UKC

Not sure if this has popped up yet or when it happened but LDNPA have turned Tilberthwaite into pay for parking, have to pay using an app, only trouble is when I tried to use it today the car park does not exist on the app! So rather naively I just left it thinking it wasn’t active yet, no dice, came back to Parking Penalty notice getting slapped on the car.

Arseholes!

Definitely dispute the ticket!

Can you only pay with an app? Why do they presume that is an option for people? It isn't for me!

Pretty sure that I get no signal there. There's always the NT car park over the bridge?

Should be a cash option at the very least.

All national park parking and toilets should be free. It's a public funded body, national parks are areas set aside for leisure, they aren't nature reserves like most other country's parks.

The waste within the organisation is massive, each park is a separate body, their own nice hq building, ceo, management and admin staff. All their merchandise, shops, cafe supply chains for each park are separate, pre covid they sent 20+ staff away every year for holidays to other countries park to see what they could learn. Well meaning people, but not necessarily well qualified, trained or managed. All with taxpayers money and no accountability. 

Rant over. 

FTFY

Why should people not have to pay to rent a piece of land on which to park their car when it is not parked on their own property?  It seems eminently reasonable that they should, be that a permit to park on the road outside their house or a parking charge in a national park.

Other option as I see it is a tourist tax on accommodation as most countries have.

Toilets should ideally be free but I'd rather pay than them not be there.

You've made a choice not to have a smartphone.  That choice increasingly has consequences of making some things unavailable and others a little more difficult.

Outside of driving we do need to watch there for affordability and disabilities.  But running a car is expensive, and you can't drive one if you have major eyesight or coordination problems.  Thus more or less any car owner/driver who hasn't got a smartphone has simply chosen not to have one.

If the app doesn't show the car park, take screenshots and appeal.  I would expect it to succeed if there was no way to pay.

Was there definitely no other way?  Quite a number of them allow payment up to midnight via a website.

Renting from who? If the national park actual owns the land, it belongs to the state, the taxpayer.

Note. The NP actually own very very little land, they just impose rules on those who do, with little accountability or scrutiny. 

Tosh! My Mum ( in her eighties) hasn't got a smartphone and would struggle with one. If she wishes to park anywhere she should have the right like everyone else. Or should she just FOAD?

I have, i cant really see how they can apply a fine for a car park that doesn't exist on the app

Exactly what i did, no other means of paying that i would see.

The app not working WILL NOT be grounds for an appeal.  Their argument will be that, if you could not use their chosen payment method, then you should have left.

Are we talking a council notice (ie a penalty charge notice) or a private one (parking charge notice)?

My daughter had the same problem at another car park nearby. Pay by App, no signal. Best she could do was take a screenshot showing no signal.

No, you have made the choice to have a smartphone. It isn't compulsory. I have complained to various bodies about the difficulties they are causing by virtually compelling people to use smartphones, computors etc. to conduct their lives.

John

Owning a mobile phone is quite a substantial ongoing expense.  PAYG is no longer an option, and the devices themselves are designed and marketed to require replacement every couple of years, or otherwise be left insecure through lack of OS support.

So it is tough when that extra substantial expense is needed only for stuff that not long ago did not require it -- such as parking a cheap car or entering public buildings etc (re COVID passes).  Some people have no other need for a mobile phone/computer.

They do however help speed up the decline of humanity on the planet through the environmental effects of consumerism and energy use.  (Cars too of course.)  Which should shortly fix all of these problems

An old Google Nexus 5 or 6 will be less than £50 from CEX, and guaranteed for two years.  Battery will be in a poor condition, but if it's just to live in the car for car parking or as your Covid pass, then that's no issue.

GiffGaff will send you a free reloadable PAYG SIM that charges 10p/MB - I know this still works because I have one in my dog's harness mounted GPS tracker.  

Others have already argued with your points above, so I won't bother. But, it is worth reflecting on the following idea at length:

The fact that society is currently organised in a certain way does not mean that this is right nor that it cannot be changed.

I wonder if this has partly come about since that car park has become a v popular van camp site? Is there ‘no overnight parking’ signs now too? 

And far too many drivers WITH smartphones seem to think they can use both phone and car at the same time.

Smartphones my arse, I prefer to call them idiotphones, as too many people with them are just that.

Do we really NEED to talk to others virtually every minute of the day ?

I know what you are saying and fully expect i am now £50 down but it's worth an email.

To clarify, the car park does not physically exist on the system, it wasn't not working it's not physically possible to pay

This is a listing of all LDNPA car parks on the app, its not listed.

https://myringgo.co.uk/parkinglocator?operatorId=207

Yep, but there always was i think ?

No, there are almost certainly ways to avoid paying this charge, but don't launch in with a first appeal guaranteed to fail.  You're tying one hand behind your back.

If you make an appeal based on the app not allowing you to pay you will definitely lose, because they'll say that you should have left.  There's almost certainly a winning appeal but we need to find it.

Was it a parking or a penalty charge notice?

I wonder if any of my dislikers would care to explain what they disagree with?  All I'm pointing out is that functional used smartphones are cheap and PAYG is an option.

I think the LDNPA has behaved badly by making smartphone the only option (I get why they'd do it - it's much cheaper to put up a sign than a pay station - but it's lazy at best) and I'm trying to help the OP find an appeal avenue.

Not true.  You can get one for close to free used, and PAYG absolutely still does exist.

Which is an offence and should be dealt with harshly.

Behave.

I hardly ever use mine to make telephone calls.  It is a personal communication and payments console.

On Android phones there's an amusing "easter egg" that says "Did you know you can use your phone to make calls?" if the history is blank, FWIW

It will be changed - more in favour of electronic payment etc as people who didn't grow up with it (to put it bluntly) die off.  My parents are in their early 70s and both use smartphones, they are hardly ever off Faceache, my Mum is almost a like-bot to anything me or my sister posts, sometimes within a few seconds.

Ever booked a Ryanair flight by telephone?

OK, so can I build a house on my local kids' play park?

No, I thought not.  Public land is to be shared for specific uses and within specific terms.  It's quite right that one should pay to park.

And plenty 70+ year olds aren't. 

Running it off purely the app is them just taking the money, providing a limited service to park users and zero local employment, as the warden doesn't need to empty the machines. Depending on the app, that might not even be administered or located in the uk. UK national park policy is just plain dire in all respects, they are like a law unto themselves, living under some halo because many actually think uk parks are natural environments, not victorian museums. 

No because it's not yours. But, you like anyone else in the population can access it. It's common land owned by the council. 

You've already paid for it in your taxes. You don't pay to use kids playground in the park? 

You don't pay to use a kid's playground because it is considered that play is an important thing for our taxes to fund.

