Essex mum hit with £100 fine for using free car park outside doctors' surgery
An Essex woman was given a parking ticket when she tried to take her daughter to the GP, even though she claims the machine at the free-to-use car park was not even working. Bridget Gooding, 57, was taking her teenage daughter, who was unwell, to an appointment when she was issued with a penalty charge notice (PCN) for parking.
Longfield Medical Centre, in Maldon, uses a car park organised by Creative Parking and is free to use for patients as long as they enter their car registration number into a machine at reception. However, despite entering her registration number, she says she was sent a parking ticket in the post.
She said: “It wasn’t that [the machine] wasn’t working that day; it did take my number plate.”
Although Bridget has proof of her attendance at the surgery for her daughter's appointment through an online app that the surgery uses and a confirmation letter from the doctors, she is still being asked to pay a hefty fine of £100. Other locals have shared online that there has been a problem with the machine and advised Bridget to take a picture of the parking machine at the surgery when logging her car details in future because of similar issues they have experienced in the past.
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“I’m not the only person that has been wrongly issued a PCN, and it’s just wrong. There is a telephone number on the PCN. You call the number, and you can’t speak to a human being; it’s a recorded message. It gives you an email address where you can appeal, and the email address is incorrect. They could take me to court if they wish because I’m not paying for any of this; I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Bridget's response email from Longfield Medical Centre said: “We are sorry to hear that you received a penalty notice. From April 25, 2019, signs were erected in the car park area, and notices were placed in the surgery/pharmacy advising of the new car park management service. The new rules were active from May 7, 2019.
Longfield Medical Centre commented: "Unfortunately, the car park was being abused due to our close proximity to the high street, local schools and another GP surgery, and so it was decided by the partners of the practice in April 2019 that a third-party company, Creative Parking, would be used to manage the car park.
"There are many signs throughout the car park area and notices placed within the surgery and pharmacy next door advising patients of the car park management service. We are unfortunately unable to appeal fines on our patient’s behalf and ask that they follow the appeal process written on the back of their parking charge notice (PCN) from Creative Parking."
Bridget says, “I’m very, very frustrated. There’s no other parking facilities that are close, as there are yellow lines everywhere. I’ll use the car park again, but I will take a picture of the machine every time I use it.”
Other patients have claimed that the surgery is aware that the machine has not been working properly. Longfield Medical Centre shared, "Regarding the faulty machine, we were made aware of a technical issue with the surgery’s car parking registration number terminal on Monday, October 14. The issue was rectified on Thursday, October 17. During this time, Creative Parking did not issue any fines. If any of our patients received a parking fine during these dates, then we ask them to please contact Creative Parking to advise them that the PCN was issued to them at a time that there was a known fault on the system."
Creative Parking commented: "We have checked our records and can see that the exemption tablet was working correctly on the date in question with no faults reported to us by the Medical Centre. Over 250 exemptions were recorded on that date by patients inputting their details, which is the normal daily number for this site."