AN ANGRY woman from Wrexham has vowed never to use the Eagles Meadow car park again after she became involved in a row over displaying the wrong ticket in her car.

Diane Thomas, from Caego, visited the shopping centre early on Monday evening with her 15-year-old son Steven so they could buy him a new school uniform.

Inside the multi-storey car park she asked Steven to pop the £1 coin into the machine to pay for a one-hour stay.

After inserting the coin Steven picked up the two pieces of paper which came out – the correct ticket, giving his mum until 6.19pm, and another one, which turned out to be a receipt issued to the last person who used the machine, which actually covered the period up to 6.17pm.

Steven put the two pieces of paper on the dashboard of his mum’s car – with the receipt on top – and off they went to the shops.

It was only as they were driving out of the car park – still well within the hour she had paid for – that Mrs Thomas noticed she had been given a £70 penalty notice.

An official of Vinci Park, the company which has the contract to run the car park, told her it had been issued because the receipt was obscuring her correct ticket.

Mrs Thomas said: “I am lodging an appeal against this because I think it is totally unfair. You can’t blame Steven for putting the two pieces of paper on the dashboard because there didn’t seem to be any difference between them.

“There’s no notice near the machine to remind you to display the correct ticket.
“I am so annoyed because this could happen to anyone.

“I won’t be using that car park again.”

A spokesman for Vinci Park said: “If a credit card transaction is made the machine will issue a receipt.

“The customer may obtain an optional receipt by pressing the green button before a transaction is started.

“Terms and conditions of parking at Eagles Meadow are clearly displayed in the car park.

“Upon receipt of this appeal in writing we will carry out a full investigation.”