Leeds Bradford airport £100 fine

Dropped MrsRNP and a friend at Leeds Bradford, I’m aware it’s a £6 drop off charge so I follow the drop off parking signs only to come round a corner to find a large car facing the wrong way with an airport employee in attendance. Car next to me is stationary whilst a discussion is ongoing with the obstructing car.

A few minutes passes with still no movement with the obstructing car – MrsRNP and friend leave our car on the nearside and step straight on the pavement.

Obstructing car finally does a million point turn and drives into the drop-off car park. I follow, pay the £6 fee and depart.

Two week later notice of £100 (£60 if paid early) arrives due to dropping off in an unauthorized zone.

I’ve appealed.
Place your £100 bets on the outcome!

I’d say given that the photos back-up your story with the car in your way and a member of airport staff talking to them, you’ll probably be OK and they’ll let you off.
I would expect it to just depend whether the fact your passengers got out of the car in an area that wasn’t the official drop-off zone is used as the reason for the ‘dropping off in an unauthorised zone’.

That is one that “should” be dropped without question. They will have ANPR record of you paying for the drop off car park too. Give them a chance to sort it as a genuine situation not of your making, and if not it will need escalating and even going to the press.

Edit. Don’t forget to state that you had no idea how long the obstruction was going to be there and your party had a plane to catch.

Agreed – they should drop the claim. If they don’t I’d be straight on to the local press.

I attached the parking fee recept to the appeal.

Frozen sausages are on standby – there are plenty of grassed areas around the airport – “Sorry the Ryanair flight to Perpignan is delayed due to dogs on the runway”

Parking fine waived, instead fine issued for what looks like a personalised number plate with incorrect letter spacing.

Parking fine waived, instead fine issued for what looks like a personalised number plate with incorrect letter spacing.

🤣 it’s standard spacing. Nice try though!

really? Maybe the photo but there’s supposed to be a bigger gap between the numbers and letters

🤷‍♂️ they came from the local car spares shop ~8/10 years ago that required the V5.

Anyway back to a cheap potentially expensive Ryanair flight

Last time I was at Glasgow airport the part that takes the money had broken so it was just an employee at each barrier with a bucket for cash. I only had a card so got it for free

back to the flight.

I think you have a strong, cast iron even case.

However, these companies* can be dicks of the highest order and the indisputable proof is that you did unload in an area where not allowed to and yadda yadda etc. You should have allowed more time for eventualities, etc…… lots of things they could say back, and in the end you did do it.

* I’m lumping them in with the likes of the Private Parking cos, but who actually are the company that have sent you a ‘fine’ and is it actually a fine (are there bylaws in place, maybe as there are double red lines) or is it a Penalty Charge? There is a difference, one’s statutory law and one is contract law, is my barrack room lawyer understanding, but means parking companies cannot issue fines, they are charging you for breach of contract.

Not sure therefore whether it comes under the same rules as car park ‘fines’ and whether there’s then an ombudsman to appeal to that if nothing else makes them have to work to get the PC upheld, it may be a local authority and in that case can depend entirely who opens your complaint.

Just to be contrary… presumably there’s a (spurious?) safety reason for not dropping passengers in that area? Unless you were running really late (your fault) & they were in danger of missing their flights, should’ve just waited. The fact you paid the minimum £6 means you were in & out in under 10 mins anyway so the additional “delay” could really only have been a few mins tops. Ticket stands, lesson learnt 😀

^ooooh! 1 against appeal! No Christmas card for you this year!

IIRC there was a turning/lane to the right that exited or lead to somewhere else. I think the markings are to stop people dropping in that area then avoiding the £6 charge.

I’d not entered the drop off area (entrance automatic barrier and presumed anpr) at that point when MrsRNP got out. I could have turned right tried to wrangle out of the £6 (and rightly expected a fine/charge) but I didn’t and entered the drop off parking and paid.

so who has actually issued the fine/charge, and what does that actually say?

I can’t decide if I’ll need the black cap until knowing who you’re up against.

You were fined because your passengers left the car in an unauthorised area. I think that you are out of luck, since the rules state clearly (in 6 point font) that you will be fined if passengers disembark in a zone not authorised. Now had they had to shut the road due to a front end collision with a car travelling in the wrong direction, you may have had grounds to appeal. Good luck with the appeal. Next time hit them head on with that £500 XC90.

