Apology for incorrectly issued parking penalties
You may have read an article by Sophie Hazan in last night's Yorkshire Evening Post about paying customers being issued parking fines at our Templar & Edward Street car parks in Leeds.
Our customers are incredibly important to us so we want to apologise to all our customers that were affected. We also want to explain what happened and what steps we’ve taken to make sure it won’t happen again.
What went wrong
The penalties were issued by Highview Parking Ltd. We employ Highview Parking to manage our systems on Templar & Edward Street and they are responsible for issuing penalties to those that don’t pay for parking. Highview Parking are an official body with expertise in ANPR parking.
Some penalties were incorrectly given out toward the end of last year because there was a technical issue with the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras and the payment machines. This technical error meant that some people that paid for their parking were issued a parking penalty.
What happens next
We have spoken to Highview Parking and have made it very clear to them that what happened was unacceptable. We have also warned them about their future conduct.
Everyone that received a fine incorrectly has had their penalty cancelled.
Our customers are at the heart of everything we do and we were very excited when the ANPR system was installed because we feel that this is the first step towards a great system that will eventually allow customers to drive in and drive out without the usual hassle and inconvenience of parking your car.
We are really disappointed that all this has happened. We operate over 4500 parking spaces in Leeds and this has never happened before. Often with new technology there can be teething problems, but we don’t think that is an excuse.
We’ve instructed Highview Parking to make improvements to these car parks so that the ANPR system works smoothly and you can get assistance when you need it. This includes additional signage and daily staff patrols to help our customers if required.
This won’t happen again
The system has been fully tested and we have been guaranteed by Highview Parking that it is working properly so no one will be issued a ticket when they’ve correctly paid for parking again.
We are still committed to offering safe, great value parking and have lots of great developments and deals coming in 2013.
Questions?
If you have any questions about a parking penalty you were issued or would like written confirmation that your parking ticket has been cancelled you can contact Highview Parking by emailing highviewparking@appealpcn.co.uk or calling 0208 731 3104.
We’d like to apologise once more and wish all of our customers a happy and healthy 2013.
Ben Ziff, Managing Director
CitiPark