You do pay to use cars (including parking them), because they are negative in many contexts.

Having thought a bit, it wouldn't be an entirely stupid idea to have petrol garages and motorway services selling all-day National Park parking passes for say £10 over the counter, allowing the Luddites who still pay cash for stuff to continue to do so.  That would I think sell well even if it cost more than many car parks do P&D.

All NPs are taxpayer funded.

Many parish council common land parking ask for donations, it's a legal mine field, in most parishes. 

I know an NP manager who jokes that a honey pot car park and toilet are paying their salary and soon their pension. Don't think your parking fee is doing something beneficial, waste is rife. 

It's full title is "Notice of intention to prosecute - parking penalty"

I really don't see how they can really follow through with anything if the instructions on site include a car park number and location that doesn't exist on the app designated for payment.

There is also a check box on the form that states "Interior checked inc. dashboard and footwell" this is obviously erroneous as there is no machine enabling you to buy a ticket to be displayed.

End of the day in their publicly funded quango eyes i was parked illegally, its nothing but revenue raising, plain and simple, having said that i will of course pay it if i have to but under duress.

Oh, get real! This kind of techno- babble might make sense to you but might as well be Chinese to my Mum.

Because I have a smart phone but BB10 will not run the app

OK, it's a genuine Penalty Charge Notice, not a private company invoice.  That's probably good news.

As I said, their position is going to be that if you couldn't pay you should have left.

This is eminently contestable but you need decent advice, which you won't find here.  Go to www.pepipoo.com and get the experts involved.

What's your mum got to do with this?  The point I was making was, simply and entirely, that it is incorrect to claim that PAYG smartphones no longer exist.

Thanks, but for £50 i can't be arsed with all that, i will just pay it if i have to and move on.

Your call.  I wouldn't say it was that much effort, though, and were it me I'd probably take the time to fight this, just to show LDNPA that they're in the wrong here. 

Oh i will keep going at them, will see what their reply says when and if they have the decency to reply, i will also supply them with an invoice for all the "donations" i have made in their no parking charge car parks over the years...

Actually just read which Bylaw they state i have broken, i quote:

"No person shall cause or permit a vehicle to be parked on the land unless there is exhibited a ticket issued in accordance with the Authority's conditions for the time being in force and displayed on a notice to that effect on he land"

So again, not sure how you can display a ticket when there is no ticket machine?

I may be splitting hairs there and it may be a matter of semantics but their by-law as written can't be met.

You can't.  So, they will argue, you shouldn't have parked there.

I make a hobby of helping people beat unfair private parking tickets - my record is 11-0 at the moment - but this is a genuine PCN and I'm not well versed in these.  I reckon it is contestable but you will need help.  Just create an account at pepipoo and they'll pile in to tell you what to do.

It can, by not parking there.

They could to be fair to them make it clearer by posting a sign stating "If you are unable to obtain a ticket you must consider the car park closed and park elsewhere".

Other way they could do it would be like what I understand Manchester Metrolink does - if the ticket machines are all broken you have to phone them for a reference number which entitles a free journey.  That of course has the advantage for them that any problems are reported very quickly.

I can understand them not wanting to take cash, but I really don't want to to have loads of parking apps on my phone. Really struggle to see why they can't install a machine with card payment capabilities as an alternative to phone payments tough.

I think it's pretty clear they have a far greater change of raising revenue by making it as awkward as possible for all concerned, as somebody else said, why not make it pay within 24 hours so you can do it when you get home ?

The change isn't exactly well advertised.  Visit Lakes, and Lakdistrict.org both still say that parking is free.

Shame, when our family holidays on a budget were all in the South Lakes, Tilberthwaite was a very regular day out for us. Progres I suppose and bottom line is they charge for parking because they can!

Typical what is happening all across the LD.

There is a big list of wrongs being done to the area by the quangos.

DC

The exchange of money for a ticket is the contract to use a space for the specified time within the terms of the contract (usually printed behind a notice board or somewhere prominent). If the land owner does not give you an opportunity for you to pay the specified amount then that means they didn’t want to enter into a contract. You can leave your car there. So even if they issue a fixed penalty notice or whatever then you will win on appeal. Now every year the government fix their grant allocation to such bodies and Certainly since this government has been in power no local authority or national park authority has had a growth allocation. In fact every body has had major reductions which has had the knock on effect of budgetary holders having to find alternative methods of raising revenue across the board. Sadly however successful an authority is in raising revenue the government always reduce their allocation by at least the corresponding amount plus the no growth reduction and no allocation for salary increases. In ye good olde days budgetary holders  only started issuing car parking charges in order to manage traffic problems but now it’s turned into a bit of a golden egg.

if you appeal then state you wanted to enter into a contract but they frustrated the process by not accepting your money for the exchange of the contract . Now again in the good olde days the LA authority block books a magistrate court for all manner of cases inclusive of parking fines.a grown up would look at this and decide it’s not in the public to pursue. However some LA give the problem to private debt collectors and avoid court processes. In which case cite them as third part correspondents and take the LA to the small claims court for the amount the debt collectors are claiming from you.

good luck with it

No smart phone for me. Hate the things

I agree. I can’t BELIEVE that people are EXPECTED to run a CAR just to USE a car park, with all the expense involved in THAT. I prefer to call CARS the STEAM HORSES OF SATAN because of all the idiots driving them over CHILDREN. Do we really NEED to DRIVE etc 🙂

I typed this on a Remington Model 1

I what ways would  you like to see more accountability? 

Meanwhile you can complain if you're dissatisfied with the services they provide https://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/aboutus/customerservicestandards 

That's not true.  On land other than the public highway, the default is that you CANNOT park there unless an arrangement has been made that you can.

With private land it's only trespass which has no penalties per-se (unless a contract is visible) but it's still the default that you should not assume you can park.

Contact the local paper and tell them that the park authority are running a scam to entrap motorists into parking fines by not having the relevant car park on the app. It surely is suitable material for local media.

Also a FOI request to the park authority asking 1. How many of their car parks are not on the app, 2. how many motorists have been issued with parking fines in all such car parks, 3. how much income has been generated by parking fines in these car parks (obviously you can do the calculation yourself but it helps for them to see where you're going).

If I'm reading this thread correctly then the only possible way to pay is via an app and in this case it isn't that the app wasn't working, the correctly functioning app just doesn't allow you pay for this specific carpark.

If this is so, and your argument is they will say you should have left if you can't pay, then effectively this car park isn't a car park because no-one can pay, it's impossible, and therefore no-one can park there.

It's simply a piece of land disguised as a car park but which is in fact a revenue generator which functions by fooling people into thinking it is a car park and then fining them when they can't pay.

