign ups, credit card numbers and – crucially – mobile signal. No complicated machines requiring your exact number plate, or multiple buttons that never seem to work. No hidden signs saying how much you'll be charged if you overstay your free welcome. Yes, there were abuses of any system and yes, people still got fines, but the numbers are now staggering. As widely reported last week, we're on course to receive 14.5 million private parking charge notices this year. 'It's inconceivable that in recent years tens of millions of drivers have set out purposefully to flout the rules and run the risk of getting a ticket for £100,' says Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, a transport policy and research organisation. 'It's about four times the number doled out a decade ago, which can't be explained by increases in car parking spaces, traffic volume, population or number of cars; the numbers still look implausibly high. 'That means either the rules are not clear to motorists when they park, or the rules are being over enthusiastically enforced in the interest of making as much money as possible.' Yet it wasn't ever this way. Private car parking management companies – and their charging systems – only really took off in 2012 after the introduction of the Protection of Freedoms Act. Ironically, this was supposed to stamp out the widespread and unpopular process of clamping and vehicle removal that was rife on private land. But it was what came next in the Act – 'consequently many private landholders will rely primarily on 'ticketing' to enforce parking conditions on their land… by sending a ticket to the vehicle's registered keeper' – which actually made managing car parks for the likes of Parkingeye, Euro Car Parks, Horizon Parking, Smart Parking and APCOA Parking even more enticing. It allowed parking companies to go after the registered keeper of a vehicle, where in the past they needed to prove who the driver was. Combined with the introduction of remote camera enforcement via ANPR, a modest investment in technology could lead to quick and big returns. It's telling that most of these companies are backed by private equity – Parkingeye, the market leading private sector operator of ANPR car park management, might be based in Chorley, Lancashire but they're owned by Macquarie Capital (an Australian multinational investment banking and financial services group) and funds advised by international private equity firm MML Capital Partners. Ironically, given their name, it's only Euro Car Parks out of the top five companies who are a privately owned British company. In its last accounts, it posted a £22m profit and its website quite clearly states: 'Euro Car Parks is passionate about increasing revenue on your car parks'. Quite. 'Just how lucrative the sector has become is evidenced by the number of firms accessing vehicle keeper data from the DVLA,' says Gooding. 'Pre-pandemic it was 137, today it is 180.' No wonder so many consumer groups suspect parking management companies – who, let's not forget, don't actually own these car parks – are incentivised to increase the number of parking charge notices; in the famous Parkingeye Ltd v Beavis case which ended up in the Supreme Court in 2015, it was actually revealed that Parkingeye paid a fixed weekly amount to the landowners, and retained any charges it recovered. Though, the appeal from Billericay chip shop owner Barry Beavis over his £85 fine was eventually dismissed. Andy Taylor, from the 47,000-strong Facebook campaign group Private Parking Tickets Help and Advice has literally seen it all, from people fined for taking too long to pay, to misleading or simply faulty machines. A popular complaint concerns hidden or unclear signs saying free parking when the small print says it's only free for a set period (at which point a fine of up to £70 is automatically imposed). Then there are minor infractions which the cameras pick up, like briefly stopping in a designated area, or literally driving in and out of a full car park but still being captured. Or the 'double dip' as it's known in the trade, where people get charged for 36 hours in a car park when actually they'd visited twice for short periods of time, and the ANPR system hadn't spotted them leaving. And its the language used when you get the parking charge notice which can be just as intimidating, too. These are not parking fines, and they shouldn't be termed as that – or penalty charge notices. Technically only a council or other statutory authority can issue a fine – a private company can't. But they certainly sound like they are. Technically they are actually an invoice for a breach of contract you entered into when you drove into the car park. Which means you should never automatically pay the charge, but interrogate the invoice carefully to see whether you think it's correct, and dispute it if you deem it unfair. 'There are so many traps and wheezes,' says Taylor. 'They set the motorist up to fail, but they also set the vulnerable up to fail, and that's a real issue. Take any minor keying error that people make when they enter their registration plate.' Taylor is talking about cases like Donna Nash's, who was ordered to pay Excel Parking £282 earlier this year after losing a court case when she only entered the first two letters of her registration plate in a Worksop car park before paying. 'I just feel sick to be honest with you,' she said. 'It's taken a lot of our time. It's just been very stressful and hard.' Then there was Debbie Dinckal, who received a parking charge notice after the final three letters of her registration plate were missing, again despite having paid for her ticket. Euro Car Parks rejected her appeal, before being made an offer to settle for £20. When she declined that, a debt collection company demanded £170 from her. 'You feel bullied and frustrated,' she said. Euro Parks have also been criticised by Guy Falkenau, 80, after they sent him two penalty charges when he parked in the car park at the local theatre, The Glasshouse, in Newcastle upon Tyne. Even though he showed a blue badge on the car's dashboard, he was fined £200 because of a 'technical fault'. 