Excel Parking: Morrisons responds over complaints about Broomhill car park in Sheffield
A motorist has hit out over a Sheffield parking firm’s “ruthless payment policy” after taking too long to pay.
Katharine Smith received a £100 demand at Broomhill Rooftop, where Excel Parking allows drivers 10 minutes to buy a ticket. Records show she took 17 minutes.
Ms Smith said she spent all that time battling with a “very frustrating process of navigating a QR code scan, a failed download of the Excel parking app and repeated attempts to log car details into a website which kept resetting to a blank car details section.”
She said: “This is devastating to me as I never had any intention to be non-compliant with payment and do not feel that I have been unreasonable.”
Morrisons has a store in the Broomhill Rooftop development and urged customers who had a problem to approach them.
A spokesperson said: “Parking facilities for our Broomhill store are owned and operated by the Broomhill Shops Rooftop Car Park. If a customer believes they may have an issue with their ticket, we would advise them to speak with our customer service team when parking."
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Car park owners Staghold Ltd - run by John Lawson, Leslie Frankel and Andrew Michaels - did not respond to The Star.
The International Parking Community, which runs the Independent Appeals Service and publishes a Code of Practice, did not respond to The Star. It is a membership body funded by parking firms including Excel.
In response to a letter from Ms Smith, Excel insisted its terms and conditions must be followed and its signs meet requirements set by the International Parking Community.
It added: “The signs are large, prominent and legible, so that any reasonable user of the car park would be aware of their existence and nature, and would have a fair opportunity to read them if he or she wished to do so.
“It can never be a defence to a claim in contract law to say ‘I did not read the terms’ so long as the existence of those terms is reasonably advertised.”
Tests show it takes about three minutes to fully read signs at Broomhill, leaving motorists with seven minutes to park and pay.
Excel also said it was “not responsible” for the Connect Cashless Parking app.
A representative for Excel Parking Services Ltd said: “Miss Smith failed to provide any explanation for the delay in purchasing the tariff when she appealed to us internally; had she done so the outcome would likely have been different. We will contact Miss Smith directly to discuss the matter further.”
In recent months, judges have thrown out Excel’s demands for cash for breaching terms and conditions, providing drivers had paid.
A government crackdown on private parking operators is expected to come into force later this year, the RAC has said.