Am I missing something here?

As per my previous post; effectively I think you're correct, and for publicity purposes, you'd want to assume that this was intentional.

Most car parks tell you what to do if (for example) the ticket machine is out of service.

An easily accessible breakdown of their annual budget, salaries per post, pension costs, building costs, expenses...  it's buried away.. unless you can easily find it? I know that YDNP couldn't cover their salary costs without Grassington car park and toilet fees. Maybe the answer is less staff and free toilets.  

They get 5.5m from the tax payer, plus nearly 4m in revenue, with an advertised 900,000 visitors. That's roughly a tenner per head, where does it go, is the visitor and taxpayer getting value for money.

I'm remaining discrete, but from the manager I know, they aren't. Managerial incompetence varies, efficiency is limited, as it is in effect like a charity, they don't feel connected to the money they spend. It's like a little hobby running the gift shop etc..  if it were a private enterprise all the parks would merge: one hq, one ceo, one hr department, one accountant, planning departments would sit as part of existing local council planners etc... 

Uk national parks act like they are protecting the uninhabited yellowstone or great barrier reef, bit in reality they are just there for the populations of cities to play amongst varying types of industrial heritage. 

In 2018 and 2019 they sent 20 plus people to Romania and Finland for a couple of weeks, wonder what it cost, what ideas they implemented. I've no idea on cost, but ideas actioned are likely zero, uk parks aren't wild places, normal folk have to try live and work there, whilst a small but influential group of rich retirees steers their policy. 

For a purely app based payment machine you'd expect a study showing 99% of phone providers have coverage there and 99% of car park users will & can use the app on their phone. Otherwise you're disadvantaging people. 

Even in sweden where before covid cash had already died out payment machines are app, swish (phone payment), or contact less, never only app.

I mean, I don't make the law!  I'm just telling the OP that IMO this line of appeal is likely to fail.

Certainly for a private car park, I've seen this exact appeal being rejected.  They say you should either have rung the phone number on the signs or left.  

This is a council car park (well, it's LDNPA) and with these I'm not so certain - they might entertain this approach.  But before the OP burns up their one and only shot at an appeal they should go get advice from people who do this all the time.

I would be very interested to see what the new signage looks like.  Any appeal is going to hinge on what it says and what contract it forms.

The car park became active this week, it is managed on behalf of the Landowner (some estate, Rydal maybe ??) by the LDNPA, the money is split in some ratio ??

You can pay via App or buy phoning a number on the machine, there is strong 4G signal, apparently.

Alternatively you can cross the bridge and park for free, on the NT car park.

I was informed of this by Nathan the nice helpful parking manager of the LDNPA.

He took on board my comments that not being able to pay with money, could disadvantage some people.

I have seen in previous threads about Walna parking, that many people seem to consider using money an inconvenience, though that tin of coins in my van works for me.
 

No. It should not be necessary to have a smartphone to pay for anything. It would be like saying you cant go to a supermarket unless you have a car. Bullshit consumerism.

They said that about cards, and about paper money, and about coins, and about gold, and about sheep, goats and vegetables. 

Blimey, that's one heck of a parking ticket machine?

And it would be worth pressing the payment reject button when you get to the machine,  could get a free goat?

That'll confuse the hell out of Monty Hall!

Slightly more seriously: is there a machine there?  That's a little odd, because as far as the landowner is concerned, the whole point of only allowing payment by app or phone is that all you need to install is a sign.  What's the machine for?

No, sorry, flippant posts from me, I don't think there is hence all the debate about how we, the great unwashed, should be allowed to pay our dues.

It's a shame, but not a surprise. Tilbertwaite has always been popular and now I guess it must be nearly overrun in the summer? Someone wants to make a buck out of that. Will any of the dosh be invested in improvements? Maybe,  but probably not.

More and more will visit places like this, and as a result some of us will spend more time in the far flung and quiet valleys and villages in the Lakes,  which still do exist.  For a while anyway.

Right, so it appears the bit I was missing was that there will be a sign telling you to ring a number, I don't think that had been mentioned previously.

Still, if the app doesn't allow you to pay then everyone would have to ring that number and they'd potentially be swamped with calls so some people wouldn't be able to get through anyway.

If this is the case it's clearly a ridiculous situation and surely one worth pursuing by appeal though I'm not disputing your advice to seek expert advice.

I don't know what the sign here says - it's not on Google Streetview and I've not been there since it was put up.  

The normal situation would be that the signage says 'use this app, and call this helpline if there's any problem'.  If there was a number to call and the OP did not, then I fear their case is fatally weakened.  

But I am also confused by the suggestion that there's some sort of machine in place (I know Wainers was only joking but there's a post above from Steve Crossley suggesting that there is).

"Pay by phone" is a well established method of doing parking - some of the London Boroughs no longer have P&D machines and offer this and an app as the only options.  Therefore there is good precedent that this is an acceptable alternative.

I do get the "but I don't have a smartphone" argument - however the number of drivers who don't have any sort of mobile phone, not even a PAYG Nokia, is going to be very, very small indeed, because of the benefits of having one in an emergency.

I think the argument of the line being overwhelmed is a bit silly, as people don't generally arrive at a car park in very large groups so as to overwhelm it.  It needing to take say 20-30 calls at random times of the day is just going to mean slightly fewer cups of tea for the staff.

I think this kills the OP's case stone dead if it is true.

Given how easy putting up a sign is, I think much more parking will become chargeable in the coming years.

I've noticed the same in Leeds.  A bit of street parking that I use semi-regularly used to have P&D machines that were regularly robbed/vandalised, now it just has signs directing you to pay by app, online or by phone.  It's still quite unusual not to have a cash/card option I think, but it's easy to see the temptation to get rid of the machines, I bet it's not cheap to repair/replace one that has been attacked.

Unlike the outright rip-off merchants like 'Parking Eye' et al, I think local authorities do sometimes have actual humans dealing with these things who are able to exercise a degree of discretion. 

In your initial approach to them, it might be a good idea to try to write as if you're expecting them to be reasonable people.  It's quite possible that they might turn out to be unreasonable arseholes regardless, but sometimes the expectation that they will be can be a self-fulfilling prophecy that will actually make it so.

Also the only thing that "invoice for all the 'donations'" thing can possibly achieve is to make you look like a bit of a dick.  If your point is that you've frequently paid voluntarily in the past and would happily have paid this time if you had been able, that has to be just about the worst way you could possibly make it.

You can text to pay the parking fee, if you’ve pre registered your car etc.

The phone lines will cover all the car parks Ringo covers , not just a single one in the LDNP.  It’ll be a call centre, no doubt undermanned, with long waits.

