“Thank you for your e-mail regarding the above Penalty Charge Notice that was issued to your vehicle while it was parked in Torrington car park.

“I have examined the grounds for your appeal and must inform you that, as shown on the large sign adjacent to the Southeastern Trains (ST) ticket machine from which you purchased your ticket, and on every exit door in the car park, the private bays where your ticket is valid are only the red bays belonging to ST, on the 3rd and 4th floor levels of the car park. A ST parking ticket is not valid for parking in a white Local Authority bay.

“To clear up any confusion, may I explain that the signage covering ST red bays, and ST tickets, machines and maintenance are entirely the responsibility of Meteor, which is the company operating on behalf of ST. Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, beyond its contracted obligation to enforce the ST parking regulations in the car park, has absolutely no involvement with or authority over what are these private business matters. Any complaints or dissatisfaction with the signage or system of issuing ST day tickets for commuters should be made direct to Meteor Customer Services Section. Their telephone number is 0845.603 6197 (7 days).

“The Parking Attendant’s comprehensive notes show that your vehicle was displaying a ST ticket but was not parked in the correct private red bay area. It was instead parked in a white bay belonging to the Local Authority and was not displaying a valid pay-and-display ticket. I have therefore to inform you that the grounds for representation against the Penalty Charge Notice have not been established and your appeal is rejected. I am, however, able to accept the reduced rate of £30.00, provided that payment is received within fourteen days of the date of this letter. Cheques and Postal Orders should be made payable to Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and addressed to the Parking Information Centre. Alternatively, you can pay via our website, www.tunbridgewells.gov.uk, or by credit/debit card on our dedicated payment line 01892 554094, which is open 23½ hours a day, 7 days a week (except between 5pm and 5:30pm when the system is closed for essential processing).

“Should this Penalty not be paid within the given time-scale, a ‘Notice to Owner’ subsequently will be sent to the registered owner/keeper of the vehicle. The registered owner/keeper will be given 28 days from receipt of the Notice either to pay the full charge of £60.00 or make formal appeal in writing on the Notice, which the Council will be under a statutory obligation to consider. If the formal appeal is rejected, they will be sent the forms to allow them to appeal direct to the National Parking Adjudication Service, should they wish, for an independent ruling on the matter – which will be binding on all parties. There is no formal right of appeal to the adjudicators until the ‘Notice to Owner’ is issued and returned to us.”

So let’s just have a look at that, shall we?

“the Southeastern Trains (ST) ticket machine from which you purchased your ticket”

How does an unfortunate visitor to Tunbridge Wells know that this machine is supposedly a Southeastern Trains ticket machine, when all it says on it is “Parkeon” and (more particularly) “Central Parking System”?

Or:

“the large sign adjacent to the Southeastern Trains (ST) ticket machine”

That would be the large sign that says that railway day tickets can only be purchased from the South Eastern Trains entrance. We used the entrance to the car park and not to the station which was around the corner and down the road a way.

“To clear up any confusion, may I explain that the signage covering ST red bays, and ST tickets, machines and maintenance are entirely the responsibility of Meteor, which is the company operating on behalf of ST. Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, beyond its contracted obligation to enforce the ST parking regulations in the car park, has absolutely no involvement with or authority over what are these private business matters.”

Meteor, eh? And who are they? Are they saying that Meteor are Parkeon or Central Parking System? Who knows?

And whose car park is it anyway? Are Tunbridge Wells Borough Council saying that they don’t own or operate the car park but are simply a private contractor like those clamping cowboys? They certainly seem to come across like the cowboy clampers. They also seem to be ignoring their County Council’s ticket cancellation policy – no suprise there.

“Alternatively, you can pay via our website, www.tunbridgewells.gov.uk“

Well I tried that, but after I’d finally found a link to the payment section it refused to allow me to make payment as it didn’t recognise the parking ticket number…

“or by credit/debit card on our dedicated payment line 01892 554094″

That’s what I had to do but having carefully entered “6000″ for the payment amount the first time, the automated system thought I had entered 60p and it took two attempts for their system to recognise my debit card number.

So their payment systems are as useful as their parking facilities, then.

So congratulations, Tunbridge Wells. We will never again stay in or near Tunbridge Wells, not will we ever visit Tunbridge Wells, nor will we ever buy anything from anyone in Tunbridge Wells.

Or more succinctly, fuck you Tunbridge Wells!

We had a week away on holiday in the south-east recently and decided to go and be all touristy in London. Rather than drive into London and pay petrol, congestion charge and expensive car parking, we decided instead to drive to Tunbridge Wells and take the train from there.

After struggling to find anywhere to park at the railway station, we were directed to the council’s Torrington car park where we bought a pay and display ticket, parked up and went on our way. On our return, we found a penalty charge notice stuck on our windscreen demanding £60 (reduced to £30 if paid within 14 days). Here’s our appeal:

“Dear Sirs,

Following my telephone call to your office this morning, I would like to appeal against a penalty notice I received on 15 August 2007 whilst parked legally (as far as we were concerned) in your Torrington car park. We were holidaymakers staying locally and had decided to have a day trip to London.

We drove to the station to park, but could only find “premier permit” (if I recall correctly) parking spaces and we had no idea what that meant so we asked a station worker who directed us to the Torrington car park.

On our arrival there, we were confronted by a sign and two ticket machines. The sign says this:

As you can see, the sign says that railway day tickets can only be purchased for the machines at “the south eastern trains entrance” and we did not want to drive back out and head around to the station to buy a ticket from their machines.

Instead, we used one of the blue machines on the ramp and put in the maximum sum it would accept. As I explained to your staff this morning, the ticket machines on the ramp to your car park are not marked in any way to differentiate them from other pay and display machines and indeed they were the only ticket machines on the entry ramp, so we naturally assumed they were valid machines for this car park:

We did notice the section about a £2 rebate for rail users but did not avail ourselves of this rebate.

Having bought a ticket which was valid until 4.00am on 16 August 2007, we then drove into the largely empty car park and parked in a bay.

On our return, we found a penalty notice fixed to the windscreen. On enquiry this morning, we were told following your staff member looking at the parking attendant’s photograph of our ticket, that the ticket was a rail user ticket so we should have known and parked in a red bay. Looking at the ticket and also the machine which says “Central Parking System”, how were we supposed to know this?

We were always prepared to pay the full price for parking and had assumed from the information clearly visible to us that that was exactly what we had done. We are not local residents and therefore unaware of the peculiarities of your parking systems: our local car park at Norwich next to the station has two ticket machines per entrance lane and you simply validate your ticket at the railway station for a reduced rate and pay as you return to your vehicle. The system is simple and works faultlessly.

Accordingly, we wish to appeal against the penalty charge notice and await your reply.

Yours faithfully”

I copied this to Southeastern for their comment and reply using the e-mail address they gave me over the telephone. It bounced. I rang them again and was told they do not have an e-mail address any more for customers to contact them through. Maybe they were fed up with having to handle customer complaints?