Mum’s anger over £160 fine for using restaurant’s carpark for ‘five minutes’

A mum who was fined £160 for parking in a Whitefield restaurant’s carpark for ‘five minutes’ has slammed the fine as ‘unfair’.

The woman, who has chosen to remain anonymous, said she was forced to quickly park up in a car park owned by the Forts of India restaurant in Whitefield while it was closed after she couldn’t find anywhere else to park during her half hour lunch break.

But while she assumed it would be okay to use the car park for a few minutes while no customers were around, she was soon hit with a fine of £120, which she refused to pay. 

The fine has since been increased to £160, something the mum has branded as ‘unfair’ considering the car park wasn’t even in use.

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She told the Manchester Evening News: “The restaurant wasn’t open so I thought it would be okay for five minutes. I am not from that area and I didn’t really look for signs but I don’t remember seeing anything really obvious saying I couldn’t park there.

“I got the fine a couple of months ago but I decided not to pay it as it was something like £120 which seemed like such a lot of money.

“Then I got a letter through from Debt Recovery Plus last Friday saying I had five days from the date of the letter to pay £160.

“Paying a private company to slap you with a hefty fine just doesn’t seem right to me. Now they’ve put the fine up to £160 I’m not going to pay it.”

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However, the bosses at Forts of India have argued that the private company they employ has ‘every right’ to impose the fine, pointing out that there are dozens of big red signs in the car park which clearly state that the area is for customers only.

Restaurant manager Ali Mohammed said: “When we open at 5pm we used to have issues with people parking there to use other shops so when customers turned up there was nowhere to park… We had to do something about it.

“I don’t know how the payment got to £160. The private company we hired charge £60 if you pay it in fourteen days.

“Then it goes up to £100 and I assume the debt collectors have now got involved We have every right to protect our land.”