UK Parking Control Ltd

UK Parking Control Ltd – Parking Charge Notice (PCN)

Have you received a Parking Charge Notice from UK Parking Control Ltd?

UK Parking Control Ltd – in the news

The Courier reported on 13 November 2013 that a Dundee couple Aidan and Kate Canavan received a £60 fine from UK Parking Control.  Mrs Canavan parked in the Gallagher Retail Park to go shopping.  She obtained a ticket ticket at 11.05am which provide for to two hours of free parking.  HOwever, a  a parking charge notice was issued against her at 11.57am — less than an hour into her free two-hour stay.  The couple assumed that UK Parking Control Limited had made an honest mistake and posted their valid pay-and-display ticket to the company, only to receive a response asking them to pay a compromise fine of £15 within seven days. Mr Canavan said: “on what grounds should we have to pay £15 at all?”.  But worse to was to come.  They then started to recieved letters from the debt collectors saying the now owed £160 to UK Parking Control Ltd.  The Canavan’s stuck their ground and eventually UK Parking Control Ltd withdrew the fine.

On 7th May 2014, the Local Berkshire reported that Roberta Horsepool parked at the Station Shopping Centre in Vastern Road.  She left her car there while she went to the bank (which is located outside the shopping centre) before returning to the shopping centre to shop for art supplies.   When she returned to her car she found that UK Parking Control Ltd, which manages the car park, had left a £100 ticket on her windcreen.  The fine was for leaving the shopping centre.    Mrs Horsepool appealed the decision and demanded that UK Parking Control Ltd change the signs to let shoppers know they will be fined if they leave the car park on their visit.   While admitting she left the car park, Mrs Horsepool insists the parking charge notice is unfair because she was a customer at shopping centre on that day and regularly uses the shopping centre to buy things for her two grandchildren who live with her daughter in Caversham.
She said: “I know it is for customers but I was a customer – I just did other things as well.  “If I had gone into the shopping centre first I would have been lost in the crowd, they would not have been able to recognise me from anyone else. They (UK Parking Control Ltd) must have watched where I went. So it feels a bit like Big Brother.” she said.  Mrs Horsepool has sent her receipts to UK Parking Control Ltd to prove she was a customer on the day, and is awaiting the outcome of her appeal.

UK Parking Control taken to court

East Riding Council brought a criminal case against UK Parking Control Limited on behalf of three residents who claimed to have been intimidated into paying £70 parking fines.

Drivers told the authority’s officers they felt “intimidated” by “threateningly worded” letters demanding they pay a £70 fine.

UK Parking Control Ltd was convicted at Hull Crown Court of one count of misleading customers.

Council leader Stephen Parnaby said “I have seen these letters and I interpret them as intimidating people into believing they have committed a criminal offence, which is not the case. The vast majority of people pay only out of fear”.

The court case followed complaints lodged by East Riding residents who were issued with fines for either parking over the bay lines or for parking in Tesco at St Stephen’s for more than the permitted two hours.

The firm was convicted of misleading Joanne Clark, of Gilberdyke, after UK Parking Control Ltd wrongly claimed she had parked for more than two hours.

Despite Mrs Clark providing proof, the company rejected her appeal and demanded she pay a fine.

A spokesman for UK Parking Control and its managing director Rupert Williams said: “Mr Williams accepts the guilty verdict of the jury in relation to the charges faced by the company”.