Yes, probably is the way forward. Already I have a dislike for parking machines which don't accept cards, as cash is rarely carried now. 

OT, and probably academic for something that uses hardly any data anyway, but you can do a lot better than 10p/MB with a PAYG SIM.

I have one of these in my 'spare' phone*: https://www.1pmobile.com/

*(Big chunky 'ruggedised' waterproof handset that serves as a GPS, comes in handy for various other things including paying for parking when I'm heading outdoors to play and doubles as a back-up to my mobile as my landline is borked and I basically can't be arsed to get it fixed.  As a bonus it also means I can carry a phone for emergency and non-emergency use, but only the very few people I actually want to be able to contact me when I'm 'off' have the number.)

RingGo is almost entirely automated, and it's a bit of a faff to set up by phone the first time.  (Easier to register etc., online before using it for the first time.)  I imagine it would take a long time to get through to a human, but I use it quite a lot and have never had to try.

They post 'local' numbers on the signs, but all the phone numbers direct to the same call centre and you can use any of their various phone numbers in any location.

Once it is set up it's really very easy to use by phone, especially if you can put it on speaker so you can hear it talking and use the keypad at the same time, so a 'brick' will do just fine - no app/smartphone required.

They are also costly to maintain and empty frequently.  Card only ones would be cheaper I suppose.

I dislike anything that accepts only cash.  Cash needs to go away, it's awkward, costly to process and enables crime and tax evasion.

I quite like RingGo to be honest, though given the lack of mobile signal in rural locations that probably isn't workable.  A system allowing online payment any time up to midnight on the day of parking would be best.  Even better if integrated with PayPoint/Payzone to allow it to be done at a garage.  Or as I said sell electronic Permits for all LDNPA car parks at garages, Forton/Burton/Tebay Services, Rheged etc, so if driving to the Lakes you just pick one up on the way while stopping for a wee.

Ringo is pretty good and after the first time faff of setting it up,  it's pretty quick to use. Text reminders of how much parking you have left are useful too.

For "public" carparks I can see the benefits of buying a pass etc. However again thinking back crazy tight family holiday budgets, I probably wouldn't buy one, as the initial outlay would seem huge.

The other problem with the way this is going, is that every Lord, Landowner,  or Tom or Harriet etc will start to pepper the place with signs. "If your wheels stop turning here, start paying...." etc. Signs are cheap and this could be a trend that's both an eyesore and a pain. 

The problem with the lakes(and elsewhere) is there are NT, Forestry, LDNP and council car parks... a lakes pass wouldn't work unless all agencies were on side. 

True.  God forbid they could talk to each other!

I think you're a few years behind - it's already happening all over the place.

A sidetrack but worth mentioning: cash has only a very limited effect on crime, tax evasion and terrorism. There are plenty of alternative ways of financing these things. And there are important civil liberties implications with scrapping cash. This is a good summary of the situation:

https://www.suerf.org/policynotes/6951/restricting-or-abolishing-cash-an-ef...

I can imagine the fight... imagine a lakes wide pass £10/24hrs. They'd be fighting over percentage split, who has most parking slots, short stay honey pots, car parks only busy in summer etc... 

When I was parish councillor in ydnp I've been to a few multi agency meetings, it can take half a day just for everyone to decide if we have full fat or semi skimmed milk with tea break coffees. 

Salaried County Council staff they are true professional committee folk, a decision that would be 10mins in the private sector, they could roll over into a multi day event. 

Whats wrong with a debit card?

Not in National Parks, which is what we were talking about

Cost of maintaining the machines.

Ah, ok yes I see that.

I'm aware of pay by phone car parks and have used them a number of times myself but this isn't what we've been talking about at Tilberthwaite.

The OP said the app was the only way to pay and someone else suggested there might be a number to ring if the app isn't working which is quite a different matter. 

Lakes car parks can get very busy at peak times. If this one isn't set up for pay by phone (which is automated anyway) and everyone has to ring up because the app isn't working then helpline number may well be overwhelmed at times. 

I suspect if the OP is right about payment methods its a cock up which needs fixing and he may well have grounds for appeal.

There's a reasonable amount of detail here for LDNP: https://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/aboutus/publicationsandplans/finances 

The points you make are concerns that may or may not have been aired during the Glover Review. However, given the record of this government on the countryside, I expect little would happen even  if they were noted. 

Another argument is that NPs get relatively very little money to run large areas with huge pressure and , by and large, these areas are still great..for visitors at least. 

If there was a phone number to ring if the app didn't work, and the OP made no attempt to phone that number, then there is no sensible ground for appeal whatsoever unless the OP wishes to tell lies about having called the number and received no answer, which would be an offence of fraud potentially provable from the telephone records of that number.

Run? They don't own very much land. Public roads are highways dept responsibility. Rights of way are landowners and councils. Planning already exists in local council. Plenty gift and tat shops already, toilets - local councils . Etc...etc.

There isn't actually anything for them to do, that they aren't creating themselves. When the gap between the lakes and ydnp was also recently made a NP, you think it wasn't functioning as a community before then? The residents had no say either when it became an NP with a myriad of new rules forced on them. 

What they do is interfere in functions that operate in non national parks, all in the interests of maintaining some victorian ideal of over grazed deforested hills and mono culture grass valleys, scattered amongst industrial heritage (reservoirs, mines, quarries... )

Uk national parks should be places like the cairngorm above 500m, black cuillin.... they can't be places where thousands try to live and work. The few areas within say the lakes which are special are already SSSIs, grade 1/2 buildings or ancient monuments and protected by other agencies and legislation, not the NPs. NPs are near purposeless.

The problem are the rose tinted glasses everyone views the heather covered moors through.

I guess I was referring to having a "safe" old phone.  Once a phone is more than a couple of years old the OS isn't supported and becomes a security hassle so is not good for logging into and using for personal/financial stuff (apparently).

Sorry, I was reading up on PAYG recently and understood most of the offers from a few years back had disappeared and replaced with 30/60 day PAYG models -- where you do PAYG, but your credit expires every x months if you don't use it.  Maybe there still are unlimited time models available that I haven't found?

I'm still using O2 123 (that isn't available to new customers) where you load up and it's 1p/MB with no time limit. 

I have a phone bought in 2018 for use overseas that I've barely turned on for 2 years since the pandemic.  At least my O2 credit is still there, but the phone runs Android 5.0, which is thought to be a bit old and unsafe.

Most people have 24 month contracts and get a new phone at the end of that.  Most phones don't go entirely out of support until about 5 years old or more.  So there is a useful second hand market.

Even new phones are available at the budget end.  You don't need an iPhone 13 to install a parking app.

