Wiganers' anger over parking fines

Several drivers using the car park on King Street next to the jobcentre have been stung with £100 penalty charge notices for only entering half of their registration details due to a machine failure.

The group, which is accusing the car park managers - HX Car Park Management Ltd - of being “scammers”, is now calling for their appeals to be accepted so that they do not have to shell out for the “unfair” charges.

Zoe Orchid Gibson, who was visiting town for her gran’s 70th birthday meal, is one of a number of motorists to be fined by the ANPR enforcers.

“There’s a lot of unhappy residents that are being scammed by this company and have had the same issue as me,” she said.

“I paid for my tickets and couldn’t get the numbers to display to finish my registration.

“I took a picture of my ticket that day just to prove I bought it and they’ve stated that just because the full reg wasn’t on the ticket I still have to pay.”

Zoe is not the only person to be stung by the faulty machine, numerous visitors to Wigan have reported similar incidents including one woman who was fined as she sat in her car preparing to leave.

Emma James said: “I got a parking ticket at the side of Wigan jobcentre.

“I was in the car waiting and moved when asked but I still got given a ticket.”

An online group which aims to help people fight unfair parking charges contacted Zoe via Facebook last week to explain that there had been a huge influx in people joining them on social media from Wigan. Milly Jones, who also battled with the broken machine, said: “I received two parking tickets from the same company.

“I put the first four numbers in but the others wouldn’t work.

“I did buy a ticket. This is just not right, something needs to be done - I know there are quite a lot of people in the same position.”

HX Car Park Management were contacted twice for comment but had not responded by the time of publication.