Next time hit them head on with that £500 XC90.

Don’t forget to include road legal plates on the cost of the insurance claim.

I still haven’t decided scale of fine for having personalised plates, NO13 HED 😉

I had some luck with Gatwick. I was trying to get to McDonalds at Gatwick, I know the drop off is charged and I also know that the correct way is through the short term parking and that you just drive straight through the entry barriers and the exit barriers should let you straight out if you don’t stop. (I think thete might be another through route too)

However the lanes had been re-lined and there are so many signs and restrictions to try and make sense of, but no one has thought to make an EXIT sign!

I rang through, they said if you go through drop off in less than 60 seconds you won’t need to pay the fee and that I was 53 seconds or something, asked them to email me confirmation and then suddenly they decided the computer had rounded it up and logged me as needing to pay. I emailed them, didn’t hear back so gave up and paid the drop off fee, then a few days later they refunded it and said no charge, so you never know, you might be ok.

I work at LBA.

Next time, just carry on down the hill, and theres a 1 hour free car park. It adds all of 200 yards extra walking, if that. You can stop, take your time, not get fined…It baffles me that people dont use this, I see people every single day I’m there dropping off on the double red lines, and they will all get fines.

No, I dont agree with it neccesarily, but there used to be regular complete chaos on the airport road with cars dumped on kerbs all over so I can well understand why the double reds and cameras are there. And there is still an accessible, well signed, free option!

And there is still an accessible, well signed, free option!

Hmmmm, can’t say I agree there – I hate driving into LBA because the signage is awful (although it may have changed more recently, I think it’s a couple of years since I was last there).

No, I dont agree with it neccesarily, but there used to be regular complete chaos on the airport road with cars dumped on kerbs all over so I can well understand why the double reds and cameras are there.

yep, whilst these kind of limits/fees/fines are ridiculous & annoying, it’s easily justifiable by the companies involved due to behaviour from lazy/selfish arseholes who spoil it for everyone else!!

Might be out of luck, it’s all to do with safety according to that report when they were introduced. Strictly speaking you broke the rules. It’s worth appealing but I wouldn’t push it if they reject your appeal.

theotherjonv is correct, it’s not a fine it’s an invoice in line with the contract you entered into, if you don’t pay it you could end up with a CCJ. However I’d like to know how it would work in a no stopping / exiting a vehicle area. You need time to read the signage which is the contract, if you have no way to realistically read the contract I don’t see how it could be enforceable. Trouble is you’d probably need to go to court to prove this and even then it’s 50:50 whether which way it would, thy might decide due to the red lines you shouldn’t have stopped even though that in itself doesn’t mean you’ve entered into a contract.

Isn’t there a discounted amount if you pay quickly? Appeal and pay up quickly if you lose is my advice.

it’s easily justifiable by the companies involved

It’s not the private parking company that sets the rules and PCN levels it’s the land owner. Plus it’s not quite the cash cow people think it is, cameras cost to install and maintain and processing the PCN costs mone, even if it’s fairly automated, if nothing else DVLA charge to look up the reg.

Plus it’s not quite the cash cow people think it is, cameras cost to install and maintain and processing the PCN costs mone

that’s the point though, if it weren’t for the piss-takers this kind of thing wouldn’t exist in the first place as the costs couldn’t be justified. Same as fines for overstaying in supermarket car parks, etc.

snotrag
Full Member
I work at LBA.

Next time, just carry on down the hill, and theres a 1 hour free car park. It adds all of 200 yards extra walking, if that. It baffles me that people dont use this

Probably because there’s virtually zero mention of it on their website, it doesn’t feature in their parking information (not obviously anyway) and it’s not marked on their parking map. The only way I could find anything on their website was by googling ‘LBA 1 hour free parking’, it was impossible to find anything by looking directly on their website, parking. Maybe you should have a word?

What banana said.

If I go to website and look at ‘Parking’ (where drop off is described) it says nowt. It’s only when I go to ‘Getting to and from’ that ‘Driving to the airport’ mentions 1 hr free. And yeah, not on the map. 1 hr free does appear on Google Streetview but I’ve already figured out where I’m going before I get there.

