Driver fined £100 after parking for 25 minutes – ‘I will not appeal and I will not pay!’

Rip Off Britain: Lawyer Gary Rycroft gives tips on parking tickets

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Ian Ellis was hit with the fine after visiting a retail park in the East Midlands. He left his vehicle for 25 minutes. Mr Ellis also claimed that he is not planning on appealing or paying the fine.

He said: “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it and I won’t be paying it.

“The letter said that I could appeal against the fine but there isn’t anything to appeal against, I just won’t be paying.”

He added: “There is actually CCTV footage of me in the car park of the Nosey Parker [pub] when UKPC claims I was at Tritton Road, so the evidence is there but the ball is in their court now.

“I’m not going to appeal and I have just told them that if they want to take it any further then they can go to court.”

Mr Ellis continued: “Going down to the pub and signing forms to get the CCTV footage to win my appeal is going to take me time and my money, so if they want me to do that then I’ll charge them an administration fee of £250.

“It’s not just me that this is happening to and it seems to be having an impact on the amount of business that the shops there are actually getting.”

Express.co.uk has contacted UKPC, the company in charge of the car park.

The firm’s website states: “If you decide to not pay a parking charge and we don’t receive payment from you, we will pass your details on to a registered debt recovery agency, and you may also become liable for the costs they incur as a result.”

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The news comes after it was revealed that the amount of parking fines issued in the UK has increased from one million in 2010 to more than eight million in 2020.

Campaigners have also urged the Government to bring forward legislation to cap the maximum amount private companies can charge, among other rules.

Minister for Levelling Up Neil O’Brien said: “Private firms issue roughly 22,000 parking tickets every day, often adopting a system of misleading and confusing signage, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees designed to extort money from motorists.

“[Our] new Code Of Practice will set out a clear vision with the interests of safe motorists at its heart, while cracking down on the worst offenders.”

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Some motorists are finding that tickets they thought they’d paid are affecting credit ratings or in some cases earning County Court Judgements (CCJs).

Lawyer Gary Rycroft told the BBC’s Rip Off Britain: “The private parking ticket is in effect an invoice. It’s a debt that you owe to the landowner.

“And if you don’t pay the debt, the landowner can go to the county court and ask for judgement against the person who owes that debt to them.

“So a private parking ticket can end up with you having a county court judgement against you if you do not pay the ticket.”

He also had some advice for motorists who end up in that situation, explaining: “The first option you have is to contact the court and ask them to look at it all again.

“It doesn’t mean that the whole thing goes away.

“It just means that the court process is put into reverse and taken back to the point in time when you should have been informed and given the opportunity to defend it.”

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