For one: https://www.1pmobile.com/index.taf

Yes, it expires after a year, but almost everyone will use the credit up in that period unless they are stubborn "it stays in the glovebox switched off except when I park" people, and to be honest people with that attitude to tech are heading towards shutting themselves out of more aspects of society than just a few car parks, and also are rapidly dying off as they tend to be older.

Yeah, I think you guys live in a different world to some people.  And not all of them are THAT old

Welcome to Android. Meanwhile, on iOS-land, where Apple is constantly accused of planned obsolescence, the 6-year-old 6s is on the latest OS and even phones that are out of support like the 8-year-old 5s and the 6 get critical security updates. 

I bet 99.9% of the adult population have a bank card they could swipe/scan. It doesn't run out of battery or data, requires no technical knowledge to use, no additional investment etc...

How hard is it for a public funded body that is allegedly there to facilitate the population using an area of land designated as being for recreation, put in a payment system that suits the location and 99.9% of the clients. It's a half ar$Ed effort, managed by incompetents. 

That doesn't mean that new apps created by different companies will function well on older phones software. 

For the ones on iOS 15, it's not older phone's software, it's literally the latest OS, with the latest frameworks. Unless you are targeting hardware features that aren't there on older phones, which is unlikely for the majority of apps, it does mean *exactly* that. Saying that as someone whose day job involves iOS and Android development.

Putting in and maintaining parking meters in small car parks is disproportionately expensive, including a SIM card to allow authorising cards (which is mandatory if you're going to do contactless).  Very expensive if there's no signal so you'd need to connect a landline.  However, like the way you can get an Ambleside parking disc from shops, it would be easy enough to set up a system allowing retrospective payment at Paypoint/Payzones or some similar arrangement, which would allow both cash and card.  You could even give a decent amount of time to pay e.g. a week for people camping in areas without signal.  Enforcement officers would then just note registration numbers and photograph the cars, and penalty tickets sent automatically if necessary.

Just leave them free, no machine = zero cost.

so how are users meant get a signal for their app?! 

But then we go back to the issue of whether you should be able to take up a piece of land for free on which to store your property.

It's a valid argument for on-street parking that this is covered by your vehicle excise duty.  But not for anything off-street.

Hence the suggestion of a "pay later" option, which I have seen on at least one car park in the Lakes (somewhere above Grasmere if I recall).

Uk National parks are areas set aside for leisure. That's their founding principle. Dissolve LDNP, give the £5.5m/yr to cumbria County Council to maintain free parking and toilets. The district council can force land owners to maintain stiles and path access. Local planners will allow private enterprises to establish shops and cafes with a bias towards sole trader.

My local swimming pool is set aside for leisure.  It isn't free to get in.  The car park is free, admittedly, but you still can't have a swim without paying.

That's an interesting idea.  I think my inclination would be to do some boundary rejigging such that Cumbria CC and the NPA would be one and the same, probably including creating "The Bay Council" as was proposed which would encompass Lancaster and the closely associated area along to Barrow which would currently be south Cumbria.  Then a unitary "Lakeland Council" would be responsible for the main bit.

(The rest of the Lancashire split that would make sense is West Lancashire into the Liverpool City Region as Ormskirk etc are just suburbs of Liverpool in practice, while you could then have a rump Central Lancashire unitary covering Preston, Blackburn, Burnley, Chorley etc as those places do relate together)

However, I don't support free parking.  Parking should be chargeable.  Car owners need to pay for the land they use to store their vehicles if not on their own private property.  I am not fundamentally anti car - I own one, and I sometimes drive it to the Lakes, but I simply don't get why people think parking should be free other than that they are too tight to pay for it.  It would be better if fewer people drove to the Lakes, and ensuring parking is always chargeable is a far easier way to manage that (and get people to leave their car at the hotel/campsite and use other modes) than implementing congestion charges and the likes, while bringing in a little extra income to cover the costs of providing facilities for tourism.

I think the decision not to own a smart phone is the same as the decision not to own a TV set. And the consequences of not owning one should be no more far reaching.

So you are saying people should pay to walk, climb etc.. in national parks? 

Why reinvent the wheel? 

Name one thing the national park does that isn't or can't be done by existing bodies. How do think car parks, tourist information, toilets, sssi, listed buildings, scheduled ancient monuments, aonbs, planning and so on are managed across the uk beyond national parks. Nps are just a duplication, another set of wages, buildings, pensions, expenses. 

Exactly!

Ps. Anti car.... there could be electrified rail from crewe and Manchester right to Ambleside. Plus similar from penrith to Keswick. Close half the valleys off and have free electric buses and at cost bike here. 

You think the NP would allow it, nope, those cars are paying their wages and pensions. 

If they wish to travel there by car, a polluting and congestion-causing mode of transport, then yes, they should.

There's rail (admittedly diesel, but it'll become battery at some point) from Manchester to Windermere, and Ambleside is half an hour by bus (which in due course will be electric bus).  It is actually an awful lot better than a lot of people think it is, in particular hugely better than Snowdonia where public transport is woeful.

Universal public paid parking is in essence a congestion charge, but as campsites and hotels could provide parking for their customers it accepts that not everyone can realistically enter the park by public transport (most notably e.g. those camping with families) but that it's best if the car is then left at the campsite or hotel and public transport used during the stay.

A tourist tax on overnight accommodation allowing bus travel to be free throughout the stay also helps.  The Swiss do that.  If it's free people are more likely still to use it.

It'd be great to see Keswick-Penrith reinstated, but do bear in mind that it currently has an excellent bus service that runs on what is a mostly uncongested dual carriageway, so public transport is already pretty good.  To be honest if they put it (and Ambleside) in the rail journey planners and sold it as a through ticket I bet far more people would use it as it's just easy then.

What's your view on people who don't own a telephone at all?  This exact same thing has already been played out once in the late 80s and early 90s (my best mate at school didn't have a telephone at home, he had to walk to the phone box to ring me), and it is now accepted that a telephone of some kind is an essential to take part in modern day life.

It is simply progress.

And bluntly, if you can't afford a budget smartphone on one of those 1p tariffs noted, you probably can't afford a car either, so paying for parking becomes rather moot.

And if you aren't capable of usung a smartphone, I'm not sure you should be driving either 

Actually I don't think anyone ever said that.

It would likely take tens of thousands annually, but won't happen, because a vocal influential few hundred won't allow it.

The trains and bus service sounds the same as it was 30 years ago, before I had a car. It wasn't bad, once you actually into the lakes after train changes, and provided you only wanted to go between honeypots during normal working hours Mon to Sat. 

And if you can't use a smartphone to spell correctly?

Progress or consumer slavery?

Progress.

Why drive a car?  Cars are consumer slavery too.

