Consumer champion blasts council car park tickets at Sainsbury's (From This Is Local London)

Consumer advice chief blasts council car park ticket machines at Sainsbury's in Marlow

11:00am Saturday 4th February 2012 in Where I Live By James Nadal

A CONSUMER advice chief, hit by a £50 fine, is the latest to blast the parking ticket machines at the council run car park behind Sainsbury's in Marlow.

Ian Nixey, CEO of Windsor and Maidenhead Citizens Advice Bureau, said he will take his appeal to the top.

Mr Nixey, 63, from Marlow, says parking tickets are still unclear even after the change of machines in December.

See related articles below.

He was ticketed after parking in Central Car Park on January 13.

Though he accepted he made a mistake, he said the fine was unfair because he had clearly paid for a parking ticket.

After buying one, he tore the perforated paper ticket in two to separate the voucher.

But, without realising, he placed the discount voucher for Sainsbury's on his dashboard instead of the parking ticket.

Originally drivers were confused by the fact that a voucher was printed first, separately, before a ticket came out of the machine.

Wycombe District Council changed the machines after the apparent confusion.

Mr Nixey claimed even though the system has been changed, neither the instructions by the parking machine nor the ticket itself were at all clear.

The Henley Road resident said both parts - the ticket and voucher – look nearly identical, showing the start and expiry times and the fee.

He said: “I haven't done anything wrong, other than display the wrong part of the ticket in the windscreen.

“It looks for all the world like a parking ticket, it's the old saying, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.”

Mr Nixey said he accepts he made a mistake and that without his reading glasses on he had been unable to see the details of the ticket properly.

But he believes the fine is entirely unfair because he has proof he paid for his parking space.

Conversely, while the discount voucher was not accepted by the council as a ticket, Sainsbury's did accept the parking ticket as the refund coupon, seeing the obvious mistake that had been made, he said.

His appeal was rejected by WDC and he will challenge it at the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.

Meanwhile Holmer Green resident Stan Samek is also taking his complaint to the top after mistakenly placing a Sainsbury's refund voucher in his car on December 3.

The management consultant said he displayed what he believed to be a ticket but was later dismayed to find in fact it was a voucher for the supermarket.

Figures showed this week 92 people had done the same.

His latest appeal to WDC has been refused so Mr Samek will ask The Traffic Penalty Tribunal to examine his case.

The tribunal is the final stage of appeal for motorists or vehicle owners against a penalty issued by a council in England.

He said: “I'm going to pursue it because I think it's totally wrong.

“Ultimately, they’ve admitted it's caused confusion, that the two parts of the ticket should be connected.”

What Wycombe District Council said.

In a statement WDC said some of the 92 motorists who got a fine for displaying a refund voucher accepted it while others appealed it.

“As is standard procedure, every appeal that we receive is reviewed and a decision made on a case by case basis.

“In some instances, some of these PCNs may have already been overturned depending on the nature of the appeal. Once a PCN case has been closed, either through a payment being made or a decision made through the appeal process, it cannot be reopened.

“There is no legal requirement to display any notices about a change to pay and display tickets, however to be helpful to car park users, we decided to display some.

“The notices were put up after the new refund voucher scheme was introduced and are still displayed.

“During December, an A-board was also displayed.”

WDC added it has to abide by any decision made by the parking adjudicator.

Sainsbury’s said in a statement: “We are sorry to hear that the council run car park is causing confusion with our customers.

“We have asked Wycombe District Council to take a more sympathetic view towards customers that accidentally display the refund portion of the ticket within their vehicle.”