Patrick Hurley

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. The Government were elected back in July on a mandate to put more money into working people’s pockets. However, almost as soon as that money goes in, those same pockets are being picked by the increasing costs of just living their daily lives. One of the most egregious culprits is the private parking industry. On average, 41,000 new private parking fines are issued each and every day. We are on course for more than 14 million this year alone. That is an issue that affects pretty much every motorist in the country, whether through being fined themselves or worrying that they will make a mistake and that they are at risk of being fined. I will tell a couple of stories from my constituency just to illustrate the argument. First, we have Katie Lovett. She parked at the private car park near the railway station but was not sure how the payment machine worked, so approached someone on duty for help. This is what she said when she wrote to me, as her words are far more powerful than anything I could write: “I received a letter from a debt company in March of this year telling me I had a parking fine of £170 for parking longer than I paid for at the London Street NCP carpark in Southport in January. I’ve never parked here before and even asked a gentleman if I paid on arrival or exit and he told me you pay on exit by putting your registration number in and paying the amount shown. This is exactly what I did although I found the whole process very complicated.” After a lot of back and forth, she ended up paying the fine because: “It turns out it was my fault because unbeknown to me you have to put the length of time you’ve been parked for in the machine when you pay. So I only paid for one hour and not two.” Katie is not alone because, secondly, we have an issue with the Ocean Plaza car park near the beach. One of my residents went to the shops there a couple of months ago—parks up, does his shopping and gets a letter two weeks later to say that he had been parked for three days, four hours and 38 minutes. It was an obvious mistake, but it took the intervention of my office before the parking firm would admit it. Even I have been caught out. I do not particularly class myself as a shrinking violet on this, nor do I think I am any less competent than the average person when it comes to dealing with these issues; but when someone like me gets a £100 fine through the post, God help the average motorist, who is just trying to navigate the complex multitude of different regimes and approaches. There needs to be standardised regulation in this area, concerning issues such as signage, grace periods, appeals processes and complaint handling. There needs to be a consideration period, so that people can make an informed judgment about whether to accept the terms and conditions.