Complaints about parking arrangements at the Peel Centre have come to the fore again — after one motorist said he was prepared to go to court over his fine.
Two years after the Manchester Evening News first reported on drivers’ anger — after many said they had been hit with a parking fine at the shopping centre despite paying for a ticket — Daniel Kirkham says the problems are persisting.
The company which manages the site, Care Parking, says that there are ‘no issues with the payment machines or other systems at Peel Centre Stockport’.
Now, after Daniel’s case came to light, scores more residents have taken to social media to say they have faced a similar predicament.
“If I see someone sat in a car waiting I always tell them to buy a ticket you'd be surprised how many people drop off and wait then get caught,” Peter G Behan said.
Paul Bloomfield has also been caught out.
“My wife and I have both had penalty charges here,” he said. "Luckily we still had the tickets to prove we'd paid. They cancelled the penalty charges but no apology or anything.”
The issues have led to many saying they either won’t park at the retail complex — or avoid shopping at the Peel Centre entirely.
“I've stopped shopping there altogether. Lots of retail parks with free parking within easy reach on the M60,” Mark Walker added.
“Never understood why people park here?” Eddie John Whitehead explained.
“It’s free across the road at B&M or Pizza Hut and Tesco is a 30 second walk under the bridge also free.”
An anonymous user on the M.E.N. website added: “I refuse to park there. I would sooner park elsewhere and walk in or not bother at all.”
When the story was first brought to light, in September 2019, Care Parking said some equipment had not been working correctly after an upgrade carried out during that summer.
To combat the problem, the firm began to manually check every penalty charge notice (PCN) by hand to ensure any mistakes were caught.
However, those machines are now in full working order, according to a spokesperson.
They said: “I can confirm that there are no issues with the payment machines or other systems at Peel Centre Stockport.
“We receive approximately 20 appeals per month for parking charge notices issued at this location and the vast majority of these are customers providing mitigating circumstances.
"The only current case I can locate where a claim is made that they did pay is a current POPLA case where the motorist quotes your 2019 article as evidence that they did pay. Our investigations and our POPLA response will show that the systems were working and there is no evidence to support the motorists claim.
“Our ANPR camera systems are still capturing in excess of 5,000 registrations per day without any issues. We have continued to attempt to manually filter minor keying errors where individual letters are mistyped in a vehicle registration, and we cancel these PCNs prior to issue or when evidence is provided by the motorist.
"Major keying errors such as fundamentally different vehicle registrations or partial registration entries are processed in line with the BPA AOS Code of Practice and cancelled upon receipt of an administration charge.
“If anybody wishes to contact Care Parking, they can do so via info@careparking.co.uk.”
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