High Wycombe: Entire car park ticketed after council error

All cars parked in the Duke Street car park appeared to have been ticketed

A commuter said she was stunned after returning to her vehicle to discover a car park full of vehicles had been ticketed following a council mistake.

The vehicles were parked at the Duke Street car park in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, on Monday.

It is understood Buckinghamshire Council put up a small sign stating it was closed for "relining".

The council has now said the tickets should not have been issued and it would cancel the enforcement notices.

Heleen Jalvingh, who lives in the town, said she had arrived at the car park at 07:00 BST and paid for her car park ticket via an app.

She said she parked next to a row of other cars already parked there and looked at the "big car park signs out of a habit, but no notices to be seen".

The 48-year-old said she was later shown a picture on Facebook of a sign, about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, "somewhere on the car park".

"But I have not seen this and the rest of the car park apparently didn't either, as we all returned to High Wycombe to find a yellow plastic envelope stuck on our windscreen," she said.

"This was obviously extremely disappointing, as we had done our duty by paying for the car park."

The Duke Street facility is one of several car parks near High Wycombe railway station

She said app-users should have been informed either via the app itself or with clearer signage at the entrance of the car park "as people do not necessarily go to the pay machines".

"To basically see all the cars with a fine does make me think that this has been a matter of poor communication by the council as apparently nobody realised that we were not allowed to park here," she added.

Ms Jalvingh said she had appealed the £70 fine, but Buckinghamshire Council said it would cancel all of them.

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Steven Broadbent, the council's cabinet member for transport, said: "We want to apologise to the people who parked at Railway Place and Duke Street car parks in High Wycombe this week and who received parking tickets during a closure of the car park.

"Whilst we do enforce parking across the county these tickets should not have been issued and we will be reversing the parking tickets to everyone who received them.

"Only a small number of parking bays should have been closed to install the brand new EV charging bays rather than the whole car park and we did not give our customers enough notice of this action.

"We are sorry for any inconvenience and upset caused. Anyone who has been ticketed should take no further action as the notices will be cancelled, and anyone who has already paid the PCN charge will be refunded."

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