It's a silly argument.  The conveniences provided by smartphones are huge.  Telephone the bank to see my balance?  Why?  Pick up my phone and see it.  Queue at the railway ticket office or machine?  Why?  Quickly buy a ticket on my phone while walking to the station.

You feel like a bit of a plonker, but nobody is hurt. 

Yes, only joshing

Although its probably a good example of declining eyesight and fine motor skills. 

Motoring skills? Hopefully not.

Tell that to my 74yr old mother.

She'll tell you the balance without looking, old fashioned accounting after each spend. 

She'll use the free computer in the library if planning ahead or on the day as a pensioner she has all the time in world.  

You think the average low tech pensioner visiting places needs to do anything like that spontaneously, in a hurry? 

Needing glasses for reading mobiles isn't the same vision problem that stop you reading number plates or road signs, it does make the speedometer blurry though. 

Utter tosh.

And the argument isn't about being capable of using a smartphone, it's about whether you actually want to use one.

That was the point I was trying to make, If I have misinterpreted a post further up thread, fair enough, it didn't need making, but I don't think it is utter tosh. 

Agreed that is a different point 

I have less time for wont's than can'ts myself.

It is amazing how much Luddism one finds on an Internet forum.

You're not on the Lakes NP Anti Development Committee then?

Ps. The anti bit is obviously my insert, I don't why they called it a development committee, when it clearly isn't. 

That was the point I was clumsily trying to make.. My judgement is probably skewed, due to personal experience. When the school meals went cashless, which has obvious benefits to free school meal students, we had to install a coin machine that allowed pupils to load their accounts, because a handful of parents said they couldn't do it electronically. In my final 4 years there you can probably guess how much money was paid into the machine 

Why drive a car indeed. You don't have to drive a car you can walk, ride a bike, ride a horse if you want to. You are not compelled to pick one over the other. So it's not a silly argument.

The conviences of smart phones come at too high a price for me. They are a chain and an addiction I hate that they tie you to the internet like force feeding an alcholholic a drink.

I want to see my bank balance - I go on my computer at home or go to the bank. That's what I like to do. I don't need to look at my bank balance all the time. Some people do that is their choice.

I want a ticket for the the railway _ I can buy one at the station or do it on line at home before I go easy. I rarely walk down the road thinking "you know what I think'll buy a train ticket." Some people can pay with their phone that's their choice.

Why tie yourself to a device that makes you trackable where ever you go, feeds a social media addiction, turns the world into one of instant gratification? If then you are compelled to buy such a device, pay monthly charges, electricity charges and whatever hidden charges there are just to interact with everyday life, the simple matter of being able to rock up at a car park and expect to pay, with no alternative (why not a card?) then that is slavery and if you don't see that then you are blind.

The way you're pushing smartphones makes you sound like a vodafone bot.  

For as long as I've lived nearby (15 years), Tilberthwaite has been free to park. The car park is no-nonsense and no facilities and works just fine. In the surrounding area parking restrictions have tightened, making it more difficult for the motorist to find a parking space (free or otherwise). So maybe more are making use of the Tilberthwaite area. But why the sudden charge? Have the landowners made a significant investment to upgrade the parking area, are there now public loos? No of course there isn't. There are no new benefits. So popping out for an afternoon walk from there is now more expensive. Going out into the mountains to exercise is getting more expensive, which is quite sad.

Walna scar recently went the same way. No upgrading to the car parking area, which is in a very bad state. All they did was put a few logs down to create parking bays. The surface is still crap and not worth the charge.

And as for pay by app only, this is ridiculous. A card option should be available at the very least. Mobile signal is intermittent in the Tilberthwaite area so can't be relied upon. I have no parking pay apps on my mobile and have no intention of getting any. As has been said before, being glued to a mobile device is a negative and we really should be resisting.

Maybe these parking wardens might like to spend a little more time in the Elterwater area. The schoolchildren of Langdale Primary helped design some rather nice signs advising motorists not to park inconsiderately on Elterwater common and wreck the grass verges. Sadly a number of these have been removed and the shitty parking there continues.

The additional parking charges/taxes, the masses of 'van-lifers' inhabiting once empty parts of Lakeland, the huge amounts of rubbish and crap all over the NP is all rather depressing. But what really touches a nerve with me, is the apathy of us all. We are letting this happen. Surely we owe it to future generations to take a stand.

I disagree that a telephone is an essential in modern day life, either a land line or a smartphone. It is simply an advantage.

A citizen should be able to perform the essentials of daily living without owning a phone(or a TV). So I should be able to go to the shops to buy groceries to feed my family , even if I don't own a phone of any description, and there's no reason why owning, driving and parking a car in the pursuit of basic living/ sustenance should be hampered by lack of phone ownership either. 

This is down to definitions.  Without a telephone of any kind your life is going to need to be quite basic.  Impossible no, but very, very basic.  Effectively being a hermit.

You can be a hermit if you like, of course, but that shuts you out of increasing numbers of things.

Life will only become impossible if people like you make it that way. There should be no requirement to have a personal computer in your hand 24/7 just to exist normally. Folk managed to enjoy life before smartphones. 

I agree but do you have to accept that there are consequences for that decision? When I was still paying football the Monday night training session was booked under my name, a few times each season the weather would mean the caretaker would phone me to cancel. The introduction of a Wattsapp group made my job of informing 40 players much easier, no big deal but I did find it annoying that I had to phone 3 personally. Fortunately everyone had at least a land line, without any phone don't they have to accept that they wouldn't be told and therefore make a wasted journey or should I go round personally to tell them?

I agree it's incredibly useful, but not having a smart phone and service with the right provider shouldn't be essential to use a car park in a national park. 

Note: kids sports whats app group: why are there always one or two parents who just can't go along with a plan, the timings, they have to be different, to question, want something else... but aren't willing to offer their own time organising anything (sorry, I feel better now).

Without getting into the luddites -vs- slaves-to-their-pocket-computers debate, nor commenting on the rights & wrongs of charging for parking without providing the means to pay with cash, let me just reiterate for the benefit of anyone who may not know:

You don't need a smartphone to 'pay by phone' to park your car.  (You do need a phone, obviously.)

It may be a bit more faff, but if you're still hanging on to your trusty Nokia 3310 that'll do just fine.  The additional faff can be alleviated or eliminated by setting an account up online beforehand - anybody who has the wherewithal to post a comment on here can handle that.

Eg: https://paybyphone.co.uk/how-it-works/parking

You do if it's payment via app only, your reg no. goes onto the system and when they scan your reg in the car park you either do or don't get ticketed.

Ps. If the taxpayer funded wardens can scan your reg with their tablet in the car park to check if you've paid, then there must be data signal for a card payments.  

