What are the regulations concerning displayed parking notices?

[Chilli Burger]

I recently attend the F1 GP at Silverstone. I booked my ticket on the late side, there were no Park and Ride tickets left and it appears that you can only get parking tickets when buying two or more entry tickets. I was going alone.

 

The lack of a car park ticket did not bother me as I have been there on a number of occasions, only once having a car park ticket (the e-shop that I used sent me a complimentary one). The last time I went there was 2006 or 2007. The only car parks requiring tickets were those actually attached to the circuit, once you were the other side of the road going past the circuit there were mud pits fields where parking was free.

 

Anyway I turned up on the Friday, was waved into the car park by someone at the field gate, waved down a track down through the field and then waved over to one side where a man guided me into a line of cars, where I stopped and parked. At the end of the day I returned to my car and drove away. Absolutely no problem.

 

The same on Saturday and on Sunday.

 

There was one difference on the Sunday. When I got back to my car there was something under the windscreen wiper which turned out to be a "CIVIL PARKING NOTICE" from a company called VINCI. "OH bother" I thought, especially when I saw that it was for £60, or £30 if I paid within 14 days.

 

Now this whole thing was a surprise to me as I had not seen any notices whatsoever about parking. So I looked around the by now nearly empty field. I could not see one despite driving most of the way round it. So I drove to the exit and, sure enough, there was a notice. It was about 10 or 12 feet before the entry, on the left hand side. Above it was a larger notice about ignoring ticket touts who were known to work in the are (this was true, there were about a dozen I saw near an exit to the circuit, they were quite plain to see and no effort was being made to prevent them touting).

 

Now the part that I am really interested in is that this notice was attached to the hedge, then the five barred gate had been opened, the top bar was obscuring part of the parking notice. I seem to remember reading somewhere that if any part of the notice is obscured then the whole notice becomes invalid. Does anyone have any knowledge of this or point me to some information on it, please?

 

Anyway, since I had taken a large number of photos over the course of the weekend I decided that one more would not do any harm. I have a shot of the gateway, the gate and the notice.

 

It is quite clear from the placing of the notice, the fact that there was an attendant signalling to me as I drove up the side road to the car park entrance, the fact that I drove past another attendant who was signalling to show me which way to go once in the car park and the attendant who waved me to where he was standing in front of the spot where I had to park the car that there was no attempt to warn me that I needed a pre-purchased ticket to park in that location. So in my mind I have been subject to an attempt at [causing problems].

 

I was somewhat concerned, so I spoke to my son, he is a solicitor. Unfortunately he is only concerned with contracts which run into at the very least tens of millions of pounds, so he didn't know much about such a measly sum. Besides which he seemed a little abstracted, possibly due to his working on the final arrangements for his wedding the following Saturday. So I googled around and found this site.

 

Yesterday two letters arrived, one about wrongful parking on the Saturday (there was definitely no ticket on the car) and the other for the Sunday. They are addressed to my wife, as she is the keeper of the car. She has never been to Silverstone in her life, I know that she was shopping with our daughter at the time the Saturday ticket was allegedly issued.

 

I have not yet decided whether to get my wife to send the "get in touch with the driver" letter or to get her to sign over the handling to me. Is it worth pointing out that she has a witness to not being there?

 

But as I say, the main thing that I am interested in is the legality of the partly obscured notice.

[Al27]

It's simple - there was no contract.

 

The signage is just a contract, nothing more.

 

The whole thing is a [problem] from start to finish. Even if there was a contract, the sum they are demanding is an unenforceable contractual penalty. They are only entitled to losses anyway.

 

These companies are generally cowboy outfits. No signage, just buying random reg number details from the DVLA - it all goes on.

 

Don't contact them and just ignore them. They'll just go away - what else can they do? They certainly won't take you to court, and they'd lose anyway. So their options are a) to give up and b) send some letters and then give up.

 

Relax. Don't take it so seriously

[DBC]

There is a similar thread to this over on MSE

[dx100uk]

IGNORE!!!!

 

dx

[Chilli Burger]

There is a similar thread to this over on MSE

 

Thank you for the link. I have read the thread and will be registering so that I can contact the writer.