'It's potentially discriminatory,' he said. Andy Taylor knows that '£20 to forget about it' trick better than most. Sometimes he will even recommend people pay it if they really can't be dealing with the stress a potential court case might entail. But for him, it's another element of what he sees as an exploitative practice. 'The car parking companies might say that it will be cancelled if you appeal but they should never be issuing these kinds of charges in the first place,' he says. 'It's very much a case of 'issue first' and then do everything you can to avoid cancelling.' Late last year, for example, Rosey Hudson hit the headlines when she was taken to court for £1,906 by Excel Parking after she took longer than five minutes to pay for her parking in Derby on a series of occasions due to poor mobile reception – even though she did actually pay for the parking (and even paid the first parking charge notice – at which point Excel sent her nine more). 'This claim was absolutely ludicrous… it gives you a lot of stress. I'm very worried,' she said at the time, to which Excel somewhat coldly responded: 'it seems that Miss Hudson is the author of her own misfortune.' Yet one month later, after Derby MP Catherine Atkinson called it a 'five minute rip-off charge' in the House Of Commons, Excel quietly dropped the case. But in a very similar incident in Darlington, where Excel Parking demanded £11,390 in parking charges from Hannah Robinson (who had also paid each time) the judge dismissed the claim last month as 'unreasonable and out of the norm' and told the firm to pay £10,240.10 in costs to charity. Excel are appealing. 'I'd been begging to speak to them… I was asking for so much help to sort this out,' Robinson told the BBC. Taylor reckons his group have won 93 per cent of the appeals they've dealt with since 2019. He takes the process seriously, providing advice initially for appeals where there's been a clear error in charging, then helping to write defences, take witness statements and even attending court as a lay representative if necessary. And he does so completely voluntarily. Why?'Well, in this increasingly strange world in which we seem to be losing control of everything, this is the one thing I can do to help redress the balance,' he says. The frustration from Taylor and Gooding is that this balance should already have been redressed by government. In 2019, a Private Members Bill enabled the introduction of a Parking (Code of Practice) Act for private parking companies; it included halving the cap on tickets for most parking offences to £50, creating a fairer and independent appeals service, higher standards for signage and banning the use of aggressive language on tickets. It also contained some of the voluntary codes of conduct industry body the British Parking Association (BPA) had developed, and yet some of the BPA's members began a legal challenge, concerned that the price charge cap and the removal of the operator's ability to make additional charges for non payment could cause a reduction in revenue. The Code of Practice was withdrawn in June 2022. Still, Alison Tooze, the BPA's chief engagement and policy officer is – perhaps surprisingly – just as keen that the Government get a move on. 'Before 2012 and the Protection Of Freedoms Act it was effectively a Wild West of unregulated parking and clamping,' she says. 'It was bad, and we were talking to government back then about a code of practice, if only because you needed to have some oversight if the DVLA were going to hand over keeper details. 'But the government didn't want to regulate it themselves, which is why we began our approved operator scheme. That's the deal now; if you're a car parking operator and you want details from the DVLA you have to be in one of the two accredited trade associations – of which we are one.' The problem though, as Steve Gooding points out, is that 'self-regulation isn't going fill us with confidence that appeals will be considered even-handedly and sharp-practice stamped out.' 'I can see why it looks like we're marking our own homework,' admits Tooze, 'that we're just protecting our own members. It's not a comfortable place to be and we've always said that it would be better if there was some government oversight on this, a proper regulatory framework that doesn't involve us. 'The BPA itself has done nothing to block the Code of Practice Act; we're waiting for the government to go and do an impact assessment, lay down the code and get independent bodies overseeing it. That's where we're going and what we welcome – I just can't tell you the timescale.' So we asked a Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson what it might be. They can only say they're continuing to engage with consumer groups and trade associations to raise standards. 'Motorists must be protected when using private car parks, and we are determined to drive up standards in the industry,' says the spokesperson. 'We know how much of an issue this is for drivers, which is why we will set out further details on the private parking code of practice as soon as possible.' How many millions more parking charges will be issued before that time is a moot point. The figure bandied about is 41,000 a day. 'It sounds a lot, doesn't it?' admits Tooze. 'But like it or not, there's just a lot more places being monitored now,' she says. 'And that's because private landowners want more control of who is parking on their land. 99.7 per cent of cars parking every day do so with no issues at all.' All of which means Andy Taylor from Private Parking Tickets Help and Advice is likely to be busy for some time to come. 'That number sounds about right,' he says. 'And quite frankly, they're relying on you either paying the charge to make it go away, ignoring them, or challenging them to a negotiation. Whichever way, they end up getting paid. So, absolutely, we need legislation.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
