Norman Wells wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Norman Wells wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Norman Wells wrote
Tim Streater wrote
Norman Wells wrote
Harold Davis wrote

How long a period of parking are you buying for the additional
"charge", colloquially referred to as a "fine"? Is that specified
on the "contract"?

When you park, you are deemed to accept the conditions on whatever
notices are displayed prominently in the car park. By parking there,
you enter into a legally binding contract, the terms of which are
those conditions. Any charges displayed are legally enforceable.
That includes any charges for overstaying your welcome, parking in
the wrong way etc etc.

That may or may not be true, IANAL. But if so, it would still require
the parking cpy to take action by taking you to court. Small Claims
Court or perhaps County Court. It's then up to them to prove that you
haven't complied with the conditions.

Hardly difficult.

Very difficult to prove that you didn’t use the shop when you used the
carpark.

That depends on what exactly the displayed conditions were.

Nope.

They determine what has to be proved, and where the burden of proof
lies.

Nope. The basic law on proof still applys.

They still have to prove that you didn’t comply with the conditions.

Which might include, for example, retaining your receipt from the shop, or
producing it on demand.

But it doesn’t.

If they do, the burden of proof that you used the shop shifts to you.

Nope.

Parking attendants all over the country do so successfully all the
time.

Lidl doesn’t have any of those.

Someone must have tried to impose the parking charge.

The operation that Lidl gets to run their car park.

Doesn’t necessarily involve any attendant at all.

Even the bluff letters can be completely automated.

They're not 'bluff letters'.

Corse they are. Dave is under no legal obligation to prove anything.

They are free to take him to court and wear his costs when he
shows that he did use the store when he parked in their car park.

The parking company is fully entitled to the charges it displays,

Dave gets to park there for free, because he used the shop when he parked
there.

and has a legal right to recover them from non-payers.

Dave is not a non payer, he owes Lidl nothing, because
he used the shop when he had parked in the car park.

Lidl's system failed ? That's Lidl's problem, not his.