riding buddy took his school kids up to Glentress on Sunday, popped a ticked on the VW T5 size Minibus but got a fine because he had chosen the wrong sort of ticket.

He says that if the vehicle is “not a car“, then the charge is £20. Can anyone confirm this?

i.e. i always take a van and £20 would be an incentive to go elsewhere.

I thought it used to be £6 but apparently the forestry commission have changed the rules and outsourced the car parks to a third party who are extremnely active in ticketing offenders.

Same rule applies in numerous places.
Buses, vans, etc at afan are £6.

To be honest £20 is a joke but a minibus is clearly not a car.

Seems excessive and seems they would rather you took 4 cars as opposed to 1 minibus.

all the websites say £6 … was just wondering if anyone had seen the £20 figure which seems awfully high.

Probably based on the number of seats.

Up to 8 in total and it’s classed as a car.

9 and above its a minibus

16 and above its a coach.

The only way you get a T5 to be classed as a minibus is to have a “single + double” set up in the front.

Which is why mostly they have two singles in the front and two rows of three in the back, to keep them under the “minibus” classification.

Have you rang Glentress to see if that is the correct information or if the new parking Nazis have mucked it up?

If I remember correctly minibuses are more.
The old charges used to say large vans & minibuses were £6?

I’ve not had an issue with putting a £3 or £5 ticket on my transporter, yet!

Last year it was £12 for a mini-bus.
THough looking at the website it seems to have changed.

Glentress has several parking options. The trail head is at Glentress Peel visitor centre.

Car Parking Charges:

£2 for 1 hour – perfect if you’re stopping off for some food and refreshments in the café.
£5 per day (or £3.50 for 3 hours). This applies to all car parks at this location – Glentress Peel (over 100 spaces), Falla Brae, Buzzards Nest and our two overflow car parks.
You can pay car park charges by credit or debit card (with chip and pin) in the two Glentress Peel car parks and the Buzzard’s Nest car park. If you prefer to pay by cash the machines accept all denomination coins but do not accept notes.

Tell him to ignore the “fine” (it’s not a fine, it’s an unenforceable invoice from a private company).

Tell him to ignore the “fine” (it’s not a fine, it’s an unenforceable invoice from a private company).

It’s not unenforceable.

They are just very unlikely to do anything to enforce it.

Tell them its a lifestyle vehicle and not a converted overpriced van.

It’s not unenforceable.

It is in Scotland

It’s not unenforceable.

some bloke on the internet told me to ignore it so I did sir.

Parking law is different in Scotland to England.

FWIW I got a ticket because I never bothered to update my trailfairy pass last year, I filed it in the bin and have never heard from them again. Not that I’ll encourage people not to pay the parking, you’re a **** if you don’t in general, but £20 for a car-size van is a pisstake.

If it has less than whatever the seats you get in a mini-bus then just inform them of the fact.

Less hassle, and no further grief.

It’s not unenforceable.

They can take legal against the person not paying the invoice.

If the ruling goes against the person not paying the invoice, then it will be enforced.

Like I said, it not likely.

But it’s not impossible.

Its FC land tho, my understanding is it’s not the same as council or private, its set up under legislation you’d need to look at.

I’m told the fines are unenforceable tho!

I’m told the fines… Etc

Invoices 😉

They purport to be fines, so I call them fines.

They are not invoices.

You can call them tuna sandwiches if you like. Doesn’t mean they’ll come in handy if you get peckish post-ride.

In England at least, they do not “purport” to be fines, for to do so would be illegal. In Scotlandshire I’ve no idea.

My t5 is a car. The v5 tells me so, and that let’s it do 70 on the motorway….

Whole world of pain for parking nazis

What would you call them then Cougar?

They’re ineffective, it doesn’t really matter, id say “purported fine” is the best.

Saying that calling them fines “is illegal” is meaningless btw, but I know you like the phrase.

Who is the putspurced company? In Scotland parking charge notices are unenforeable. They will threaten with letters etc, but all you need to do is ignore them. They did the same for the hospitals here and various shopping centres.

As I said above – it may not be the same as private land.

In this case I’d be talking to forestry about their contractor, seems like they are being over zealous and could do with a word from their contact supervisor. What would help is a pic of the sign to confirm if there is a >x seats rule displayed (sure someone could oblige). The parking company is there to make money, they forestry is there to make sure the whole thing works well. If the person running the contracts has to spend too long dealing with complaints they will probably do something.

*A Complaint is not valid if you whinge because you missed something obvious and didn’t buy a ticket intentionally.

Steveoath, it’s those lovely chaps Parkingeye, long term experts at obtaining money with menaces.

The people say they are “unenforceable” (in Scotland)

What happens if they decide to take you to court ?

