Author Topic: ParkingEye Ltd stripped of contract over 'inflexibility' of charges  (Read 3038 times)

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Offline Web Admin

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Carlisle parking firm stripped of contract over 'inflexibility' of charges

A parking firm which has threatened to sue a retired Carlisle firefighter over his "legal" stay in a city centre car park has been stripped of its contract to run the facility.

George Sansom, 56, was furious after ParkingEye said it would sue him. It came despite him paying £1.80 for a two-hour ticket for the Heads Lane car park, near Carlisle city centre, on December 23 last year - and driving away after a stay of one hour and 27 minutes.

The firm running the city centre car park at the time has turned down his appeal against his £100 penalty charge.

It has also threatened to take him to the Supreme Court.

The News & Star contacted the firm three times, and it failed at any point to mention that the car park's owner had ended its contract seven months ago, over his concern that Parking Eye was not being sufficiently flexible in its charging policy.

Khal Moualem, who owns four other car parks in the city, said the firm repeatedly refused to make changes which the businessman felt would make charging fairer.

"I felt they weren't being flexible enough," said Mr Moualem.

He specifically wanted three changes.

Firstly, he wanted customers who met with unforseen events while parked to have the right to make "top-up" payments if they got back to the car park after the expiry of their ticket.

He also wanted all parking tickets to clearly show an expiry time.

Finally, Mr Moualem wanted customers who arrived during the overnight parking period of 6pm to 9am to have an option of paying for an hour of parking.

He said: "I wanted to make the charging policy more flexible.

"I did not want people to feel they were treated unfairly. For example, if somebody meets an old friend unexpectedly, they should have the option of paying a top-up fee when they get back to the car park so they don't get a penalty charge.

"But they refused to make any of these changes."

Mr Moualem insisted Mr Sansom should have paid more for his parking, saying the pricing policy a year ago did not allow customers to pay for part of an hour - a point disputed by the former firefighter, who says the two hour price was £1.80.

Mr Moualem, who now uses the a firm called Smart Parking, terminated the ParkingEye contract in May.

He added: "I sacked them in May, serving notice to terminate the contract.

"I wanted to make everything clear to people so that we were only issuing parking penalty notices to people who were clearly refusing to pay. Why should we punish people who genuinely want to make a top-up payment?"

The News & Star invited ParkingEye to comment on Mr Moualem's statement but the firm declined to do so.

Published: 4 December 2017 3:05PM

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/Carlisle-parking-firm-stripped-of-contract-over-inflexibility-of-charges-7a4ae4f6-7ee7-4599-86cc-2eeb2e4156e3-ds#.WiaVjFsp-Xk.twitter

Offline 2b1ask1

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Re: ParkingEye Ltd stripped of contract over 'inflexibility' of charges
« Reply #1 on: 06 December, 2017, 04:40:43 PM »
Because Smart (arsed) Parking are just so much better????
Willing to do my bit...

Offline DastardlyDick

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Re: ParkingEye Ltd stripped of contract over 'inflexibility' of charges
« Reply #2 on: 06 December, 2017, 05:57:51 PM »
Because Smart (arsed) Parking are just so much better????

Yes, I can't help thinking "out of the frying pan....."

 


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