Wheel clampers defend £200 fees
Tuesday 11th May 2010, 1:41PM BST.
Bosses of a wheel clamping firm have defended charges of up to £200 for shoppers parking on a Shropshire pub car park.
Mark Smith, of Simplex Parking Services, admitted other companies charged “a lot less” to remove a clamp but insisted his firm’s charging policy was in line with national guidelines.
It comes as more people contacted the Shropshire Star to complain about the charges on the Severn Gorge car park in Telford.
Non-customers caught parking there are asked to pay £150 and a further £50 to have the clamp removed.
They are warned charges will go up to £450 if it is not paid within two hours.
A nine-strong group is considering taking its case to BBC’s Watchdog.
Mr Smith said: “There is legislation set out which governs maximum charges.
“There are companies out there who charge a lot less but we are well in line with national guidelines and the legislation that is in place.”
Wendy Pitchford said her son-in-law Howard Hughes, 38, was clamped after parking at the pub for 10 minutes to go to the Jobcentre. She claimed eight other people were also clamped at about the same time on Friday and have got together in a bid to take action.
Mrs Pitchford said: “People know they should not be parking there and pretty much all of the people in that group have put their hands up and said they are guilty.
“We want to take this further and there is talk of Watchdog, so we will see what happens.”
Severn Gorge pub manager Ben Minor said the company had been brought in to stop non-customers using the car park.
By Wayne Beese
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It would be interesting to hear what the pub has to say on this matter. Is there a warning within their premises to patrons who may go shopping once they have eaten in there? are there time contraints? how is it policed? does someone from the Clampers follow everyone who parks to see where they go? and how much of each fine is given to the chain who owns the pub?
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Can’t see a problem. It’s a business and has the right to do what it feels is best. If people don’t like it they can go elsewhere.
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I totally agree; very well put. This is a disgrace.
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Anyway; being serious. they have a chain which is used to block the entrance to the pub car park. rather than use the chain, they use a clamping company who charge between £200 and £450 to release the car. Clamping takes place outside of pub opening hours eg; 7.50am. At best; this is profiteering, In truth; this is a scam.
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Lets hope that everyone boycotts the pub and takes their custom elsewhere.
That would serve the pub right for letting this daylight robbery continue.
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I can see the point of clamping but £200 is excessive, it is only £35.00 on the multistorey if you get locked in by mistake.
We have problems with people parking at our premises and going off here, there and everywhere but our biggest problem is that they litter our car park but we dont have the large consumption of illegal parking that the pub obviously does.
At one time the pub use to have a chain across the access to stop people parking before the pub opened and they would have been better served to put that back in place.
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Whilst I have sympathy with the Severn Gorge if it has a problem with shoppers clogging up the car park, I will now think twice about eating or drinking there again. These clamping firms are often little more than thugs and will not be too fussy about clamping genuine customers if they can extort as much as £450 from them. It’s about time this activity was strictly licensed and regulated to freeze out the cowboys.
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I think they should install a pay an display at the pub..Its difficult to manage the car park as they also get lots of overspill from the jobcentre..who continually block access for the pub patrons and deliveries.But i think the charges are ridiculas …it is not the brewery who set these charges..so i dont think boycotting the pub is the answer.But clamping also isnt the answer it needs to be sorted in a fair manner to all.
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It would be interesting to see what car Mark Smith has. He can surely afford a nice new one with all the cash lining his wallet from these charges.
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There was a company that claimed to be operating parking control on a pub car park in Wellington.
Suddenly, when it transpired the owners of the pub hadn’t even heard of the parking company, they vanished. Odd, that…
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KARERN
you have my vote I will not be giving them my custom. I can eat, drink and spend my money elsewhere.
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KARERN
“you have my vote I will not be giving them my custom. I can eat, drink and spend my money elsewhere.”
The problem is that the people who were charged for parking there were already eating, drinking and spending their money elsewhere while abusing the pub’s facilities.
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This is a straight forward scam. My father was clamped by these low lifes and had to pay £200 (two weeks pension). He had parked at the Severn Gorge Pub before 8am and returned to his car 15 minutes later. He was the 9th person cought out before 8am. At this time, the pub is not open so they are doing no harm. Additionally; the pub has a chain barrier which they could use to stop people from parking. However; they obviously prefer to take their share of the proceeds from this scam. I for one will never use this pub again; they are an absolute disgrace.
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the pub was closed when the clamping was going on, so it would not stop the trade using the pub.
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I used to like the TV show the Clampers – especially Ray and Miguel
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I fail to see what the problem is here? It’s not like are not thousands of legitimate parking spaces in and around Town Centre. Or is it just that people want to get out of paying for parking their cars?
Fact is, if you don’t want to pay to park, don’t go to TC. If you do want to go, park where you should and don’t moan when you get clamped. The charges for parking may be a total pain in the behind, but they will work out far cheaper in the long run.
I do not have a problem with this clamping removal fee, but then I only ever park in a legitimate car park and PAY to do so.
If you don’t like the fine – don’t commit the crime!
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i think the price they charge is well over the top
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i mean i dont blame the pub for getting a wheelclamping fim in BUT COME ON NOT THOSE SORT OF CHARGERS i wont be going for my sunday lunch there again till they get a robin hood in dick terpin was not that bad
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The charges are meant as a deterrant, if you still park there regardless of knowing this then its your own stupid fault.