Note: I'm more than happy with the tech, i have a few parking apps, phone payment system etc.. I've haven't used a cash point for at least 3 years. But my mother is the opposite and at 74 change is unlikely. 

And life develops and progresses.  Things change.  The positives for me hugely outweigh the negatives.

If all car parks were to be changed tomorrow, it would be problematic and I wouldn't be in favour of it. A gradual change over time I'm OK with, so a phone isn't essential to park in the national park, but for some (smaller?) carparks it is

Ha, I still remember the pre mobile days. Away school fixture, a bit of a delay for some reason, then parents going mad because they had been waiting for more than 20 minutes to pick up their kid. 

As amusing as this debate is, we still don't know what signs and/or machines were actually present in this car park..!

I use a lot of different car parks and several different apps, and I'm pretty sure I've never seen one that is app only without the option to call/text instead.  Obviously I could be wrong, but while payment by phone only is definitely a thing I'm not convinced payment by app only actually exists.  (At least in the UK.)

I don't think anyone has yet mentioned which app it is now at Tilberthwaite, but other LDNPA car parks use RingGo so I guess it'll probably be that.

As it happens I don't have the RingGo app on my phone because I've been using RingGo since before I had a smartphone and am just in the habit of doing it by making a brief call instead.  (Or by text, esp. on Ravine Road in Filey where the signal is often a bit patchy.)

As a bonus, in some car parks (eg: the big multistorey on Woodhouse Lane in Leeds) it gives you the option to check in and check out again so that you don't have to predict how long you'll be the way you do if you're putting coins in the P&D machine.

Edit to add:

Ha ha, I'm not biting on "taxpayer funded", you can have that debate with somebody else.

But yes indeed.  It has crossed my mind that they're probably not enforcing the parking effectively in the Anglesey car park where I can't use the "PayByPhone" app and do it by text instead because there isn't a usable data signal.  If most people pay perhaps they don't need to (in the same way that the P&D was not enforced in any way at Stanage Plantation for many years and most people who chose not to abandon their car on the verge outside the entrance coughed up anyway).

I might try my luck some time, but it'll bite me in the arse if the council have done a deal to allow the wardens to update their handset via the wi-fi at the cafe or the campsite next door instead.  Or of course if they just update their device from the layby at the top of the hill on the way in, about a minute or so before they actually arrive.

And even if they don't offer that, RingGo does allow you to top up unless you've hit a maximum stay time or the car park doesn't allow "feeding the meter"*.  Which is really very useful if you're running late.

* It used to be the case with classic on street coin meters that you often had to pay for your full stay on arrival, and adding more was not allowed and would be ticketed, this was known as "feeding the meter" and was used to get around maximum stay times if not caught.

9 days and counting since I appealed, nothing, no acknowledgement it’s being dealt with or looked at, nada, zip, despite a chase, I know exactly what game they are playing here, wait until day 13 to reply giving me 1 day to respond before the fine goes up…..

I know I haven’t much chance of not paying which is fine but I would expect at least an automated response.

its all done on purpose, car parks where the app wont work is what they look for, and then they can slap a penalty notice on you. There are many of them even in city centers , Lancaster , Dallas Rd car park is an example , the card machine wont work, the coin access is blocked off, this is Lancaster city council !!!LDNPA probably no better. As for Tilberthwaite not to have a coin payment is scandalous, elderly people who don't have that payment method are penalized , totally unfair. These organizations should be taken to task !!!!  

Dont see anyone from LNDPA coming in to explain !!!

The parking app, Ring GO is owned by  the PARK NOW GROUP B.V. Netherlands.

So much for

Where does the money go?

All car park charges go towards keeping the National Park special for the future.

There is only one UK director is paid by other companies with the group!

So much for ALL the money going to the LNDPA

More about the company that provides the app/parking service.

Our parking solutions make life easier for more than 22,000,000 drivers in more than 1,000 cities around the world. And the Group is proudly represented by: PARK NOW, Parkmobile, Park-line and RingGo.

PARK NOW is part of YOUR NOW, the global joint venture in mobility solutions founded by BMW Group and Daimler AG.

RingGo is just a contractor.  Just like whoever they pay to purchase or lease and maintain physical machines, tickets etc.  (The most common UK supplier of these, Parkeon, is French).

They are absolutely not pocketing it all, and it is silly to suggest they would be.

It is 2021, and today's elderly are the parents of Generation X, not WW2 survivors.  Both my parents have and extensively use smartphones.

My Sony mobile is 6 years old, totally waterproof, charges in less than two hours and lasts a week or more, it is used to contact the wife, nothing else, not all of us have signed our lives away to google or apple or endless tapping on facebook or any other media click bait trap, the term Generation X sounds like a disease.

From the NTS webpage

"

Where does the money go?

All car park charges go towards keeping the National Park special for the future.

NOTE IT SAYS ALL

Are you suggesting that they deliberately lie to the public.

When you use RingGo it breaks it down into the parking charge and what they slightly cynically call a "convenience fee", so it is probably not incorrect.

Maybe so, but you have.  UKC is social media you mook.

Yes.

Without car parks and toilets UK national parks wouldn't meet their wage bill and hq building costs.

What makes you all think that without the NPA there that Cumbria County Council/South Lakes District Council etc would suddenly come over all nice and not charge for parking?

That's not how it works.  If you make an informal challenge then the time period in which you get the 50% discount is extended.

But please - you're making us all guess here.  We don't know what signage was in place, what machine (if any), what it actually said on the PCN... and from what you write I am guessing you've fired off your appeal without getting any proper advice at all.  

You likely had a very good chance of not having to pay, but you have to help us help you!

Stand for what? Seems to me that the only forward looking solution is to limit visitors, outlaw wild vanning and car parking and prevent the degradation inherent in too many people chasing too little resource. 

I don't think the OP was actually about wanting help or advice tbh, more just an opportunity for a good moan.

Outcome for those that are bothered, after a phone call to LDNPA it appears the first email went to A spam folder as I had included a jpg, they have now acknowledged the fact that Tilberthwaite was not available on the App on the day of parking and have cancelled the penalty.

That's really good news - they are not always that reasonable!

I'd still like to know - what signs and machines were installed?

Yes I was surprised to say the least.

There is no machines, it’s all pay by App, sign says use the App, in smaller print it states a phone number to ring, it’s a Kendal code but I presume it’s managed by RingGo as there is now way LDNPA will handle those calls, RingGo couldn’t have processed the payment anyway as the location didn’t exist so I have no idea how the parking warden checked there was no parking paid.

There is no signage relating to a fine, just a notice that full terms and conditions are available online

Even if the app was working it’s clearly a system designed to be as awkward as possible, not everybody will have a signal there for data or phone, there should be at least the option to pay retrospectively within 24 hours.

