3 hours FREE PARKING can cost you £45 in Tottenham Hale retail park - last time I go there!

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on June 20, 2014 at 20:47

Best thing is to ring and ask them, Madeline. Contact details on their website here - click on the heading "contact".

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Permalink Reply by pamish on June 16, 2014 at 16:22

This is a bigger cropped file that may be readable if you enlarge it. No more useful info re how to appeal though, or who makes the policy.

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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on June 16, 2014 at 17:02

Thanks again, Pam.  I tried the Smart Parking website but found only this page about appeals.  Not especially informative.

However, the CAB website has an advice guide here about parking tickets on private land.

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Permalink Reply by Rosie Super Cooper on June 20, 2014 at 6:08

I would guess that many a commuter will abandon their cars here rather than paying for a space in the train car park. God forbid anyone actually walks anywhere eh? I use the retail park and would be hard pushed to spend more than a hour there. You would hope that if you could prove your hours there, they would waiver it surely?
Rosie
I

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Permalink Reply by doug on June 20, 2014 at 21:28

My wife received a similar charge for spending 3 hours 50 mins in the retail park on the A10 in Enfield. She was shopping with our new born, mainly in Kiddicare. I phoned the store, and the very helpful employee told me she spends most her day dealing with this issue. She took my name and car reg and said she would email the company and ask them to rescind the ticket -which they did.

So in short - contact the stores you were shopping in - ask to speak to managers - stores don't want to lose customers.

Be careful about advice out there that these 'fines' can't be enforced - recent legislation means that these private companies can and will take you to court - however, once you argue that the fine they have imposed on you is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss to the parking company it will get over-turned immediately.

As always in these cases http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=60 is the place to go.

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Permalink Reply by GN8 on July 17, 2014 at 0:00

I thought I would report back on what happened: 

My partner who was the driver, was not optimistic but I encouraged him to follow the sensible advise we got on this thread. He wrote a polite letter to the car park management company with copies of our shopping receipts.

He did call the shopping park but got no joy there... they only look after cleaning and security they said...

The letter focused only on the fact that we were there shopping and browsing the whole time. and that we were not out to abuse their parking facilities and that unfortunately it took us longer on that day to complete our shopping. He also mentioned calling the shopping park and quoted parts of the conversation.

And....

I am happy to tell you that it worked and the PCN was cancelled

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Permalink Reply by pamish on July 17, 2014 at 0:36

Yippee. Thanks for letting us know.

I've challenged parking tickets, usually when delivering or eg unloading exhibition panels, and a reasonable challenge almost always works. Not good for cash flow though if you have to get un-clamped along the way.

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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on July 17, 2014 at 1:09

I'm pleased to read this, GN8.  From your description you and your partner were legitimate customers and behaved fairly.  Companies which treat their customers fairly in turn, will build a good reputation. An example where doing the right thing is also good for their business.

What's not good for business is having a poor informal "appeal" system where different staff have to spend time sorting out perfectly reasonable customer complaints like this.  Doug's comment about a member of staff at another store who "spends most of her day dealing with this issue"  is an extreme example. As well as pissing-off customers, it wastes that employee's time. A hidden cost.

Another extreme example is the London Borough of Barnet's privately contracted Parking Service (NSL), as wittily described by the blogger Mr Mustard  (Derek Dishman). According to Derek they make Haringey's Parking Service seem like paragons of sweetness and light. 

If you're stung by NSL in Barnet, and think the circumstances are unfair, Derek has a free downloadable guide to contesting a PCN in Barnet.

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Permalink Reply by Jason T on October 12, 2022 at 13:10

Sadly my experience of 20+ years of custom at the many retailers here such as #Boots, #Wilko, #B&Q, #Lidl, #Asda and #Next has been tarnished by the arrangement they have with Smart Parking Ltd who oversee their parking. I was 'fined'  in 2021 £45 for being 14 minutes over the 3 hour period. They haven't arranged any customer friendly leeway for this (the obvious thing to put in place) and I doubt #SmartParking has discussed my follow up with their client (the retail park), to enable this. It leaves a sour taste and it's a shame I must now warn others about how customers can be treated here. The park's management company, #WorkmanFM was investigating my query but didn't communicate its conclusion after expressing initial concern, and despite my polite follow-up emails to check. Also there's no toilet facilities operated by the retail park and sadly, those provided by Asda or Lidl are often unavailable. And while they continue to treat customers badly, it's also quite well known within the local community that it's not a safe place to park bikes. Many have gone missing even whern secured to the bike stands provided and with security staff and cameras on-site. Not impressed.

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