Now I’m not saying that it’s likely, but it does happen, occasionally.

Does that not count as it being “enforced” (if they win of course)

I’m not suggesting anyone should pay, and I’ve ignored. Parking Eye previously and they have gone away, like they usually do.

But to say the charges are “unenforceable” is a bit misleading, as they do have the option to take you to court, no matter how unlikely that is.

But to say the charges are “unenforceable” is a bit misleading, as they do have the option to take you to court, no matter how unlikely that is.

Wouldn’t they have to prove they had suffered some sort of loss/damages?

This is a wonderful result of the FC a being driven to bring in more revenue – aren’t market driven changes always an improvement?

If it’s not from the council or the polis in scotland, it’s only a request for payment. bin it. no idea what FC land comes under, but if it’s a private company I’d bin it and ignore the subsequent letters.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/scotland/consumer_s/consumer_cars_and_other_vehicles_e/consumer_driving_and_parking_e/consumer_parking_tickets_s/parking_tickets_on_private_land_s.htm

popped a ticked on the VW T5 size Minibus

half the respondents refer to a T5. OP; is it a T5, or “T5 size minibus”, ie. clearly a minibus as defined by number of seats, that just happens to have similar external dimensions to a VW T5? This might be significant.

What would you call them then Cougar?

Extortion? I’d probably call them invoices, given that that’s what they are.

Saying that calling them fines “is illegal” is meaningless btw, but I know you like the phrase.

Well, if you want to split hairs it may or may not be illegal to actually call them “fines”, but semantics aside it is illegal for a private company to issue fines. You’ll be hard pressed to find a company, especially one as practiced as Parking Eye, refer to them as “fines” themselves any more, though it’s not hard to find amended signs which have been reworded.

In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter what you call them, but it’s a bit like the “road tax” argument in that by insisting on using misleading terminology you’re propagating the very myth that they rely on to frighten people into ponying up excessively large sums of money.

Wouldn’t they have to prove they had suffered some sort of loss/damages?

The initial loss would be the revenue they missed while someone was parked and not paying.

Then all costs involved in recovering that revenue would be added.

Then legal costs involved in taking it to court plus court fees.

IF they took it court and won, that would be a fair bit.

Grum, get back under your bridge, not evetything is politically motivated. I can’t speak about Glentress but I do know parking charges were introduced at Gisburn to recoup some of the money already invested in the trails and to provide funds to maintain the new free to use toilet facilities and ongoing trail maintenance. It’ll be a long time if ever before the charges make a profit. In the meantime we are asked to contribute something to a facility heavily subsidised by a public body and the free labour provided by many volunteers.

Grum could it be some people parking were taking the piss?

Llandegla started putting a person doen the road selling parking. Partly due to machine theft? But maybe also people mis-interpretating their vehicle or not bothering altogether with a ticket.

Simple- how do you think the trails pay for themselves?

Is a fiver for a car not a bad trade-off for a great day out on miles of trails.

Recently I was at Cannock and a rider told me ‘why pay we always park for free/ride in’. ****.

I was there last night.

Yep, £20 for a mini-bus but CBA to read what classifies a mini-bus as it was pi55ing down.

But, if I pay a fiver for one person then there only needs to be five or you for it to work out cheaper.

Or just park at the many free car parks around and ride in?

Grum, get back under your bridge, not evetything is politically motivated. I can’t speak about Glentress but I do know parking charges were introduced at Gisburn to recoup some of the money already invested in the trails and to provide funds to maintain the new free to use toilet facilities and ongoing trail maintenance. It’ll be a long time if ever before the charges make a profit. In the meantime we are asked to contribute something to a facility heavily subsidised by a public body and the free labour provided by many volunteers.

No need to be rude is there. Most public bodies like the FC are under pressure to bring in more revenue and act like businesses.

I’m all for paying for parking to help recoup money invested and I think people who duck parking fees are idiots. However making the parking fees exorbitant and outsourcing the operation to a company with a bad reputation isn’t the way to go about things IMO.

Recently I was at Cannock and a rider told me ‘why pay we always park for free/ride in’. ****.

What’s wrong with that? It’s a parking charge not a trail entry fee. Peronally at GT I prefer parking in one of the towns and riding in, and using the better quality shops / cafes. Also good to get a warm up for the climb.

The thing is, I wouldn’t say £20 to park a Minibus full of school kids is “exorbitant”

Seems pretty reasonable to me.

It was described as “T5 sized” by the OP. But that seems unlikely, as thats too small to be a minibus, and would be very little use to a school as you could only get 7 kids in there.

More likely it was an actual minibus, and he paid the wrong fee.

People always moan about these unscrupulous parking companies but in general, if everyone paid for the parking as required, we would never know they existed would we.