Council apology over parking ticket issued at Huttoft car park

A day trip to the coast nearly proved expensive for one visitor who was landed with a parking ticket – even though he thought he had paid.
Iain Grant with his parking ticket.Iain Grant with his parking ticket.
Iain Grant with his parking ticket.

Iain Grant had taken his elderly parents from Louth to see the sea at Huttoft, parking at the car park near the Vista at the Boatshed cafe, where a new app payment system was installed this summer.

Although he downloaded the app, according to Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) who run the car park, the registration number part of the process did not register and they have since apologised for any confusion.

However, this was not before enforcing the ticket following an initial appeal, stating “other motorists have been able to either download the application or telephone to make payments”.

Mr Grant contacted our newspaper after appealing against the penalty notice..

“I downloaded the app and, because it was raining, I decided to pay for my car parking while in the café,” he said. ““The data signal out at Huttoft Bank was not great but I downloaded the app and filled out all the details to pay for two hours parking which was £2.

"The final screen was simply a blue screen with a title and, although my order had gone through, it struck me as suspiciously. I went through the process again and took screenshots.

“There was no means for me to know if I had made payment or not but I had, in good faith made one (possibly two) payments.

"When we returned to the car an hour later, there was a penalty charge notice on my windscreen.”.

A spokesperson for Lincolnshire County Council told Lincolnshire World said: “In this case our records confirmed that although payment was made, the input of the vehicle registration number didn’t happen. This meant that there was no way to identify which vehicle the payment was for.

“We followed correct procedure at all times and the initial claim was rejected because of the lack of vehicle assignment to the payment as outlined at the time of booking. “However, after review where we could see that a payment was made but could also see that the vehicle registration number hadn’t been entered into the system, we decided to reverse that decision on the benefit of doubt.”