Accident and emergency visitor criticises RUH parking fine

PARKING at Bath’s Royal United Hospital has been criticised yet again after a visitor to the accident and emergency department was issued with a fine, despite paying for a ticket.

Lorraine Goodwin, was issued with the £80 fine by ParkingEye – the company who run the parking scheme for RUH – after taking her partner’s 12-year old daughter for treatment at the hospital. Unable to physically prove that she bought the ticket as she threw it away the next day, Lorraine’s appeal against the charge has been dismissed by ParkingEye and by POPLA, the independent appeals service for Parking Charge Notices issued on private land.

However, Lorraine has blasted the decision, and remains adamant that she will not pay the fine.

The complaint echoes those shared with the Melksham News throughout last year when the paper was inundated with local people saying they had been unfairly sent £80 charges, despite paying for parking when they visited the hospital.

Other complaints made at the time included, people being fined despite paying the correct amount for parking; that they were being fined despite registering their blue badge; that the pay machine did not charge them the correct amount; that the signage is poor; that they typed their registration in wrong but didn’t know; and it wasn’t clear how to use the system. 

About her experience, Lorraine said, “After several attempts to input my registration number into a parking ticket machine at the entrance to A&E, and several attempts to get it to accept my four £1 coins, it eventually dispensed a ticket (enabling me to park for 4 hours). 3 hours 37 minutes later, the young patient and I returned to the car and left the car park. The following day I threw away the spent car park ticket. 

“One week later, ParkingEye sent me an £80 Parking Charge Notice. To cut a long story short: they would not believe that I had paid for the parking, because I could no longer provide the ticket.  How long is it reasonable to expect someone to retain a ‘spent’ pay and display ticket?

“My only witness is the 12-year old I took to A&E, who’d also tried pushing buttons on the machine to input my registration number that day, so knows the difficulty posed by the faulty machine. 

“I wrote to ParkingEye, explaining what had happened.  They responded, saying that they rejected my explanation, and offered (as a gesture of “good will”) to extend the period of a reduced charge of £40 for a further 14 days. I wrote again, assuring them that I HAD purchased a ticket, and asked them to provide details of when the machine had last been serviced.  

“They ignored this request, but sent me details of how to appeal via POPLA.  POPLA rejected my appeal and said I should pay the parking charge. 

“I am beyond furious at the injustice of it, and I will not, on principle, pay this unjustified charge. It appears that the only course of action open to me is to defend a court case, if ParkingEye brings a claim against me. How can we protect ourselves from outrageous parking charges, when you are in dispute with a private parking company  and you cannot prove that you are in the right?”

In response a ParkingEye spokesperson, said, “We always encourage motorists to appeal if there are mitigating circumstances, and instructions about how to do this are detailed on all communication and on our website. The motorist chose to take their appeal to POPLA, who found in ParkingEye’s favour.”