'I'm not paying!' - Clacton shopper slapped with £100 parking fine

James Mills, 33, of Clacton, visited the East of England Co-op, in the town’s Old Road, and was parked up from 12.11pm until 12.25pm.

During that time he entered the supermarket and did a small spot of shopping before returning to his silver Mazda and heading back home.

A week later Mr Mills was left stunned after receiving a penalty fine for £100 from a parking company called Civil Enforcement.

The notice claimed the shopper’s vehicle was not authorised to park where he did.

Mr Mills has now been told he was required to register his number plate inside the store but says it was not made obvious to him that this was the case.

He said: “The Co-op has a sign saying about customer parking and there is nothing on that sign that says anything about registering your plate.

“Upon inspection I have realised there is signs dotted around stating this, and it doesn’t charge you a fee, but none of the signs are readable.”

Mr Mills’ fine of £100 would have been reduced to £60 if he had paid it within two weeks of receiving the notice, but he decided to stand firm.

“I have approached the Co-op but they told me they use an external parking management company and there is nothing they can do,” he added.

“It is very misleading and they now seem to think they are going to send debt collectors round to recover the debt.

“I am not paying the fine because I can see a lot of people getting stung by this and I think it is important to raise awareness.”

A spokeswoman for the East of England Co-op said the supermarket was trying to make the parking process better for customers.

She said: “We acknowledge that incidents like this do occur and wherever possible we will help those customers.

“Where enforcement is in place we ensure there is clear signage throughout the car park, and we’ve actively been working with the car park management operators to improve the process for our customers.”

“This is part of a wider parking enforcement programme in place at a small number of our stores across the region. We encourage anyone who feels they have wrongly received a Parking Charge Notice to follow the appeals process.”