With a zero tolerance attitude to issuing parking fines, Retro asks have ‘Vinci Parking’ got it all wrong?
Some students and most staff will remember the unacceptable parking issues prior to the introduction of parking permits, and would accept on the whole that there has been a dramatic improvement, but at what cost?
We at Retro have had complaints sent in recently about car parking fines issued by Vinci Parking, and even complaints about their attendants.
Alyson Llewellyn, a current student at UWIC said:
“I have had awful dealings with the Vinci at Llandaff, I have a disabled badge and yet have been fined twice, I have had to write two letters (second one in post now), and I am also making a complaint against the warden and the company for the way they approach people, its appalling.”
Another person to have a run-in with the Vinci parking is Kirsten James. When parking in a 20 minute parking bay for 10 minutes, she to was also issued a ticket. She said:
“I came to college by foot and when leaving was picking up a reading pack from the Dietetic department, but had forgotten m purse to pay deposit. I went home and came back, (and) looked for a space in the car park. There were none, so I had no choice but to park right at the end of the 20 minute parking space. To fit in the space one of my tyres was on the pavement, but (I) checked that it was not causing an obstruction to pedestrians, and it was not. I happened to notice that a van and car were there some 25 minutes earlier when I previously left.”
“Within 10 minutes I was back at my car to find I had been given a ticket, I was stunned!”
“I am also challenging my parking ticket as it was issued under breach code number 5, which states ‘The Vehicle was parked so as to cause obstruction or inconvenience to others’ which due to having 1 tyre on the pavement caused no obstruction or inconvenience as pedestrians were able to use the pavement as normal and passing vehicles were unaffected as I was not sticking out into the road.”
More recently, at a UWIC open day, numerous parents and students who attended were also fined for parking in the Podiatry car park at Llandaff Campus. The unforgiving issue of these fines has possibly given these potential students and their parents a dreadful first impression of UWIC.
It is my feeling that a non friendly and at times aggressive approach to parking tickets (Civil Parking Notice) by wardens was not expected when organised and controlled parking was opted for at UWIC.
Vinci parking had it right when at first they issued warnings instead of fines. These warnings would have allowed for a bit of human error, say if someone forgot to purchase a ticket, not seen a sign, or perhaps their ticket had run out by 10 minutes. The car park user would then only receive a fine if they re-offended.
Its this friendly and ‘working together’ attitude that is now absent from Vinci Parking, and now it seems they just want to issue as many fines as their ticket book will allow them.
The standard Vinci car parking fine is currently £16. This then increases to £40 if the fine is not paid within 2 weeks of the ticket issue.
Now, I know £16 doesn’t sound like much, but for a student, £16 can go along way. To the right is an image of receipt from Tesco for a weeks worth of food. for £16. That now sounds like a pretty hefty fine for a small error.
The Plan
Here at Retro, we want staff and students alike, to send us their UWIC parking nightmares. Have you had problems with an over zealous Vinci warden? Do you think it is wrong that staff and students have to pay to park at UWIC campuses? Maybe you think there are not enough parking bays and that space on campus has not been used properly? What ever your opinion please drop us a line:
trosoman@uwic.ac.uk
It is our plan to gather as many people’s comments on the UWIC car parking and present it to UWIC in hope that they will do something about this increasing problem at UWIC.
It has to be asked, what capacity does uwic have for students on an average day? And furthermore what capacity does NIAC have?
ReplyDeleteI've coached for UWIC for multiple years and have been turned down when asking NIAC for a staff pass because I am not a contracted employee. There have been multiple instances when I have not been allowed past the gate because I 'look like a student' multiple times in fact, including 1 time where I was attending a brief meeting in the daytime. Assuming it was less then 20 minutes I didn't buy a ticket and low and behold 5 minutes later i was out and driving for the exit. As i reached the exit an attendent stopped me, informed me he had been watching me on the cameras the whole time and that I did not pay, to which I simply said that I was there under 10 minutes, and then proceeded to lecture me on how terrible 'you students' are and how I had done terrible things.
Personally my opinion is that the attitude of these people is geared around moneymaking and nothing else. Also the morality of solving the issue, of which the root cause is quite obviously a lack of the necessary amounts of parking, by charging stakeholders parking is quite frankly obscene and unnecessary and this is made even worse by the terrible machines used to charge for parking. How hard is it to make machines that can give out change?!?!
In the last 2 months I have received no less then 3 parking tickets, i assume this means my car has been targeted? And am sorely tempted to see what action they deem to take were i to refuse to pay!