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[aaronjb]

So, here's the back story:

This car park has been essentially free for ages as the barriers were always inoperative (Peel Centre in Bracknell for any locals).. anyway, ECP decide to fit new ANPR charging that records your number plate on the way in and makes you pay before you leave - there are no barriers to prevent entry or exit.

There are signs up that say you get "2 hours free parking" or, if you eat in one of the restaurants or cinema, "3 hours free parking" with the voucher code on your receipt.

Yesterday this all worked fine for us..

Today, we went in at about 13:10 by my clock (ish, I only glanced) and tried to leave at 16:07. The system couldn't find my registration number.. over wanders the attendant who barely speaks English..

He says to try a partial number plate, so I put in "VU" and it still doesn't find the registration plate. "What time you arrive?" he says.. "About 1pm" was my incredibly foolish reply..

So we put "13:00" into the machine when it asks for entry time and enter the voucher number from the receipt expecting to have to pay for 1hrs parking. Bzzt, computer says no. Pay for three hours you must..

Hmm I thought, and tried again but put 13:10 as the entry time instead .. voila, free parking, only the system only knows my registration plate as "VU".

So who wants to bet I get a polite notice through the post asking for £50 or more.....



These systems appear to be an incredibly bad idea - firstly if it can't read your registration on entry and secondly they give the wrong change (we watched a very irate customer get 20p change instead of 50p yesterday and all the attendant could mutter was "Yes that's what these machines do. Only install yesterday."). You get no ticket on entry so you have no real way of knowing what time you arrived as far as their computer is concerned and there's no barrier to prevent you driving off without realising you've edged over their 2 hours free (as it says you don't need to visit the machine if under 2hrs)..


Methinks it's a big money generating exercise!

So, has anyone else visited an ANPR controlled car park run by ECP?

[feeutfo]

Holding business to ransom, effectively. Ok, you have to control parking or it'll be a nightmare. But it's beyond that. Way beyond!

[Kevin Wood]

Queue Aaronjb's letter box rattling as a "PointlessChargeNotice" drops through his door, then the feint sound of a shredder.

It really doesn't sound like rocket science to get such a system to work. I guess a decent engineer wouldn't be working developing parking ticket systems, though.

So, they've saved the cost of a ticket for each car on entry, and cost themselves a fortune in ANPR cameras and all the appeals they'll be getting.

[STMO123]

We had one similar to this in Wakefield where, to be honest, parking isn't that much of a problem. A couple of articles about people feeling ripped off in the local press and, voila, the place is virtually empty every day. I always have a grin when I pass it and see all the empty spaces.
Our multi-stories are only £1.50 for 1.5 hours.

[YZ250]

My sister's just received a £100 Parking Charge Notice from 'Parking Eye' by DFS in Milton Keynes free parking area. (reduced to £60 if paid immediately) 

I told her that they have no power to fine her but not sure she'll listen to me. 

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

We had one similar to this in Wakefield where, to be honest, parking isn't that much of a problem. A couple of articles about people feeling ripped off in the local press and, voila, the place is virtually empty every day. I always have a grin when I pass it and see all the empty spaces.
Our multi-stories are only £1.50 for 1.5 hours.

 Ninety minutes. .Surely in Wakefield some drug-crazed spotty youth has it away before then.

[martin42]

My sister's just received a £100 Parking Charge Notice from 'Parking Eye' by DFS in Milton Keynes free parking area. (reduced to £60 if paid immediately) 

I told her that they have no power to fine her but not sure she'll listen to me. 

There are no parking cameras in dfs/furniture village car park,however there are cameras in the harveys carpark opposite and signs clearly stating that there are cameras up and fines impossed

[Rog]

Methinks it's a big money generating exercise!

But of course it is. Very often there are parking restrictions and charges in places where there really is no parking and/or obstruction problem. The whole thing is about cash 

[aaronjb]

Indeed.. the silly thing is that some of these restrictions must do little more than put off legitimate folks. As an example, we went out last weekend to buy a new sofa (since mine has disintegrated to the point we may as well just sit on orange boxes) and ended up at CSL Sofas in Brent Cross.

The car parks there state a three hour limit for customers after which penalties apply - we spent a good couple of hours looking at sofas before picking one, doing the paperwork and so on.. the end result being that despite our having shelled out quite a large chunk of money in said retail park, while we might have stayed longer and gone for a coffee in the Costa or milled around one of the other stores and spent more money, we didn't - we left to avoid any penalty.

Still.. ECP aren't there to service the retail stores, are they - they're there to make money for themselves..