Sounds like a bit of a bodge, at least in terms of conforming to legislation.  Perhaps it's all a work in progress.

I would have been very surprised that they'd let you off, given that you didn't call this number, except...

...aha.  Here it is.  The fine is utterly unenforceable without the correct signage in place.  So regardless of whether you tried to call them or not, or whether the app worked or not, an appeal based on signage would be successful.  I suspect they know this.

Beat me to it, T&C's only online would almost certainly fail in court.

wan't there an old case about a bus ticket saying "subject to terms and conditons" that were miles away in an office where they could be inspected, something about incorporation of terms of which one party had no way of having notice?

Not supported by Ringo unfortunately (I know people who work there and it is a shambles behind the scenes as they expand far too rapidly) but even with a dumb phone you can pay for parking. There's a function of SMS/text messaging that allows you to text a number, receive a pin (usually) to send back as confirmation along with duration of parking, and you are billed directly to your mobile account/it's taken from your available credit.

Payment/micro payments like this levels the field a little but as a technology it does seem to have fallen out of favour in the UK.

Yes it is.  I use RingGo often, and as I was already using it before I got my first 'smart' phone never did get around to installing the app.  Most of the time I call them.  (Using their 'Sheffield' number regardless of where I am, since that's the one stored in my phone.)  Sometimes if the reception is poor I text instead.

Impossible to tell from the OP's description, but the T&Cs in question are almost certainly RingGo's T&Cs for using the app, not LNDPA's for using the car park.  If so then I'm pretty sure they'd be entirely irrelevant to an appeal against a parking ticket.

Or perhaps the OP just finally got around to speaking to someone at the local authority about it and they actually turned out to be perfectly reasonable after all.  It's almost impressive that after it was sorted out and the fine withdrawn after a single phone call, the whingeing is still going on.  (Whingeing about having to pay for a formerly free car park - fair enough, whingeing about the outrageous behaviour of the local authority people responsible for enforcement not so much.)

Incidentally, further up the thread you said this:

This is incorrect.  When P&D machines break down etc. local authorities do not issue tickets to people who parked but had no way to pay.  Here's the government guidance to local authorities on the matter:

"8.5 Out of order parking devices

For the same reasons of fairness mentioned above, if an on-street parking meter or pay-and-display machine is out of order (and parking has not been suspended and clearly indicated as such to motorists), motorists should not be issued with a PCN unless alternative means of payment were available to the driver and clearly indicated."

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-enforcement-of-parking-con...

I stand corrected - have never seen the feature where I am, and have has a smartphone since time immemorial (benefit of working for a well known operator beginning with O back in the day).

Thank you though - I'll now look out for it when in low signal areas rather than just cursing at my phone.

Other obvious benefit of SMS is that they will more often than not send successfully when there is very poor signal and/or you're dropped down to 2G/3G/Edge.

As you always keen to point out, we don't pay enough tax in this country to have nice things for "free". It's always fun when one of your prejudices contradicts another.

Nature exists, it's just there, left to go wild it requires no funding or management. County Council can maintain car parks. Places that aren't NPs have all the relevant bodies and legislation required to manage land, sssi, listed buildings, ancient monuments etc.. NP are just extra layers at taxpayers expense.

Plus, the national park fees are going on wages, holidays, hq buildings, etc..  most money parks receive don't reach projects on the ground. The money would do better in the hands of conservation groups, not protectors of mono cultures and victorian heritage. It's a maze but search up their budgets, admittedly they don't make it easy to see precisely who spends what etc.  

The phone call ascertained the fact that they had not got my previous emails so I resent again without attachments.

The fine was ultimately withdrawn on the grounds that the location was not available on the App on the day of parking, confirmed in reply to my email to them as required when lodging an appeal.

That's when I use it - as you say it'll often get through when the signal is too poor for voice or data. 

You do need to have an account set up already to pay by text and it isn't particularly user-friendly - it's like using the command-line on your computer in that the syntax has to be correct.  Once you've used it once though, you can re-send an old text or copy/paste to use it again so don't necessarily need to remember the format.

There's a guide to how it works with RingGo here:
https://www.myringgo.co.uk/texttopark

I was there yesterday and the car park is now on the app. There are some T&C's along the lines of: "this is private property managed by the LDNPA... A parking charge notice of £100 will be issued...".

I have photos but am not a UKC supporter.

A reminder to people: there is a National Trust car park 50m away across the bridge with no parking charge signage!

Though obviously, even if there is no enforcement, if there is a charge stated then one should pay or park elsewhere.

But is it private property - or public property that they "manage" ??

As a lifelong public servant (teacher and local authority education adviser) my salary and now my pension were indeed paid for by taxes and other charges levied on the public (how else?). I find the implication that public servants do nothing beneficial to justify their salaries quite offensive.

Martin

Without schools and their staff you have no education.

Without a NP you have county/District/parish councils, you have highways, sssi, aonb, planning depts, listed building, national monuments, cafes, public toilets, environment agency, defra, tourist information offices..etc.. what exactly are NPs doing that isn't done elsewhere that aren't in NPs, or were 'normal' areas before being made an NP? 

In terms of necessity I'd put your post at opposite end of the 'how essential are they' spectrum to NP staff. 

I'm just quoting the sign, which says "this land is private property and is managed by the LDNPA".

It would be interesting (especially in the case of land within our National Parks) to actually know precisely who does own said land.

After all, when actions are taken "on behalf of the owners", it would be nice to know who these alleged "owners" are that are issuing such instructions.

If it turns out that we the public own the land - and not a private landowner - then any such actions, and indeed attempts to charge people, must surely become illegal. After all, someone cannot be charged for parking on "their own" land.

So all Council car parks and streets that charge are illegal?

What utter, utter tripe.

Town (etc.) Councils do own land, so I have no problem there.

I do however query matters when an NPA claims they do things "on behalf of the owners", when in reality they themselves have made the decision without any reference to anyone else.

Far too many "car parks" are just loosely marked areas of land with no money spent on them whatsoever - just a source of income for people who are miles away, and nothing going back into the area in question.

I was up there Sunday and the signs are gone.

Visited the location 26 January 22. Had the same problem - site not on the App so I phoned the number on the signs. It doesn’t give charging options - just tells you how much to pay for the period of your intended stay. As I wasn’t sure of the period I would be there, I left and parked on the roadside instead. I’m sure others were doing the same. As the track through to Little Langdale has been repaired cars can now. Park on the fell side for free! There was one car (not 4x4) parked at the side of the track, near the highest point. Madness! I doubt whether the charges are enforceable other than by civil action. Happy to support you if this hasn’t been resolved.