pete wrote:
On Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:22:40 +0100, John wrote:
Clive George wrote:
On 16/07/2010 11:59, John wrote:

The point that you (and everyone else it would seem) are missing is
that it is not a _public_ car park, it is _Lidl's_ car park. I
assume that when Lidl were spending the time, money and effort to
build a car park outside their shop, they were intending it to be
for their own customers. The fact that they didn't explicitly state
this on a sign somewhere, or barrier it off to all except Lidl
customers should not matter. The car park is on their land, outside
their store, so by implication the car park is for their customers.

The OP is a customer of Lidl. So where's the problem?

And so we come full circle.

The problem is that the OP was a customer of Lidl for a few minutes
and then went off doing general shopping, leaving his car occupying
a Lidl parking space when he wasn't a customer of Lidl. If the car
park is/was full he is effectively blocking a _potential_ customer
of Lidl from _becoming_ a customer of Lidl - ergo, potential
customer doesn't get the shopping they want,
Lidl lose money and decide that they need some company like
UKPC to look after the car park ...

I would expect Lidl's motivation to be far baser than that.
Consider the following model:
They get 100 vehicles an hour parking/shopping/leaving. If the shop is
open for 10 hours a day, that's 1000 vehicles. If only 1% of those
get
a £90 penalty - and (say) 7 actually pay up, that's £630/day. I don't
know what Lidl's rake would be - let's say £200.
Now, to make £200 _profit_ from their commercial operation, if they
make 5% margin on their sales they'd need to sell £4,000 of extra
stuff each day. If a customer's average transaction is £40 that's
equivalent to 100 extra punters a day - all for issuing one penalty
per hour.
If half their customers use the car park, then that means they get
2,000 sales each day - so they've effectively got a 5% increase in
turnover
but without having to do anything, except let a little plastic piggie
wander around their carpark, occasionally honking off a car owner.

Let me make this clear once and for all - I'm not defending the use of UKPC
or the £90 rip-off. What I'm saying is that someone - anyone - should not
use a car park meant for patrons of one place and then go off to other
places. Simples.