Parking Charge Notices (PCNs) are issued when a vehicle’s parking is unauthorised by the owner of the car park. This could be due to exceeding the maximum stay limit, or not paying to park on the land, for instance. In these circumstances where parking charge notices are issued to the vehicle owner, these fines for unauthorised parking must be settled in full. However, there are some people who choose to dispute these fines for whatever reason they deem appropriate. Just recently, on Monday 17th February, this issue came to light on ITV’s Judge Rinder, whereby the Judge was required to resolve a parking dispute with a motorist who had accumulated over 30 parking charge notices for not displaying a parking permit in his vehicle. The plaintiff in this instance was a member of the IPC’s Accredited Operator Scheme (AOS). The IPC is the leading trade association for the professional parking community. Here, the IPC member was contracted to manage the car park and subsequently issued PCNs due to the fact that the defendant had not displayed a parking permit in their vehicle, which goes against the regulations of parking on this land. During the course of the show, the IPC’s Code of Practice, auditing procedures and templated parking signage was praised for fairness and legal competency. It is vital, when a car park is privately managed, that regulations and restrictions are clearly visible to car park users so that they can fully comprehend the terms and conditions of parking on the land. Here at Parking Patrol, we operate under the very same principles with our clients to ensure that there are no ‘grey areas’ and of course, so that all car park users are can clearly comprehend the terms of parking.
Judging in favour of the IPC member, and therefore ordering the motorist to settle the amount accrued via parking charge notices, has brought to light and made clear the lawfulness of parking charges issued by private parking operators, such as ourselves. Unauthorised parking continues to be a big problem for many land owners and facilities managers alike. Of course, car park users can easily avoid any fines and charges by abiding by the rules and restrictions clearly displayed. Here at Parking Patrol, we offer our clients a range of various car park management solutions to suit a wide variety of differing needs. Some land owners prefer to employ car park wardens to manually monitor parking activity on their site, whereas others are content with using Self Ticketing to issue their own permits and PCNs. Whatever your requirements may be, we can alleviate the stress of dealing with unauthorised parking by managing your parking area for you. For more information about car park management in Manchester and the surrounding areas, please feel free to get in touch with our team today. You can reach us directly by calling 03707 203807 or alternatively, please complete our online contact form here and a member of our team will be in touch to discuss your enquiry with you.
