Latest news with #Parkingeye
Telegraph
03-05-2025
- Automotive
- Telegraph
‘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. 'The numbers still look implausibly high' '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). Faulty technology 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.' 'Unreasonable and outside of the norm' 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.' 'Motorists must be protected' 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.'
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
‘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.
BBC News
08-04-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Middlesbrough hospital staff protest planned ANPR parking changes
Doctors and nurses have protested the planned introduction of a new parking payment system which they say will lead to unnecessary fines at two number plate recognition (ANPR) parking is set to be introduced at The James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough and the Friarage Hospital in Jack Fletcher, chair of the British Medical Association's regional resident doctor committee, said there were not enough car parking spaces, meaning staff and patients would face Hospital Tees said ANPR parking would improve safety and reduce delays when exiting the car parks. Medical professionals and representatives from Unite the Union protested the plans outside James Cook Fletcher said the new system would penalise staff who usually walked or cycled to work but then drove when they were called in during the night."They are going to be charged or fined for coming in to deliver lifesaving care in the middle of the night," he said. Dr Julie Walker said she was often forced to work late because of how long it took to find a parking space at James Cook Hospital."There's not enough car parking spaces so we can't actually park in a legitimate space," she said."Every single parking space we pay for has been sold four times over, so if all the staff are in, there's nowhere to park." The ANPR system will be run by Parkingeye, which has been criticised for taking punitive measures against those who break its regional officer Sharon Bailey said: "We know people who have been taken to court and that's the last thing that patients need at a time when they are probably facing really difficult circumstances." Parkingeye said its system would "significantly improve" how the car parks operate."Our systems are designed to ensure the efficiency and smooth operation of a hospital by ensuring patients, visitors and staff park in their allocated car parks," a company spokesperson said."There will also be a wider marketing campaign with all users to ensure they are fully educated and use the car parks responsibly once the new system goes live." University Hospitals Tees, a group formed by North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust and South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said ANPR was already in use at its other hospitals and would simplify parking."Maintaining the safety of drivers, pedestrians and essential emergency vehicles is a key priority of the group," a spokesperson said. "We have been working closely with local authorities and have engaged with staff side representatives to develop a wider plan to improve parking on our hospital sites."They added the system would provide data to help improve traffic management. Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Yahoo
23-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
'Serious concerns' raised over Parkingeye taking over hospital parking charges
'Serious concerns' have been raised about proposed parking changes at Friarage Hospital in Northallerton - with those warning that it will hit patients, staff and visitors "in the pockets". South Tees NHS Foundation Trust, which operates the Friarage and James Cook Hospital, has awarded a new car park management contract to Parkingeye; a decision that has sparked significant criticism from those who use it. Parkingeye is expected to run parking on an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system, requiring visitors to input their car registration into the pay machine. The contract, set to take effect at the end of March, has been met with severe opposition due to fears that it will create further hardships for staff, patients, and visitors. The Friarage Hospital in Northallerton (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) Unions have voiced their disappointment at the lack of meaningful consultation before the decision was finalised. Unite, one of the unions at the forefront of the opposition, warns that the consequences of Parkingeye's involvement have not been fully considered. The persistent issue of insufficient parking at The Friarage means that staff already struggle to find spaces, especially during peak hours, according to union bosses. Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham strongly condemned the move. She said: 'It is morally wrong to be charging frontline NHS staff to park at work, especially as many are low paid and work long unsocial hours. A petition letter that was sent out in protest to the parking changes (Image: SUBMIT) 'To add insult to injury, without a thought for its own workers, South Tees NHS Trust is planning to bring in Parkingeye, a company notorious for obsessively applying parking charges. The trust needs to put its workers first and reverse its decision.' Northallerton Town Council has also raised concerns about unauthorised parking around The Friarage Hospital, particularly regarding the impact of construction vehicles on road safety. The council has expressed worry that any changes in parking policy could exacerbate the existing issues in the surrounding streets and green spaces - with people trying to avoid parking charges by parking on residential areas and nearby paths. A spokesperson for the town council said: "Northallerton Town Council is concerned about unauthorised parking on the streets and green spaces surrounding the Friarage Hospital, including the impact that construction vehicles are having on road safety. "The Council would be concerned at any development that could further increase parking issues in the vicinity of the Friarage Hospital". Unite general secretary Sharon Graham (Image: PA MEDIA) A representative of Richmond and Northallerton MP Rishi Sunak has also confirmed that he is assisting several of his constituents and will be in touch with the South Tees Trust over the issue. The introduction of Parkingeye's automated enforcement system could result in a surge of fines, adding stress and financial strain on NHS workers and hospital visitors alike, according to union leaders. Unite is urging South Tees NHS Foundation Trust to engage in further consultation and ensure that safeguards are in place to prevent what it has described as "unfair penalties". The union has warned that if the trust fails to take action, they will escalate the dispute. Sharon Bailey, a Unite regional officer, further emphasised the negative impact on NHS staff, saying: 'NHS staff are already under immense pressure, and the last thing they need is the added stress and financial drain of parking penalties simply for going to work. "There are serious concerns about how this contract will impact workers, as well as patients and their families, who are likely to be experiencing difficult circumstances when visiting these hospitals.' A parking penalty notice (Image: PA MEDIA) However, South Tees NHS Foundation Trust defended the decision, stating that the trust had engaged with staff through briefings, social media, and Q&A sessions. They emphasised that the primary goal is to maintain safety for drivers, pedestrians, and emergency vehicles. The trust is also exploring additional measures to reduce congestion, including car sharing, electric bike salary sacrifice, public transport use, cycle-to-work schemes, flexible start times, and a park-and-ride service. 