A man is fighting what he sees as an unfair parking ticket.
Gareth Oakley visited Hope Cove car park with his wife, children and dogs.
He typed in his car number plate, paid £4, put the ticket in his windscreen and thought no more about it.
A short while afterwards he received a £60 fine in the post.
Gareth said: “I managed to find my ticket which I had paid for by card and it just had the first ‘F’ of my number plate.
“I decided to appeal and just received a standard letter saying that even though I had paid, because the number plate wasn’t properly inputted I was still liable.
“I have done computer coding and don’t make those sort of mistakes.”
The car park is run by PPS (Premier Parking Solutions).
There have been numerous other complaints posted up on online forums such as MoneySavingExpert and they are full of similar complaints about their treatment.
The Parish Clerk of South Huish Parish Council Katharine Harrod said:
“The car park is under private ownership, the management of the area has been outsourced to an operating company and we have no information regarding the land owners.
“The Parish Council have no jurisdiction or influence in the management of this land.
“From the numerous complaints we receive each year as well as the posts that are uploaded to the Hope Cove Facebook page, we can only advise that in our experience the management company stick rigidly to the rules/regulations posted on the signage in the car park and as such, anyone overstaying their time or not having a full and correct registration number printed on their tickets is likely to be fined.
We contacted PPS for comment and received a reply signed just ‘PPS Ltd’ stating that we would need to supply permission from Gareth to discuss his case.
Gareth was happy to do so, and we sent it off requesting the name of the person we were dealing with at the company. Since then no response has been received despite a reminder.