A LLANBADARN Fawr man has urged authorities to take action over the operators of the Rheidol Retail Park car park after fighting a battle for over a year over a parking fine he insists is wrong.

Simon Ayres was sent a Penalty Charge Notice by ParkingEye in 2016 and the company claimed he had parked overnight, despite Mr Ayres insisting he had been at the car park the previous evening and then returned the next day.

While he has accused ParkingEye of a “belligerent and aggressive” approach, he has also hit out at Ceredigion County Council’s trading standards department and Parking On Private Land Appeals, the body set up to rule on disputes between private parking companies and disgruntled motorists.

The trouble started, Mr Ayres says, when he went to Lidl in the evening before going home, but returned to the store the following morning to buy something that hadn’t been in stock the previous evening.

He said: “I appealed through the ParkingEye website providing the two receipts from Lidl as evidence. I presumed that ParkingEye would accept they had made a mistake and look into how their system could be at fault.

“But instead they claimed I had not provided enough evidence to prove the car wasn’t parked there overnight and stated that their invoice still stood.

“I was suspicious as to how their system could coincidentally miss my car leaving one evening and entering the car park the following morning, but had registered the initial entry and the last exit.

But despite appealing to POPLA, expecting to win, Mr Ayres was told that his appeal was unsuccessful.

A ParkingEye spokesperson said: “ParkingEye operates an audited appeals process and encourages people to appeal if they feel there are mitigating circumstances. If a driver disagrees with our decision they have the option to appeal to the independent appeals service (POPLA).

“In this case the driver did appeal to POPLA, who upheld our original decision.”

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