Stratford resident issued fine after quick drop-off at Maybird Shopping Park after problem with ANPR reading
BEWARE if you visit the Maybird Shopping Centre in Stratford that you don’t end up fined for taking a mysterious exit that doesn’t appear to exist.
That’s what happened to Stratford resident Tina Bliss recently, and it ended up costing her time and stress as she dealt with the erroneously sent parking fine.
On 1st February she drove into the Maybird at the Tesco end, dropped her daughter-in-law Kelly off at work at Matalan and exited the Asda end. Mrs Bliss then picked her back up after lunchtime after her shift had finished and again took the same entrance and exit.
She was astonished to receive a fine from parking company Horizon, who claimed the ANPR monitoring system had only logged her first entrance and last exit. This meant Mrs Bliss had overstayed the permitted four-hour parking at the Maybird, and so was given a fine of £80, discounted if she paid early.
At this point local district councillor Roger Harding (Lib Dem, Bishopton) got involved to try to make Horizon see sense.
He told the Herald: “It was clearly a failing in their ANPR matching. But amazingly they wrote to me and blamed a new exit – but there isn’t one. I think they may be referring to the proposed new access to Tesco, which has not been built yet.”
Others have suggested that a dropped curve from the car park area outside Subway/Greggs that leads to the main exit road is a most recent addition – although Mrs Bliss did not use this.
Cllr Harding continued: “There is clearly a fault – either with their cameras or with their number plate matching software. How ironic that it’s Horizon Parking – after the recent Post Office software scandal.”
He advised: “No one should go through this stress and have to suffer threatening letters like this. My advice is – get an appeal in immediately and don’t give up.”
Even though Horizon withdrew the fine after Cllr Harding’s intervention, Mrs Bliss, who is disabled, said it had been a stressful and drawn out process, and something that seems to happen too regularly, with others saying they have also been wrongly fined.
She said: “Everyone makes mistakes and the parking people can too… Here comes the big but: when it happens all the time, we as customers or just dropping someone off shouldn’t have to have the stress of a ticket and wait to be told you did nothing wrong . I’ve heard of others waiting six weeks and to me it is wrong. With the economy like it is, £80 or £40 is a lot of money.
“In my case I didn’t even get a ‘sorry’, what I got was that they said with my disability I need to let them know if I need more time.”
Meanwhile Horizon persisted on blaming a new exit for the parking fine sent to Mrs Bliss.
In request to an explanation from the Herald, a spokesperson said: “We are aware that a new exit has been added to the car park and have made adjustments to our cameras accordingly. We have asked our technical support team to monitor the cameras and ensure that the cameras are functioning as they should be.
“We would advise any motorist who has received a parking charge that they believe is incorrect to appeal.”
