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Councillor slates difficulty paying for parking at The Mall shopping centre in Maidstone run by YourParkingSpace

A councillor has slammed a town centre shopping centre's new parking system after becoming the latest motorist to grapple with the troublesome system.

Since February the 1,050-place car park has been run by a new operator, YourParkingSpace, which did away with the barriers on exit and introduced new digital methods of payment.

YourParkingSpace now runs The Mall car park in Maidstone
YourParkingSpace now runs The Mall car park in Maidstone

Motorists now have the choice of paying at the car park using a touch-screen kiosk or after they leave by paying online or using a mobile phone app, with the company using ANPR technology to determine the correct fee.

But by May it emerged that a number of people had received demands for a £100 fixed penalty charge, even though they had paid the fee.

John Jenner, 74, from Hedley Road, Maidstone, was among those who received a £100 demand, even though he had paid his £2 charge with his bank card.

One man had received seven penalty charges

Later Grant Robbins, the senior account manager at YourParkingSpace.co.uk, said the problem was caused by people entering the incorrect vehicle registration number.

John Jenner with £100 Penalty Charge Notice
John Jenner with £100 Penalty Charge Notice

He said: "This has affected just a small percentage of customers - under 1.5%, with over 98.5% of customers entering their correct vehicle registration when paying."

However he said the company would look to introduce improvements such as sending an SMS notification to customers who enter a vehicle registration when paying which didn’t match any vehicle registration picked up by the cameras.

Cllr Margaret Rose seems to have had a different problem paying her £2 fee.

She said: "I found the ticket machines in The Mall impossible to use as they kept saying: 'Sorry can’t be used, try our app.'

"I went home and tried to access the app. I was able to get onto the website, but found it mostly about booking car park spaces rather than help to pay the parking fee.

"Eventually I did get to parking payments. I input all my information and expected to be able to pay in the usual way by contact link with my bank. I then found that this method through the app was unavailable to me."

Cllr Margaret Rose: I couldn't pay
Cllr Margaret Rose: I couldn't pay

Cllr Rose was concerned that she too would get a £100 fine and set about contacting the company.

She said: "At first they denied there had been any problems, but when I pointed out they had already admitted to KentOnline that there had been, they agreed to waive my fee.

"But even now I'm half expecting a fine to land on my doorstep."

Cllr Rose said: "I found the whole situation a total fiasco and as a councillor, I am very concerned that residents and visitors to Maidstone are having to face these difficulties."

On Tuesday last week, the company held an online forum with customers, staff and stakeholders to "learn more about what is and isn’t working well with parking at The Mall."

Paying for parking at The Mall in Maidstone
Paying for parking at The Mall in Maidstone

Mr Robbins said: "Surveying our customers following each major site launch is a process we always follow.

"As a company focused on customer satisfaction, we are constantly looking for feedback to help us improve and streamline the parking experience.

"We were keen to discuss what members felt worked well, and areas they had difficulty with when parking at The Mall."

Mr Robbins said: "To combat the issues experienced by a small handful of drivers a few months ago, we’re updating the parking kiosks enabling them to auto-populate car registration numbers, alleviating the chance of a driver entering the wrong registration number."

"We’re also increasing the ways in which a driver can receive their receipt when paying for their parking session.

Parking notices at The Mall in Maidstone (48615663)
Parking notices at The Mall in Maidstone (48615663)

"Parkers at The Mall can now receive a receipt by SMS as well as by email."

He said The Mall has seen an increase in shoppers.

"We’ll be looking at pushing AutoPay so that registered customers are billed automatically rather than needing to pay for each individual parking session and we’re exploring ways of working with local stores to drive footfall to them with discounted parking for their customers."

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