Couple are left in a jam over £100 parking fine
AN elderly couple received a £100 parking fine despite claiming one machine was jammed, and the other being out of order.
Marilou Scott, 78, and husband, Geoffrey Scott, 84, from Bamford, took their two grandsons, aged eight and 10 to see the Dippy the Dinosaur exhibition at Number One Riverside in Rochdale on February 21.
They parked on Mecca
Bingo car park after struggling to find a space, and Geoffrey went to pay.
Marilou said: “We were looking after the grandchildren overnight. The car park was massively busy.
“Everyone was doing the same thing.
“People were driving around trying to find a space.
“There was nowhere else near to there to park.
“I don’t know if the new M&S is open yet, but it wasn’t then.
“My husband went to pay and he was gone for ages - he’d had to go to the other side of the car park as the nearest one was out of order, and then the other was jammed so you couldn’t put money in.
“Lots of people were just walking away.
Marilou continued: “I was just annoyed because we did try to pay.
“It was a horrible day it was raining really hard and really windy.
“It was awful and when we came back after seeing Dippy there were people who were queuing up behind us and to the side of us fighting over our parking space.
“There will be lots of people who couldn’t pay that day.
“The fine was £100 we are appealing against it, but people have said we won’t win.”
Marilou had looked into where the family could park.
She explained: “I did a lot of research to find where we could park because my husband and I aren’t in our first flush of youth.
“We don’t want to walk far, and we can’t.
“I didn’t want to disappoint the boys.”
A ParkingEye spokesman said: “As with all cases the motorist is able to use our BPA (British Parking Association) audited appeals process to highlight her mitigating circumstances.
“These will be reviewed and a judgement will be made in due course.”