Am I right in thinking that this is actually a “charge notice” rather than a fine?  Presumably, privately issued rather than from police etc?  My guess is they’ll just drop it (I assume the airport do this themselves rather than outsource to an evil parking firm?), but if they failed to be sensible, you might have an interesting debate in front of the judge on whether they had fulfilled their side of the implied contract by not providing unhindered access to the parking area.

(Oh and I think the otherjonv is right about your plate spacing – but since that is a criminal matter will have nothing to do with the airport parking authority!  You may want to sort it before a bored traffic cop decides he doesn’t like it because the cost is about 10x the cost of new plates!)

Post it on Pepipoo, there’ll be loads of advice waiting

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=60

Probably because there’s virtually zero mention of it on their website, it doesn’t feature in their parking information (not obviously anyway) and it’s not marked on their parking map

Which just proves that they want to charge people as much as they can. I can remember when you used to be able to drive up to the entrance for free and drop people off at the door with no charge.

Then when the west decided to annoy people around the world they stopped you getting close, which then appeared to be an excuse to start charging people.

No update as of yet…..

I haven’t been up there for a few years but just looking on streetview there seems to be plenty of signage for the 1 hour free parking 2 of them before you turn in for the drop off bit. I’ll going there next time I’m up there.

[/url]

The fine is to discourage people dropping off without paying the fee which helps to support the cheap flights.

As you’ve paid the drop off they’ll waive it for sure. I’ve found the parking at airports is run by sensible people.

For future reference…

https://www.leedsbradfordairport.co.uk/at-the-airport/facilities/one-hour-free-zone

I’ve never had a problem with the signage at LBA. The 1 hr free parking is ideal for pick ups and drop offs and is no more than a couple of mins to the terminal.

Appeal results are in!

Fine still stands!

Paraphrasing here “there are 60signs saying do not stop/drop off here etc” – “you dropped off so therefore £60 please”

Despite being unable to proceed due to a car facing the wrong direction and paying the drop off charge anyway blah blah

I can appeal to the Independent Appeals Service or pay up…..

We didn’t drop off – my passengers fled due to the concern that the vehicle abandoned the wrong way was a ner do gooder from non Brexit land.

May  your loins catch fire in hell

Boom shanka.

You prick

appeal, assume nothing extra to lose and fine is frozen while appeal is reviewed

I’d pay it and get on with your life, your only real recourse is to push it to court and challange the legality of the contract in this case. Private parking PCNs have a sound basis in law, you agree to enter a contract, Ts & Cs are on the signage, under the BPA code of practice you have to have a least 5 minutes to read and understand the contract. How that principle translates to a no stopping zone where you cant realistically read the contract I dont know but would suggest there is an argument to say the contract isnt enforceable. It could get very costly and stressful though. Could appeal but technically you broke the rules, if you hadnt let your passengers out you wouldnt have broken the rules.

“Dropped MrsRNP and a friend at Leeds Bradford”

Get £30 from each of them, pay the fine and move on.

Appeal. Imho it’s standard practice for firms in these situations to refuse the the first appeal pretty much across the board. They know it’ll weed out a huge percentage of chancers.

My first appeal on manc metrolink fine was rejected with much aggression. I sent another’s letter with no new info but just stating that I was really pissed off.

They rolled over completely. Apogised profusely, canceled the fine and sent me a compensatory vulture.

The easiest way to get a parking fine repealed is not to appeal to the enforcing company but to ask the landowner to cancel the fine, which they have the right to do. It’s worked for me and other friends in the past for genuine mistakes / unavoidable circumstances like yours. Have you tried contacting LBA?

Dropped MrsRNP and a friend at Leeds Bradford”

Get £30 from each of them, pay the fine and move on.

Suzie paid for the Sunday brunch sharing platter at our local awesome restaurant that I pretty much scoffed to myself.

I know I should appeal further but it’s one of those cases that the company is always just going to refer to the T&C / signage – the chances of an actual sensible human being getting involved are beyond the £60.

Edited to add

It’s worked for me and other friends in the past for genuine mistakes / unavoidable circumstances like yours. Have you tried contacting LBA?

I’ve found a relatively pain free contact form – I’ll drop them an email but I expect they’ll just say – “you need to deal with Pedantic Parking Ltd, Nazi traffic warden department who handle double red line parking **** on our behalf”