And as for comment #1, if there was a cliff and no sign saying don’t jump off, would you??
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I was just asking questions that anyone else would ask! I certainy wouldn’t park there unless I was going to be a patron of the pub and hence your flippant comment isn’t worth answering.
Please engage brain before using your fingers on a keyboard!
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” i was just asking questions that anyone else would ask”…Rubbish, any person with half a brain would be looking for some where else to park unless they are trying to get away with a bit of free parking..Therefore a £200 deterrant would be a suitable ( so you’d think )reason to not park there..
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Rubbish! So you are one of those that takes everything at face value, never questions anything and accepts whatever is said or printed. It is you who needs to think outside of the box, especially based on your posts on this subject.
What if I went to this pub, spent £60 on food and drink and then decided to pop into the shops, leaving my car on their car-park instead of moving it? Would this be acceptable by the clampers? etc.etc. what would be the time constraints? these are reasonable questions that people like you can’t see.
You only see “black and white” with no shades of grey, hence I would chose your professional path carefully.
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And would it be fair if you managed a pub with empty tables and a full carpark because no customers can access the carpark as its full of shoppers/workers who have discovered a crafty scam for avoiding carparking fees that everbody else has to pay.
The best way to stop that is by putting a deterrent in place that hopefully stop the frauds and gives you a fair opportunity to earn an honest living in your bar and restaurant.
Also if you start stipulating terms and conditions then you will have people turning up, buying a coke, then going shopping for several hour…..is that fair..
thanks for the career advice and i look forward to your next insult..
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another stealth tax i blame Labour, Oh wait :)
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The pub has a right to defend its income by ensuring only customer’s park in its car park however, the charges are well OTT. Not everyone can get their hands on £200 at short notice and what makes it worse is charging the jobless and threatening even higher charges if the fees are not paid within 2 hrs. I certainly won’t be going to that pub again.
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I blame Labour, oh wait.
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As long as there are clearly displayed “Parking for Patrons Only” signs and warnings about the clamping charges, what’s the problem?
I grew up in pub and my Dad had terrible problems with members of a local church using the pub car park on Sunday mornings – to the point where our customers had difficulty parking at opening time.
The final straw was when members of the church walked in one Sunday dinnertime and distributed leaflets about the evils of drink!!
The following Sunday there was a sign at the entrance saying “Non-patrons will be charged £1 for parking” (this was about 40 years ago). Once they’d all parked as usual a heavy chain was padlocked across the entrance. When they returned they found me standing there with the RNIB collecting box and the local copper in attendance – end of problem….
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I too, sympathize with the pub management, but they cannot claim the moral high ground. Charges on this scale are unreasonable, unacceptable and completely unjustifiable. The signage is never adequate enough and that always suggests that greed and profiteering are involved. We don’t want this sort of unpleasantness in Telford and I hope the authorities will act and find a way to put a stop to it.
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I totally agree Bob; very well put. This entire situation is an absolute disgrace and has nothing to do with the pub trying to protect its interests. At 8am on Sunday 1st May, 9 people had been clamped. The pub was obviously not open. Additionally; they have a chain which should be used to block access to the car park. However; it is obviously more profitable to allow people to park and then empty their wallets.
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@ 19, Surely it was called stabling, and not car parking while you were growing up in a pub
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Enough of your cheek Spencer – get out there and sell some cars!!!!
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Excuse my use of the modern slang term “cars” for what are correctly known as “horseless carriages”……
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I wonder if Mr Cameron’s government will rush to address this blatant profiteering?
Oh, I forgot this is simply legitimate wealth generation – the cornerstone of the Tory party. Mike Smith will probably be knighted in the New Years honours!
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and they’ve probably got bigger fish to fry than a load of moaners complaining because they are not allowed to park where they want just because they are too tight to pay for a pay and display ticket.
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The independant UK parking industry is a multi billion dollar business – hardly small fry and riddled with Tory entrepreneurs, that is the reason it won’t get addressed.
I assume that one of the bigger fish you were talking about was the banking crisis?
Remember that the root of the whole Financial Crisis in this country began when Thatcher relaxed the bank lending and credit legislation to help out her friends in the Financial Sector – encouraging us all to buy our own houses and spend beyond our means.
The Tories claim to have just formed a government in the public interest – Tories and Public Interest – Sounds a bit like an oxymoron to me?
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In fact it was Gordon Brown that relaxed the banking regulations, to woo his friends in the city when he was chancellor.
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cant pay the fine / do the time ?
then dont do the crime!!
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What crime? And who were the victims directly affected by the alleged misdemeanor?
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Usually i’d say hard luck, you know the score etc – and I would – but I would also be saying I wouldn’t risk parking there to use the pub either. Any pub parking with a clamping notice outside it and i’m off – it’s not worth the risk – there’s plenty of other pubs around.
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I noticed the £3.99 carvery sign the other day and thought it might be worth a try. I won’t bother now – any risk at all of being clamped and paying a huge fine (that’s what it is) is just not worth it.
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Charging for parking on private land is not a fine.
It is simply a charge and should equate to the loss of earnings that the car being in the place would cause the business..No where in the region of £150
No law has been broken and no offence committed.
Car clamping firms are the equivalence of modern day highwaymen.
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Totally agree with you, these clampers are common crooks
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