October 27, 2022 9.49 pm This story is over 23 months old

Man hit with parking fine after pay-by-phone glitch

Car park will soon get a parking machine after complaints

A local man was shocked to receive a fine at a Lincolnshire seaside car park, despite paying the charge twice.

Iain Grant was taking his parents on a day out when he experienced problems in the council-owned Huttoft car terrace.

His fine has now been rescinded, although Lincolnshire County Council claim that Iain didn’t fill in his car registration.

Iain says he did it correctly, and says poor signal could be to blame.

The council recently agreed to fit parking machines in the car park after complaints that the pay-by-phone system was difficult to use.

“I took my elderly parents for a day out from Louth to go to the seaside. It was a rainy day but we planned to park up at the sea and then go visit the Vista café nearby, which is lovely,” Iain said.

The rainy seaside led to an unexpected fine | Photo: Submitted

“The data signal out at Huttoft Bank was not great but I downloaded the Apcoa Connect app and filled out all the details to pay for two hours parking, which was £2.

“The final screen was simply a blue screen and it struck me as suspicious.

“I went through the process again. 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.”

Iain emailed and rang the council twice in the following days to argue without success.

On Thursday, he was eventually told that the fine had been cancelled.

A council spokesperson 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.

Iain blames the glitch on poor phone signal | Photo: Submitted

“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.

“We have given advice to the person making the claim about where the issue occurred that led to the PCN so that they could avoid a repeat of this in the future.

“We apologise for any confusion during the phone calls made in this case.”

Public feedback has recently led the council to agree to install payment machines at Huttoft and Anderby Creek.

These tickets will also be valid at a number of other coastal council carparks.