A couple with a young baby have been landed with a supermarket car park penalty after finding themselves trapped by traffic mayhem.
Kara Ambrose, from Poole in Dorset, had headed to her local Tesco to do a weekly food shop with her partner and child on the day of the alleged offence.
The couple completed their trip to the large chain store in 90 minutes – half the permitted parking time.
But chaos had begun to unfold while they were inside the Tesco Extra, with an emergency gas works unexpectedly closing nearby Waterloo Road.
With signage reportedly poor, according to witnesses, cars had to turn off the busy A-road and into the supermarket car park in attempts to divert from the obstacle.
The problems caused gridlock, with no one able to get out – including the young couple, who were in a parent and child bay beside the shop and far from the exit to the street.
The delay saw them spend more than 90 minutes extra there, exceeding the three-hour parking limit – and forcing Ms Ambrose to breastfeed in the car.
And despite the ordeal not being their fault, they were slapped with a £70 parking fine by Horizon, the firm which operates the car park at the Tesco Fleetsbridge store.
To add insult to injury, the mother has also claimed her appeal against the charge was rejected, contrary to promises from Tesco and Horizon.
Ms Ambrose explained: ‘We have a young baby so naturally the shopping takes a little longer.
‘But after spending around an hour and a half in Tesco, and spending over £130, we exited the shop to see the car park completely gridlocked.
‘We couldn’t even move the car from out of the parking space as the other cars trying to exit couldn’t – or wouldn’t – let us out to join the queue.
‘We had an entire week’s worth of food in the car including freezer and fridge items that we were worried would spoil from being out of the fridge for so long.’
The parent explained they live nearby but had chosen to drive to manage the large shop, with their baby in tow, more easily.
And she had thought she need not be concerned about their delays in exiting potentially taking them over the parking time limit as this was out of their control.
A Tesco spokesperson said: ‘We’re sorry to hear about this.
‘Due to nearby roadworks, there was a build up of traffic in our Poole Fleets Corner Extra car park on 27 August.
‘Any car parking fines were issued in error and have been cancelled by the car park monitoring company. We apologise for the inconvenience.’
It is understood staff contacted Horizon to ensure no one was charged – and anyone who paid an incorrectly issued fine will be refunded by the firm.
Similarly, Horizon said parking fines on this date would be cancelled.
Tesco and Horizon have been contacted for comment.
It comes after the Daily Mail revealed ‘cowboy’ parking firms are doling out a record number of tickets.
Government figures suggest private operators issued 12.8million fines in 2023/24 – one every two seconds.
This is up nearly 90 per cent in just five years, despite the Government repeatedly vowing to stop predatory operators.
With 2024/25 on track to be even worse, ministers are facing renewed calls to get tough on the ruthless firms causing misery for millions of motorists.
Simon Williams, head of policy at the RAC, said it was ‘scandalous’ how motorists were being stung by broken technology and firms deploying sneaky signs to take ‘advantage of law-abiding citizens’.
He revealed he was working with parliamentarians to stop parking firms ‘marking their own homework’ by overhauling the current complaints process.
Mr Williams said: ‘We want a truly independent single appeals service that only the Government backed private parking code of practice will deliver.
‘We also want a scrutiny board which will ensure private parking operators conform to the rules and will face consequences if they do not.’
Daily Mail analysis shows private parking firms requested driver information from the DVLA 7.2million times between April and October 2024.
Firms only request such data, which costs £2.50 a time and includes the car owner’s name and address, if they intend to hand out parking charge notices (PCNs) to drivers who’ve overstayed.
Each ticket can cost up to £100.
ParkingEye, Euro Car Parks and Horizon Parking, responsible for 36 per cent of all DVLA requests, turned over nearly £150million between them in 2023/24.
Each has either been caught sending threatening letters to motorists who missed hidden signage, were incorrectly flagged by untrustworthy camera systems or fell victim to glitching pay and display machines.
