What you should have said is Every car park has an entrance and so must be there for parking

So which does it effect more? The busy, high turnover shop could probably loose a couple of spaces and barely see any difference in turnover or profits The smaller business who is quite often specialist and relies on people coming to visit - desperately needs those spaces for people who have travelled the distance to easily park and (hopefully) load their vehicle after buying something. The parking rules need to have a deterent factor in them, a factor which penalises above and beyond what a designated car park would charge. It also needs to take into the account the time spent having to manage handling the car parking penalties. Anything less and you end up with a business which doubles as a public car park.

I never advocated the use of illegal clampers, however I would on a cost basis recommend using legitimate clampers instead of a barrier.

Which brings it all back to the original query about who pays: 1 person parking in an empty car park with 10 spaces won't effect profits 10 people parking as such will And why should any business provide you with free parking just because it doesn't effect their profits. So if the local NCP charged £30 for all day parking. then would a £50 charge be fair?

So what would be a suitable loss then? £10? £20? £30? £40?

Now you are really showing that you know nothing about running a business. The only thing the barrier can be offset against is TAX It still needs to be paid for and the money has to come from somewhere. Just because he's running a business doesn't mean he's got an infinite amount of money to "offset" it against.

So what would be a suitable loss then?

JS, You made a mistake in one of your other posts which i recommend you correct

Every parking case will have its own special circumstances. Different time of day Different day of week Different length of stay It was raining I'm sure I can find 101 others by browsing this forum

Should have been towed and subject to a controlled explosion Awww would that be you? Because clamping is the only way of enforcing the policy and acts as a strong deterent. Most people are genuinely concerned about where they park these days. Not because of common courtesy but because of the danger of being clamped. Fitting a barrier is not always cost effective or practicle

From your own photos i would say that the path is blocked. If that gate opens outwards (which it probably does) then you're also blocking access to that

Barriers: Extra cost Extra liability Extra maintenance Prospect of vandalism Needs powering too which is another headache Barrier and chain means inconvience for members - although for a club this is probably the best idea as on club nights someone can keep an eye on the car park entrance.

Very mature So if the car park is full of illegally parked cars, which results in a loss of trade as genuine customers decide to go else where... how can a business calculate for that loss? And as for the rent for that patch of ground for the amount of time the car is parked there. The cost of printing out the "estimated" costs is going to be more than that. Court? so not only is time lost having to work out how much was lost because of some inconsiderate pratt parking but time also has to be taken out of the day to attend court. Brilliant *smacks head* So it is But it is also responsiblity of car ownership to know that you cannot simply park where you like simply because the signs might not be up to spec or polite enough.

I promise it wouldn't need to be done just once, especially with people so eager to fight every single parking charge

I see you nicely side stepped the issue of what the loss incurred is and how it should be calculated. Or is every small business owner with customer parking supposed to spend hours of their own time weighing up each case and figuring the loss incurred?