'ANPR is already in place at our other hospital sites across University Hospitals Tees and will standardise and simplify parking arrangements for the benefit of our patients and staff,' the spokesperson added. Parkingeye has defended its involvement, stating that it is still in the early discussion phase with South Tees NHS Foundation Trust. The Friarage Hospital in Northallerton (Image: NORTHERN ECHO) A company spokesperson claimed their system would significantly improve car park operations. 'We have lots of experience working with healthcare Trusts throughout the UK to implement modern consumer-facing systems which enhance accessibility and make parking easier and safer for staff, patients, and visitors," added the spokesperson for Parkingeye. 'Our systems are designed to ensure the efficiency and smooth operation of a hospital by ensuring that patients, visitors, and staff park in their allocated car parks. 'Despite being in the early stages, the system at both The Friarage Hospital in Northallerton and The James Cook University Hospital will be a 'Pay on Exit' solution in response to the requirements of the Trust. The Friarage Hospital in Northallerton (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) 'There will also be a wider marketing campaign with all users to ensure they are fully educated and use the car parks responsibly once the new system goes live.' However, these reassurances have done little to ease concerns. UNISON and Unite have launched petitions, which have so far been signed by over 3000 people, calling for the trust to halt the implementation of Parkingeye's system at The Friarage and James Cook hospitals. Recommended reading: County Durham homes left damp and mouldy years after free insulation installed Three charged - one with murder bid - after violent altercation at bar Spennymoor residents could feel 'vulnerable and unsafe' near homes for rough sleepers The UNISON petition states: 'This has been done without any consultation. It will lead to unfair charges being handed out to hardworking staff who are already struggling to find car parking spaces, many who are also struggling to make ends meet." Meanwhile, Unite's petition highlights the aggressive nature of Parkingeye's enforcement, stating: 'There are insufficient parking spaces in the Trust and this isn't being addressed. "This means that staff and visitors often are unable to park in designated parking places. Staff often work over and appointment times overrun. It will hit patients, staff and visitors in the pockets."
BBC News
19-02-2025
- Automotive
- BBC News
Couple outraged over five-minute Carlisle parking charge
A couple issued with a £100 charge after falling foul of a five-minute parking guideline have called for firms to show "compassion".Ceris and Oliver Blomfield entered Carlisle's privately-owned Heads Lane site on a shopping trip, but then decided to park elsewhere due to poor looked online for alternatives, they triggered a parking charge notice due to having been there for five minutes and 40 seconds - just over the five-minute consideration period set out in the industry's code of which operates the payment system at Heads Lane, said Mr and Mrs Blomfield "did not provide any mitigating factors for failing to adhere to the terms and conditions". The couple, from Penrith, Cumbria, said they changed their minds about where to park due to "torrential rain" and having their two small children with them so left the site without getting out of their car, in February appeal against the charge was rejected by an industry watchdog and they say they are now receiving letters from a debt recovery agency suggesting legal action may be taken against them if they do not pay a charge which has now risen to £170. 'Not fair' Mr Blomfield told BBC Radio Cumbria: "There's no compassion. [We're told] it's a rule and its black and white."Anyone with a heart would go, 'it makes total sense [to waive the charge]'."You can't speak to the company that owns the car park. We just thought someone would read our response and realise the charge is not fair."Technically, yes, we were 40 seconds over, but we just figured it would be put aside."That wasn't the case and we feel it's really wrong. I'm sure there are other people out there in similar situations." 'Charge upheld' Parkingeye said the Heads Lane site was monitored by ANPR camera systems and had seven "highly visible signs that give motorists clear guidance on how to use the car park responsibly".For motorists considering whether to park, it said "a five-minute consideration period is applied, as per the British Parking Association (BPA) and International Parking Community joint code of practice".A spokesperson said: "The motorist correctly received a parking charge for parking for longer than the consideration period and not making a payment."Parkingeye operates a BPA-audited appeals process, which motorists can use to appeal their parking charge. If anyone has mitigating circumstances, we would encourage them to highlight this by appealing."The motorist did not provide any mitigating circumstances for failing to adhere to the terms and conditions of the car park and their appeal was rejected. The charge was also upheld by Popla, the independent appeals service."The case has now been escalated to debt recovery." Popla said that although the Blomfields had not parked in a bay, they "stopped for a period of time to find elsewhere to park and in doing so utilised the site".It added: "As such a parking event has occurred and the appellant entered the contract stated on the signage."Some changes to private parking rules were introduced this week after the BBC reported on the case of Rosey Hudson, who was taken to court by Excel Parking over a £1,906 claim after taking longer than five minutes to pay at a car park in Derby due to poor signal on her Private Parking Scrutiny and Advice Panel (PPSAP), which brought them in, says they will ensure "motorists who face genuine difficulties in paying in a short timeframe are treated fairly". Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. Send your story ideas here.
