A WOMAN from Rhyl has said she will not return to a car park in the town following a successful appeal against a parking fine she received after using it.

Kim Hurson used Morfa Hall car park on Church Street on December 30, 2022, but was fined £100 despite protesting that the ticket machine she used “wasn’t fully compliant at the time”.

Smart Parking Ltd, who has run the car park since November 2018, later reduced the fine to £20, but Ms Hurson still chose to appeal it through Ombudsman Services rather than pay it.

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This, she learnt last Thursday (April 27), was successful, on the basis that “the operator has failed to demonstrate why they issued the parking charge notice (PCN) to the appellant”.

Ms Hurson had deliberately kept her parking ticket, before sending Smart Parking proof of her inability to enter her full car registration on December 30.

She said: “I never gave them any money at all; if I hadn’t won the appeal, I would have made them take me to court.

“I’m very happy, otherwise there would have been another battle. There’s closure now. It’s just greedy people trying to make money out of vulnerable people.

“Their machines are faulty. If they had sent that to a old person who didn’t have the willpower, they would have paid them.”

It is the duty of a car park operator to provide a copy of a PCN to demonstrate why it was issued.

Upon review of the available evidence, though, Ombudsman Services concluded that Smart Parking did not do so, thus failing to demonstrate that the PCN was valid.

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Ms Hurson was one of numerous residents who told the Journal earlier this year of various issues with the car park.

Complaints about the car park included:

  • Parking fine tickets being issued automatically based on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras.
  • Its positioning adjacent to the disability parking at Rhyl Library, which is operated by Denbighshire County Council.
  • Faulty ticket machines.

She added: “That car park is generally used by people like the elderly and single mums. The fact that they didn’t provide the right documents for their argument… it was as if they just presumed I was going to pay the fine.

“I haven’t used the car park again since, I won’t do now either. It was the first time that I had ever used it.

“Why can’t they just put a normal pay and display machine in? I think it’s because they can’t be bothered to police it. It’s all done by cameras, but technology fails sometimes.

“It’s just a private company making money out of doing absolutely nothing; that’s how I see it.”

The car park has been owned by Gamlins Law, based at Morfa Hall, since it bought the land from Wales Council for Voluntary Action in October 2020.

A spokesperson for Parking on Private Land Appeals (POPLA) said: “We’re pleased that the POPLA process worked for Ms Hurson and resulted in the cancellation of her parking charge.

“If drivers feel they have been unfairly issued with a parking charge, and their appeal to a parking operator hasn’t been successful, then they should come to us.”

Attempts were also made to contact Smart Parking for further comment.