Highview Parking and the massive invisible erection

The Parking Prankster apologises if you arrived here by search engine, perhaps expecting to find something salacious such as the joke about Superman, Wonder Woman and The Invisible Man. This is a blog about parking.

The Prankster's has now received the evidence pack for his latest POPLA case with Highview Parking. (See here for details). The Prankster was surprised to see the following photo of entrance signage in the evidence pack.

This is because The Prankster's photograph of entrance signage looks more like this.

The Prankster wonders where the huge pole has disappeared to in Highview's picture.

Perhaps Highview consider that a picture of a massive erection right in front of their sign will offend the delicate sensibilities of the POPLA assessors. Perhaps the pole was invisible at the time Highview took their pictures, or perhaps it dropped in from outer space shortly after the photograph was taken.

Looking further into the evidence pack, The Prankster was initially impressed by the huge improvement in the map provided by the Highview cartography department. Presumably they were spurred into immediate action following the previous case where they sent in a map of the wrong car park.

The Prankster also thought it far superior to his map he sent in for the previous case.

However, on closer inspection The Prankster was once again disappointed. The map bears no resemblance to the current layout of the car park. The car parking areas along the back of the car park are not shown. The car parking areas on the left of the car park are laid out in square bays, not one long line.

Highview helpfully include photographs in their evidence pack which prove that the map is incorrect. One photograph shows the car park bays at the back, and another one shows the dividers for the square bays.

The Prankster therefore considers that any attempt to show that signage is sufficient cannot be considered seriously by the assessor.

However, the most important error in the map is the omission of the large number of car parking bays which are in front of the hidden entrance signage. Obviously, drivers parking in these bays never encounter any signage at all. The Prankster would hesitate to accuse Highview parking of deliberately omitting these bays from the map in an attempt to cover up their laughable failure to put the entrance signage actually at the entrance, and in fact to choose to site it in the worst possible place for visibility right behind a huge pole and further obscured by trees. However, he does think they need to get a new mapping department again.

Here is The Prankster's new map, showing the missing bays edged in black.

Luckily, this picture from the Highview evidence pack shows some of the 'missing' car park bays, before the entrance sign, and hidden from view by trees and...

...the massive erection which has once again appeared in front of the entrance sign. Perhaps it emerged triumphantly from the ground just before the photographer took the picture.

Anyway, all this is just an amusing diversion because The Prankster will not be mentioning signage in his appeal, preferring instead to concentrate on Highview's failure to decide his appeal within 35 days.

The Prankster will however be reporting Highview's signage to the British Parking Association Limited in due course. This is because he believes it violates the code of practice on signage.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster