Manchester Airport warned over charging for full car park

Thursday, 12th August 2010

Management at Manchester Airport has been told off for making motorists pay for parking even though the car park was full. Trading standards officers responded to a complaint by a driver who said he was forced to shell out £2 to escape the car park when all he got in return was 20 minutes wasted searching in vain for an empty parking space.

Gerald Steele, 63, said he was trying to find somewhere to park in the multi-storey parking facility at Manchester Airport’s Terminal Two so he could say good-bye to a friend about to leave for a holiday. Having spent 20 minutes driving around the car park, he finally realised there was nowhere available to park. However, when he tried to leave the car park, he was made to pay £2 for ‘parking’.

Mr Steele’s plight was reported in the Manchester Evening News. He says he say plenty of other motorists forced to give up searching for somewhere to park and have to just let their passengers out. Mr Steele is a lecturer on economics at Lancaster University. He complained to Manchester trading standards. He said there was no notification that the car park was full and questioned why the ticket machines continued to issue tickets, despite there being no available spaces.

Trading standards officers warned car parking management they might be in breach of consumer protection regulations. They said if the problem occurred again, they could take legal action.

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