Contemplating a visit to Snowdon? Don't get injured!

Visitors contemplating a visit to the famous Snowdon Mountain in Wales should make sure they don't have any accidents while hiking around the mountain.

One unlucky motorist did, and is now paying the price. He suffered a serious fall while on the mountain, with his left ankle popping out and cutting his right knee. He had to limp back to his car having to cope with the injuries and had to contemplate whether to go to hospital or not. This delay in leaving the Snowdon Mountain railway (SMR) car park resulted in a one hour 23 minute overstay.

The vultures at ParkingEye, sensing some easy money, fired in a parking charge for £100. Even though they were fully informed of the incident they denied the motorist's appeal. The motorist then appealed to POPLA, but only on the circumstances and unfortunately not the usual winning points, and the appeal was turned down. Sadly the motorist was unaware that appealing on the ground that the charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss guarantees a win. The lead assessor of POPLA has written a special 17 page report detailing why ParkingEye's charges are not valid. POPLA continue to refuse to put this reason for appealing on their web site.

ParkingEye started court action, but no doubt due to their chaotic internal systems forgot to get the notice to proceed filed in time and the case was stayed. Incredibly they then applied to continue the case. Continuing a stayed case costs £40 in legal fees. This establishes that ParkingEye are not interested in the £100 parking charge; they are purely doing this to be vindictive to the motorist. There is absolutely no hope of them making any money even if they win the case. Their estimated costs of £240-£340 will far outweigh the £100 parking charge so there was zero business sense in pursuing this case. 

The motorist has also asked the landowner, Snowdon Mountain Railway, to intervene, but they refused. They referred the motorist to back to ParkingEye. Snowdon Mountain Railway have abandoned their social and ethical responsibilities, selling out to ParkingEye

The moral of this story is that if you are planning a trip to Snowdon in the near future, you might be well advised to re-think and change your destination to a more tourist-friendly site, one which will not penalise you if you have a genuine serious incident that may delay your return.

It would of course be possible to run the car park as a pay on exit car park, with the motorist being informed of the amount to pay on exit. However, this would not allow ParkingEye to rake in money from parking charges.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster