GP ‘unhappy with ruthlessness’ of Creative Parking

From: Scott

Hi there, We have an area of our town that has a hospital and two GP practices, but there is no alternative on street parking or other alternatives anywhere near them, even though they are out of the town center. These practices all use various parking management firms. We have had a ticket (which thanks to your website we were able to overturn) and so apparently have many other families and other vulnerable people as well as taxi firms and even bus companies.

Our GP practice has issued a letter to patients that tells us to beware, after talking to their management company The letter has some worrying overtones. The link to the letter  on Hillviews website is here. I draw your attention to the part that states “it was never our intention that legitimate users of our car park would be penalised however it is in the ‘small print’ that ‘Civil Enforcements Ltd’, in keeping with ‘Industry guidelines’, have the legal right to do so.”

Is this right? As landowners surely they can overturn tickets sent to legitimate users of the car park? How is this legal?

I thought i’d let you know as it might be of help to your cause.

Regards,

Scott

Hi Scott, it all depends on the contract they’ve signed I’m afraid. It sounds like the practice signed up to this scheme without understanding what such parking companies are like. As we’ve repeatedly said, if you sign up with a private parking company, there is only one winner; the parking company. Many hospitals and retailers have found to their cost what impact it has after they’ve signed on the dotted line, and those that have gotten out of it have found it expensive.

Creative has little or no interest in the landowner’s relationship with their patients, they’re only interested in lining their own pockets. As the letter says, Creative give cheap or free equipment in return for collecting the revenue from tickets issued, so why would they allow correctly issued tickets to be cancelled (irrespective of the morals and ethics involved)?

Perhaps the practice can cancel their contract, but Creative aren’t daft, and are used to landowners wanting to cancel their contracts, so I wouldnt imagine they would make it easy or cheap….

Perhaps you could contact the practice to encourage staff to provide helpful links to patients issued tickets?

Best of luck