Mitcham couple fight back against clampers (From Your Local Guardian)

Mitcham couple fight back against clampers

6:50am Tuesday 24th November 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(4)

Two irate motorists decided to get their own back on a group of clampers by standing in a car park for more than three hours warning other drivers they could be next.

Dozens of drivers had to pay more than £100 for their vehicles to be released from the parking lot in Upper Green East, Mitcham, last week having been caught unaware by an overnight change in parking restrictions.

Drivers claim there were only a few “barely visible” signs pointing out the changes at the car park next to Peacocks and Farm Foods and a team of private clampers lay in wait, ready to catch motorists out.

Onlookers claimed one clamper even stood in a phone box before diving out to issue a fine.

But Pauline Nicholson, 51, and partner Terry Londer, 51 were so incensed having been caught out, they stood in the car park all afternoon last Monday telling drivers to park elsewhere.

Ms Nicholson said: “They were all just hiding in their little white van, and as soon as you’d walked away they would pounce.

"It was the way they did it that got us and we just thought everyone deserved to know what they were up to.”

She added at one point a warden offered to half her fine if she promised to go away. She said she did, only to return minutes later.

Several complaints over the new parking rules has led ward councillor Geraldine Stanford to contact the car park’s landlord, Golfrate, urging for the parking restrictions to be enforced more responsibly, claiming the car park’s signs are confusing and difficult to see.

A private firm, Premier Parking Services Limited, enforces the car park’s restrictions.

Golfrate and Premier Parking Services Ltd have so far been unavailable for comment.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(4)