John Rumm wrote:
On 16/07/2010 17:06, John wrote:
Clive George wrote:
On 16/07/2010 16:22, 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.

I describe myself as a customer of various places, even though at
the moment I'm sitting at a computer.

It's in Lidl's interest to let him do reasonable amounts of other
business, otherwise there's no point in him visiting the store at
all, and there goes a customer.

One could argue that if he was preventing another customer from
shopping there they've lost out, but there seems to be no such
indication - nobody has said the car park was full.

But it might have been. How many other drivers are doing exactly the
same as the OP? I just can't believe that people are trying to
justify this. When going to Lidl I park at Lidl. When going to Asda
I park at Asda. When going into the town centre and maybe visiting a
dozen different places, I park at a public car park that is run by
the council or NCP or whoever, it doesn't matter. What I don't do is
to take up a parking space meant for patrons of a particular place
and then go elsewhere.

Its frequently not that clear cut anyway. For example a supermarket
close to the town centre near here operates a pay on exit car park,
which is free for up to two hours for customers (you get your car park
ticket stamped at the checkout or show a receipt to the attendant on
exit). They have no restrictions on leaving the shop etc and are happy
to accept people park there and shop elsewhere even if not customers,
for which they charge a fair price for the parking space.

Other branches of the same supermarket however have different
policies; some allow use of the car park as long as you also shop in
the store, others restrict use to only those that shop there and for
no other purpose. So unless you read the small print *every* time you
visit you are not always certain of what "rules" apply

Well I'm obviously the only one who thinks the way I do so fair enough, I'll
accept that I'm a weirdo or whatever but, I still say that it doesn't matter
what "rules" apply or what you can and cannot do - to my way of thinking
it's just morally wrong to park in a space meant for patrons of one business
and then go elsewhere. The OP states "I've done my shopping in town and
returned to shop in Lidl...".

I don't know Uttoxeter at all, but I'll bet that there's some sort of
council-run or perhaps privately-run (think NCP or whatever) car park that
would be more suited to "general shopping in town" that he could use first
and then move on to Lidl. However, I'll also bet that the OP is parking at
Lidl to avoid paying his dues elsewhere.