UPDATE: |Woman ‘incensed’ after finding out why she received parking fine News

The local authority has cancelled the fine handed out to Ms Parr

A council has been forced to apologise and to cancel a parking fine handed out to a businesswoman after a daylight savings mix-up.

Chloe Parr, who lives in Wales, parked in Liverpool city centre on March 31, the day after clocks went forward by one hour across the UK. Arriving just after 11am for a short business meeting, she paid to park at Rodney Street for an hour before heading off.

When she returned to her car, Ms Parr, who is originally from Liverpool, was shocked to see she had been given a parking fine, the ECHO reports.

On closer inspection she realised that despite paying for an hour’s parking that should have lasted between 11.03am and 12.03pm, her ticket expiry time was for 11.03am and she was handed a fine at 11:42am.

She said: “I called the parking customer services team immediately who told me I wasn’t the only person to have called that day.

“The clocks had changed over night and the parking machines in that area hadn’t yet had the change of time adjusted on the clock.

“So my expiry time was actually 12.03pm. I returned to my vehicle well within the time I had paid for.

The 55-year-old said she was assured by the customer services team that the mistake would be rectified but that she must challenge the ticket through the official channels on the city council’s website.

Having done this straight away, she was astounded to receive a full penalty charge notice a few weeks’ later in the post.

In a letter from the council’s parking services team, it stated that a civil enforcement officer had checked that the parking machines were in full working order and that the fine would not be revoked.

This left Ms Parr furious, she told the ECHO: “I couldn’t believe it. I was incensed. I knew for a fact that I had paid for the right time and the person on the phone even told me what had happened and that they had many other people calling about the same issue.

“Then this response made me feel like I had done something wrong when I hadn’t. If I had made a mistake I would have put my hands up, but this was their mistake. It felt like an injustice and I was so cross.”

The penalty charge notice she received was for £50, but said this figure could be reduced by 50 per cent to £25 if paid within 14 days. Ms Parr added: “It makes me worry how many people would pay the fine to avoid a bigger fine, even if they did nothing wrong. I said I wouldn’t be paying it because I did nothing wrong.”

After Ms Parr contacted the ECHO, we got in touch with Liverpool City Council who acknowledged that some of its ticket machines did not automatically adjust for daylight saving time – as Ms Parr had said.

The local authority has now apologised for any confusion and has cancelled the fine handed out to Ms Parr.

A Liverpool City Council spokesperson said: “We’ve investigated the issue and found that some ticket machine clocks did not automatically adjust for daylight saving time. As a result, we’ve cancelled the fine and apologise for any confusion and upset this has caused.”