An eye on parking

My husband John and I have been regular customers of Morrisons for years, even going back to when it was a Safeway store, calling at the shop twice a week.

Since the new parking regulations came into force we have always complied with Parking Eye’s rules. We have paid our £2, entered the correct registration number, parked in the correct bays, displayed our ticket on the dashboard, obtained a refund when going through the check-out and left well within the

two-hour allotted time.

Imagine our surprise when on Thursday, August 4, we received a parking charge notice. This said notice was very ambiguous, nowhere did it say how we had contravened their regulations. All it said was our car (registration number provided by them) had been timed entering the car park at 10.34.09 and departing at 11.51.12 on July 26, 2011.

We were at a loss to understand why such a notice had been sent as there was no way in our minds we had done anything wrong.

I have written to Parking Eye asking them for details before the date of August 14, when we will only be charged £50. We read the appeals section of the notice which states we have to write to them along with the till receipt for the date in question as proof of purchase of a ticket. As we only received the notice nine days after the alleged offence had supposedly taken place we had long since thrown the till receipt away.

I tried ringing Parking Eye on the telephone number provided, but all I heard was a computerised message menu more concerned with details of payment.

To be fair to Morrisons when I spoke to a deputy manager on the phone that day, he promised to contact Parking Eye for me and told me not to pay the charge. My husband also received courteous help when he spoke to the manager and some of his staff the next day while in store. They also promised further assistance.

Our son has googled three sites, namely Parking Eye, Parking Eye Complaints and Do I have to pay?. He said he was amazed at how much information was available. The general consensus of opinion is do not pay these fines. This company is not authorised by the police or local councils to send out such notices and as such is operating outside the law. A great number of people have said they ignored the notices and nothing has happened. One man did say he was threatened with Parking Eye sending clampers to his home in an attempt to exact payment!

Parking Eye aren’t doing Morrisons any favours. as many people who received notices have said they will never shop at Morrisons again.

The parking charge notice goes into great detail about how their car park is a pay-and-display park. If that is the case then why don’t they provide tickets with a sticky section that can be attached to a windscreen as other car parks in town do?

Yvonne Nordqvist,

Elm Grove South,

Barnham