Arundel Gate Sheffield: 'App parking' concerns as payment machines removed at major car park
Concerns have been raised after payment machines were removed from a major Sheffield car park, leaving phone apps and phone lines as the only way to pay
One angry motorist told The Star he had been put through stress and feared he would be fined after arriving the find all the payment machines at the SRL’s Arundel Gate car park covered up, under what used to be The Roxy.
But the operator says payment machines will be brought back to the facility.
Motorist Richard Lambert told how he was on his way to see Grease at The Lyceum in Sheffield city cenre, when he went in to use the car park, which he had used many times in the past. He parked, and then discovered there were no machines available for use.
Instead, he was told he would have to download an app called RingGo - but could not get it to go into his phone.
Richard, who is retired, tried to pay by telephone, but was unable to speak to anyone in person, and ended up being told by an automatic phone line that it had taken his money to park from 7pm until 11pm. But he had parked from 1.30pm until 3.30pm.
He now says he has been left in fear of receiving a parking ticket.
On Thursday there were no payment machines at all in the car park at the levels where signs said they would be, when The Star went to look.
Richard, from Dinnington, near Rotherham, had made the journey into Sheffield specially to go to the theatre, on November 14. He parked at Arundel Gate as it was close.
He said: “There were signs all over the place saying you have to pay for the parking before you go. We went to the machines, but they were all covered up. They said you had to download an app.
“Well, it would not work on my phone. I even asked the attendant to do it for me.
“I’m not interested in downloading apps, and there were other people there trying and not succeeding as well.
“There were people going to the man in the assistants cubicle. We asked if we could pay him, but were told no.”
He said he was told to ring a phone line, but could not get through, until later in the evening, when he tried to pay. The operator took his money, but the recorded message told him it was for 7pm until 11pm, not the period when he had parked.
“I still don’t know if I’m going to get fined,” he said. “And there was no one that I could speak to at any point.”
“I think it’s poor. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t wait forever. It was ridiculous and not helpful.”
He said he felt it was unacceptable for a car park to have only payment by phone.
The Star contacted SRL, who confirmed they were planning to bring payment machines back.
We will be installing new machines very soon
The company said in a statement: “We have only recently taken over the management of the Arundel Gate Car Park.
“We will be installing new machines very soon which will address this issue. In the event that your reader receives a fine, he should contact us, and we will ensure it is cancelled.”
RingGo is operated by a firm called easypark.
They said in a statement: "We are sorry to hear your reader’s parking experience was affected, however, the operation of the car park is not managed by RingGo.
“We are aware that the operator of this site is in the midst of enabling payment machine options to increase the number of payment methods available for motorists; it is likely these were still being set up at the time of parking.
“It is clear that a user must still pay on arrival from the handwritten note on the machine issued by the car park operator. RingGo has looked at our systems on the day concerned and can confirm that there were no service incidents that would have prevented paying for parking via our Apps or phone line services.
“The trouble your reader experienced when trying to download the app points to an issue with the mobile network provider and is one of the reasons we also offer a phone payment service."