Total Parking Solutions PCN Swansea Uni - Being taken for a ride...?

[Being taken for a ride...]

My son has recently started at university in Swansea.

 

 

Last week he received a Parking Charge Notice from Total Parking Solutions advising him that he owed them £30 for parking for 89 minutes in a car park at Swansea University.

 

 

He parked from 19.56pm to 21.26pm and said there were a few other cars in the car park

but that it was not obvious that he needed to pay to leave his car there.

 

 

I am insisting he pays the £30 and he is refusing,

saying that everyone knows it's a [problem] and that no-one can enforce the fine in a court of law as his car was parked on private land and not public land.

 

 

I have read some comments about this and this seems to be a huge grey area.

 

 

The fine does not look authentic though there are photo's of his car entering and leaving the car park.

 

 

All help on this matter would be appreciated as I want to do the right thing but likewise, not be taken for a ride.. Many thanks.

[silverfox1961]

Hi and welcome to CAG.

You son is both right and wrong.

 

This is private land with parking controlled by a private company therefore it is NOT A FINE. It is a Parking Charge which can only be enforced by a court.

 

Now, Total Parking Solutions are a tiny company and they are a member if the biased IPC who only work in the parking company's benefit, rarely for the motorist which is why I would say it is safe to ignore them.

In the last 3 years TPS have taken no-one to court.

 

Remember, if a ticket says Parking Charge instead of Penalty Charge then it is contractual, not statutory

[ericsbrother]

get him to post up an image of the signage and we will tell you both whether it is worth appealing, ignoring or what.

 

For certain the parking co doesnt have a contract with the landowner, very little of university campuses are owned by the university itself, they are just tenants of a trust or the govt and farming off the car parks is a breach of the charter the university relies on to exist as that charter will only allow activity that has very limited aims of education.

 

Undoubtedly the uni admin will claim that the money is spent on education but that isnt true, the parking co doesnt hand over all of the money and they all keep the "penalty" charges for themselves and in any case the money raised doesnt benefit education, it pays for biscuits for committe meeting etc as they cannot allocate the money via formula funding to teaching students.

Edited November 20, 2016 by honeybee13
Paras.