8 hours ago
4
I recently had to collect my brother from Stansted airport. I stopped to collect a coffee from the Starbucks drive-thru in a retail park near the airport.
I asked the assistant if it was OK to park up to drink it and was told there were 60 minutes’ free parking. In total I was on the site for 16 minutes.
Soon afterwards I received a £100 from MET Parking Services. I immediately contacted Starbucks, which told me I was supposed to enter my car registration on an iPad in store.
This had not been mentioned by the staff and there was no iPad available at the drive-thru kiosk.
Stansted travellers beware!
CF, Sudbury, Suffolk
Scores of other drivers have been charged £100 for sipping a coffee at the Southgate Park retail park which lies off the A120 by the airport, according to online forums.
This must make it the most expensive latte in the UK. The car park seems to also be ranked one of Britain’s trickiest traps for motorists.
The Guardian first exposed its opaque rules back in 2018 and it seems it’s still providing a lucrative income stream for the enforcement firm, MET Parking Services.
Signs greeting arrivals proclaim that parking is for customers only. Terms and conditions are detailed on separate notices in font illegible through a windscreen.
Many of those caught out parked outside Starbucks and ordered from the adjacent McDonald’s, or vice versa. That’s because the Ts and Cs decree that the lot is divided into two sections – one for each outlet – and that, as well as pulling up in the correct bays, customers must register their vehicles within the correct restaurant.
Starbucks told you helplessly that it has no control over parking charges, and referred you to MET. It ignored your question about why you were not properly informed by staff.
It also ignored my requests to know why drive-thru customers are not automatically told of the registration requirement and provided with an iPad.
There’s little point in a drive-thru if they have to walk into the cafe to comply. I wanted to know whether it has pressed for clearer signs, and how many complaints it has received in the last year, but it didn’t bother to reply.
I found MET to be just as uncommunicative. In vain I asked why the signs are not clearer, whether it, or the landowner, keeps the charges levied on unwitting drivers, and how much it collected in the past year.
MET’s parking charge notice may be unenforceable, in any case. Parking companies obtain the address of a vehicle’s registered keeper from the DVLA, but they can’t prove it was the registered keeper at the wheel. In most cases that doesn’t matter. The 2012 Protection of Freedoms Act, which applies to England and Wales, allows the registered keeper to be held liable for breaches of conditions on private land if the driver is not named.
However, keeper liability does not apply to land where parking is covered by specific laws – known as statutory control – such as railway stations and airports. You should be asked if you were the driver, and if you refuse to confirm who was at the wheel the charge notice can’t be pursued.
In at least one case the independent appeals service, Popla, allowed an appeal because MET failed to rebut the appellant’s claim that Southgate Park is within the boundary of Stansted airport. Your fine has since been cancelled by MET – I suspect the prospect of a headline was the nudge it needed.
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