Tesco says sorry for parking fines

12:31pm Tuesday 6th May 2008

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A NUMBER of Messenger readers have received parking tickets only minutes after leaving their vehicles in an Altrincham store's car park.

Since a new system was installed at Tesco Extra, Cathy Rice of Buckingham Way in Timperley got a £40 fine after parking for 13 minutes.

She said: "I had only nipped to the bank in Altrincham and when I returned the parking attendants informed me that a ticket had been issued as a result of a new sensor system. It is supposed to record the time you park the car and issue a ticket automatically if the car goes over the parking allowance.

"In my case the sensor was faulty but the attendants said there was no possibility of the sensors being faulty."

A Timperley resident, Mrs Evans of Ash Grove, complained that she was penalised for parking for one hour and added she returned to her car well within the three hours allowed.

She said: "I have contacted Tesco to request they keep CCTV footage that would provide evidence of my arrival time but they state this does not show the car park and has already been wiped. In the event of a dispute over time spent in the car park the customer is expected to provide proof of arrival. Tesco does not provide a timed ticket or other evidence of arrival time."

A spokesperson for Tesco said: "We're trialling a new system at the car park which aims to be fairer for all. With this in mind it is possible that a very small number of charges could be issued in error.

"The last thing we want to do is charge unnecessarily and we're sorry for this and urge those people just to phone the number on the correspondence to resolve this.

"We do need to keep the flow of traffic going however so everyone can do their shopping. The time limit should enough to shop and also use other local services and facilities and we thank people for entering into the spirit of the idea."

hannah.al-taraboulsy@ messengernewspapers.co.uk