Landowner warning - do you want Devere to operate your car park?

The Prankster received a worrying report about Devere Parking Services Limited, who held a motorist's employers to ransom to attempt to enforce a parking charge.

In The Prankster's opinion Devere do not provide genuine car park management, and instead use aggressive parking enforcement to generate income for themselves without providing a proper service. A typical Devere operation is to 'manage' a business car park by issuing permits to permitted workers. Sadly however, Devere make their money not from unauthorised motorists abusing the car park, but from genuine users. Typically these genuine users will be penalised with huge charges for trivial matters such as permits falling of the windscreen.

This is of course not proper management. A genuine parking company would on investigation and confirmation the motorist had permission to park, cancel the charge. The parking company incurs no substantial cost in doing this, and no abuse of the car park has taken place.

Today the government stated their commitment to stamping out aggressive enforcement of this type.

We will [...] help tackle aggressive parking enforcement and excessive parking charges, and take steps to tackle rogue and unfair practices by private parking operators

However, in one particular car park, Devere have gone a step further. The Prankster was informed that a motorist received a parking charge because their permit blew off the dashboard in the wind. The motorist appealed, which was declined. The motorist then appealed to the IAS. This body has all the characteristics of a kangaroo court, so it is no surprise the IAS 'Barista' also declined the appeal.

Although Devere are quite happy to charge the motorist in this manner, they fail to provide proper management of the car park. Twice this month the motorist has been unable to park in their allocated bay and has been forced to pay for parking elsewhere. Devere's operation therefore appears to be based on making money for Devere without providing a proper service to legitimate car park users. It is no comfort to a motorist if the person in their parking space had to pay £100 to Devere. The service therefore appears to be worthless.

Following the IAS appeal the motorist was advised they had to pay by 20/2/2016. However, this was not quick enough for Devere, who held the motorist's employers to ransom by refusing to issue replacement permits until the motorist has paid the charge.

If you are a landowner considering using Devere, then you might want to consider whether you appreciate your tenants being held to ransom in this manner, and whether it is worth using a parking company who do not appear to be able to control a car park to keep out unwanted vehicles but are happy to victimise genuine users with aggressive enforcement..

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster