Wigan pensioner takes on car park giant over fine

John Fletcher is in dispute with Euro Car Parks after he and wife Janet were hit with a £100 penalty for overstaying at the Rodney Street car park in Wigan town centre by 10 minutes on June 17 2022.

The 67-year-old from Atherton feels he has grounds for appeal because neither the phone app facility nor the card machine was working on the day he put his only £1 coin in the slot to stay there for an hour.

The retired engineering entrepreneur says that the signage at the time was also misleading, with people coming onto the car park, thinking it was a flat £1 rate to park when the smaller print showed that it was “from £1."

The charges have since gone up and so has the bill since Mr Fletcher’s refusal to pay it.

He says there have now been at least 14 “increasingly hostile” exchanges with a collection company but he has stood his ground and has now prepared an appeal for sending to the Civil National Business Centre.

Meanwhile the outstanding bill – which would have been lowered to £60 if the Fletchers had paid up in the first fortnight – has risen to £285.

Mr Fletcher said: “This has put us right off visiting Wigan. We’ve not been since.

"We went to Franco’s on Rodney Street and planned to stop an hour. We saw the sign on the car park just behind the restaurant suggesting it was £1 to park and went on.

"We tried to pay by phone but that didn’t work so we tried the card machine but that was broken too. That left us with a cash payment and I had one £1 so I put it in.

"We came out of Franco’s not realising that we’d gone over by 10 minutes but there was no means of topping up. Then the fine came.

"This is a racket. There should be some leeway if two of the three payment methods are broken, especially these days when so few people have coins. On top of that the signage wasn’t clear. We are not giving up.”

Euro Car Parks has been asked for a response but so far has not replied.