Charity bus wary of automatic parking ticket sensors after Perth pick-up penalty

A volunteer driver from a Perthshire charity was fined while picking up disabled users due to attend a day centre.

Smart Parking issued a £60 penalty to PKAVS recently when their minibus hovered inside Knights Court in Perth to collect elderly service users.

Automatic sensors snapped the vehicle as the driver awaited people living at the sheltered housing making their way to the minibus with carers. The regular pick-up took around 15 minutes.

Staff say vulnerable day centre clients take a while to get aboard as some suffer from dementia and have mobility issues.

PKAVS minibuses have Blue Badges on display but this was not effective as Knights Court is private land.

Volunteers have been coming to collect from Knights Court for many years and this is the first time they have been hit with a fine.

The £60 fine issued by the Australian-based private car parking firm was to be increased to £100 if not paid within a week.

Margaret Campbell, manager of PKAVS day services, said it was “soul destroying” for the charity to be hit for carrying out its remit to help senior citizens.

Margaret Campbell, PKAVS day services manager said it was "soul-destroying" having to sort out an unwarranted parking fine when the charity was only trying to serve its users (Perthshire Advertiser)

“It was very disappointing for our driver,” she said.

PKAVS appealed the ticket but were sent an automated reply insisting on payment.

“I don’t think they read our explanation of how this was a vital pick-up we carried out as a charity,” said Margaret.

Having heard Smart Parking would not back down - despite being contacted by senior PKAVS staff - the PA took up the case.

Smart Parking’s main UK office in Birmingham accepted the circumstances and wrote off the fine.

But PKAVS have been left concerned about picking up vulnerable people over fears they could be fined again.

Raymond Jamieson, PKAVS Carers Hub manager, said: “While £100 may not seem much, we are delighted this penalty has been dropped..

“But unfortunately we have no reason to believe the automatic cameras won’t sting us again, so in future we are considering stopping on the main road instead of risking entering Knights Court.

“That would be very undesirable for our vulnerable users if we cannot come in close to where they live.

“Going forward if we do go inside the parking area we will use the keypad to add the vehicle reg in”

A Smart Parking spokesperson said: “Smart Parking were brought into manage the car park at Knights Court to stop parking abuse and make sure only authorised vehicles park there.

“In the case of PKAVS, they are not on our authorised list, so as their vehicle was parked for over 15 minutes they correctly received a charge.

“However, now that we have confirmed they are a charity, we are happy to cancel the charge as a gesture of goodwill.”