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My wife and I reside in Bognor Regis and were en route to visit relatives in Sidcup when we decided to make a stop at Morrisons for some shopping and lunch. It was our first time visiting this particular branch.
Arriving at 11:21 am, we proceeded to do some shopping and then had lunch in the store café, having already loaded our groceries into the car.
When we ordered our lunch, it was already 12:00 pm. We then waited for approximately 25 to 30 minutes to be served, which we found to be rather slow. After finishing our meal, we took a moment to browse some plants before finally leaving the parking lot at 1:03 pm.
Upon arriving home, I discovered a £100 parking charge notice from Euro Car Parks in my post, dated the same day as our visit to Morrisons. Needless to say, I was extremely frustrated. The notice claimed that I had parked for 1 hour and 42 minutes, surpassing the maximum time limit of 1 hour and 30 minutes.
How is this an effective way to entice people to shop at Morrisons? If the company wants customers to utilize its cafeteria, it should provide them with ample time to wait for their food, especially if the service is going to be slow.
SP, West Sussex
Dear reader,
It is truly absurd that as a paying customer of Morrisons, you were unable to park your car while shopping and dining for an hour and a half without incurring a fine.
However, when I reached out to the supermarket, they explained that they had recently reduced the time limit in their Sidcup branch parking lot due to customer complaints about finding available spaces during peak hours. The introduction of the 90-minute limit, without an option to pay for additional time, made a substantial shopping trip followed by a leisurely lunch at the café a “high risk” activity that could easily result in a fine.
A spokesperson from Morrisons stated, “We reduced the maximum time in the hope that it would make more spaces available when customers really need them.”
However, in the process of trying to accommodate customers seeking parking spaces, Morrisons inadvertently created a problem where customers like you were being hit with £100 fines for simply going about their daily business.
The supermarket also mentioned that if you were concerned about parking fines, you should have approached a staff member, but in reality, you had no knowledge of the issue until the charge notice arrived at your doorstep.
Fortunately, the £100 fine has now been waived, so you won’t have to pay.
At the very least, I believe Morrisons should implement clearer signage in this parking lot to prevent other customers from falling into the same trap as you did. And if it is not possible to establish a more reasonable two-hour time limit for the parking lot, improving the speed of service at the café would have a similar effect.
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