Parking Payment Problems at Pentagon Shopping Centre in Chatham

KentOnline / KMTV

Shoppers at Chatham's Pentagon Shopping Centre have found out they'd been charged for parking when using the ANPR system due to a technical error.  Finn Macdiarmid reports...

Transcript

00:00Shoppers in the Pentagon in Chatham have been seeing issues with the parking machines,

00:05with some even being issued incorrect fines.

00:08This all comes from a connection issue with the cameras and payment machines,

00:12where some registration details weren't being collected properly,

00:15meaning drivers would have to have put their details in manually

00:18without them actually knowing they had to.

00:20We came in here about a month ago.

00:23In fact, I can tell you the exact date.

00:25It was the 25th of October.

00:28On that particular day, the machines didn't know what time you came in,

00:32so they were down. Apparently they were offline.

00:35So everyone was queuing and not knowing what to do,

00:37but we paid our ticket anyway and I said to my wife,

00:40I bet we get a ticket through.

00:42And sure enough, we got this ticket through.

00:45Really, there isn't any excuses.

00:47The machine should work. End of story.

00:49He added that he doesn't want the issue to keep happening as it's happened for long enough

00:53and that for those who are vulnerable or maybe elderly,

00:56they might struggle to pay the fine.

00:58Now, this issue of the registration details not being automatically registered

01:02won't necessarily lead to a fine,

01:04but around 7% of drivers have been affected by this issue,

01:08and this has gone down to 3% this month,

01:10and the operator, Hoser, hopes this will be reduced to a further 1% by the end of November.

01:15And the Pentagon management team have added that they're committed to upgrading their service

01:20so that this happens less and less.

01:22Pentagon's shopping centre manager Charlene Malone said,

01:25Occasionally, with ANPR technology, these types of errors can occur.

01:28Fortunately, through our partnership with Hoser,

01:30we can cancel any fines our customers receive because of these occasional issues.

01:34To date, the problem has been limited to a small number of users,

01:38and every visitor who has notified us of difficulties using the machines

01:41has had their fine promptly cancelled.

01:43We take this matter seriously and are committed to ensuring visitors

01:47can use the car park with complete confidence once the final upgrades are complete.

01:51Richard added that he hopes the Pentagon will sort the issue

01:53before it begins to hurt the reputation of the high street

01:56or drives people away from making the trip to the town in the first place.

02:00Finn McDermid for KMTV in Chatham.

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