Man fined £80 in Gloucester over seven-minute parking ticket

Doug Forbes said he became "more and more annoyed" about the situation the more he thought about it

A man has been hit with an £80 parking fine despite paying for three hours' parking as the ticket he was issued with was only valid for seven minutes.

Doug Forbes, from Warwickshire, visited Gloucester on 2 March and parked at the Southgate Moorings car park.

He paid £2.50, which is the rate for a parking ticket valid for up to three hours, and went for a meal, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

On his return he found he had been issued with a penalty charge notice.

"I won't be coming back to Gloucester for a long time," Mr Forbes said.

Several people have since told the BBC they have also fallen foul of ticketing problems in the city centre's car parks.

Mr Forbes bought his parking ticket at 17:54 GMT but the ticket he received in error was only valid until 18:01.

He said: "I thought, that must be a mistake.

"Didn't think anything of it. We went for a meal at Bill's and then came back about an hour and a half later to find we had got a ticket."

"It's professional robbery really," said Mr Forbes

He called the council to appeal but "they rejected it".

Mr Forbes said he decided to pay the fine that was reduced to £40 if paid within a certain time period.

He said despite the car park and ticket being clearly labelled Gloucester City Council, the council has denied liability and told him the car park was run by a third-party company.

"Apparently the people who run the appeals company [also] run the car parking company, so it's not really independent at all," he said.

"I actually overpaid for parking. I booked for three hours.

"If I had waited five minutes it would have been £1.50 for the whole night until 7am in the morning.

"So, I overpaid and I got fined."

Gloucester City Council has not responded to requests for comment.

Additional reporting by Harriet Robinson