A councillor is calling on a private parking company to ‘do the decent thing’ after a man was hit with a fine for a mercy dash to the pharmacy.
Cllr Sam Waudby has called on the operators of ARDPark Driver Services to refund in full a parking charge notice paid by a resident visiting the pharmacy on Tower Court, Clifton Moor.
A vulnerable person had asked her husband to get her medicine, but when he returned home she realised that items had been missed from her prescriptions.
Her husband returned as the missing items were vital.
However as he had returned to the car park within two hours he received a parking charge notice.
Show more understanding
Cllr Waudby wrote to the parking company asking them to cancel the notice, but they have refused.
The resident’s appeal has since been rejected by ARDPark and he felt he had to pay to avoid more stress.
Cllr Waudby said: “I am urging ARDPark to do the decent thing during this period and refund this fine, and to be more understanding of the problems people may be facing during this time of national crisis.
The Lib Dem councillor for Rawcliffe and Clifton Without ward added:
It is hard to see how else the medication could have been obtained, and it is no fault of the resident that there was a long queue or that medication was missed the first time.
I am also asking for a system to be put in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again, and that residents don’t have additional unnecessary worries added at what is a difficult time for many.
ARDPark’s response
A spokesperson for Wetherby-based operator ARDPark said “due to GDPR and data protection legislation, we are unable to assist you with this specific parking charge”.
They said they “can only accept communications from the registered keeper of the vehicle, or if different at the time of parking, the driver of the vehicle…
“We have no say over GDPR, it is the law. There can be large penalties for any breach, rightly so, and so our policy is not to discuss specific parking charges with the media at all.
“We can confirm that we have recently asked the site’s managing agent to speak to the pharmacy who assure the managing agent that they do not have anyone returning within the two-hour non-return window and the managing agent has reiterated to the pharmacy management that should they need to exempt any motorist from a parking charge on what the procedure is.”