£63 cup of tea at BP service station.

[CatOnAMushroom]

Just returned from (what was suppposed to be a cheap camping) holiday to a £60 fine for parking at a BP petrol station for 49 minutes for a break on a long journey in torrential rain.

I always check when parking in car parks, on roads etc but I never thought to check for parking rules at a petrol station ☹️

If anyone is going on holiday this week don't overstay your welcome at a BP service station

Not true, and hasn't been since 2015. You have to appeal properly.

Good for you…but doesn’t mean it’ll be the same for OP.

I think I'll be (very begrudgingly) paying it and not appealing. My health is shit at the moment and I don't have the mental energy to deal with an appeal and the possible repercussions

Thank you for the advice on appealing though

30 minutes is really short. Although some places get so busy in the summer holidays I can kind of understand it to try to get people through.

The government is actually consulting to changes to private parking so if you care about this, respond to the consultation.

Government launches call for evidence on parking charge limits to protect drivers - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

As I said I have never ever known anyone pay these fines. I have known alot of people get thrm and never pay. This is sfter 2015 too. On here its always a friend of a friend who has a ccj etc they didn't know about ! Rubbish.

Thank you. I don't want to risk losing the £60 option and having to pay £100 if I lose an appeal

There’s nothing to be lost by putting in an appeal, if you don’t get it cancelled then you pay the same amount.

just put in an appeal, giving the driving conditions and your illness as the reason and see what happens.

I’ve successfully appealed all the parking charges I’ve ever received. It’s normally just a case of filling out an online form and waiting to get a letter saying it’s cancelled

I would try to appeal on the grounds of the torrential rain making the sign impossible to see and your medical condition. I am sure that you will not have been the only one who was caught out that day.

Say you couldn’t see the sign for the rain?

This is wrong,you have to pay the fine and then appeal if the appeal goes in your favour they repay the money.This happened to me when my campervan broke down on the motorway near a petrol station we managed to push it into the station and waited for the AA to come out.It took 3 hours in all for AA to arrive and fix it.When we got home from our holiday we had a fixed penalty in post which we paid immediately and then appealed,we sent all the paperwork from the AA and won the appeal.If you have already paid and lose the appeal all you lose is the original amount,if you don’t pay first and lose you will pay at least £100 plus court costs.

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately the letter says:

"Please also note that you can either pay or appeal the parking charge notice. You cannot do both"

So we're supposed to believe your friend of a friend but you don't want to believe others'?

Thank you for the warning!
I also stop at a particular BP station (and a similar one of a different brand), there is parking and a Subway inside. I have a pee and grab a sandwich and coffee, quite often over 30mins by the time I've queued etc, I've never thought to check. 30mins is not long at all.

Yes, but doesn’t mean you never have to pay it, as you suggested. Big difference there.

@caerdydd12 I personally have never paid a private fine. No friend of a friend. Its me.
Plus who gets a ccj without knowing

We broke down at a motorway services once and got fined for overstaying. We appealed as it couldn't be avoided and could prove breakdown rescue came out so the fine was cancelled. I've also successfully appealed a parking fine where my ticket fell off the dash out of sight and one where I was in a dark Aldi car park after hours with no clear signs. This may have given me a false sense of power but I'd say try appealing!

Can you go back and check the signage easily? If the signs are in any way unclear I think it's worth appealing, buy if not I'd probably just pay it. It's unreasonable for the limit to be 30 mins if it's an actual service station on a major road, rather than just a petrol station imo, but that's not that relevant to an appeal I don't think.

You literally only have to Google "CCJ without realising" and there are hundreds of legal articles advising you what to do...because it's a known occurrence.

friend Of mine got a ccj due to a parking fine without knowing. She didn’t know till she tried to get a new mobile phone.