Have you read the small print?

If you were parking at Sallins train station over the past fortnight you may have been in for a nasty new year’s surprise if you came back to find your car clamped on your first day back. It turns out NCPS car parks who operate the Naas side station car park, increased the fees from one to two euro daily over the break but forgot to let people know about it. Not only did they not give adequate notice of the price increase, they then began to clamp people who hadn’t observed it!

It seems a few labels were placed on the parking meters but people who had being used to paying the previous fare for the past two years and who are typically parking in early morning and running to catch their train, not surprisingly, had not stopped to notice the changes in small print on the machine they had been using daily for the past two years.

Anyway all is now well that ends well as when I approached the management agents to put the case for the “clamped commuters” they in fairness to them did see the other side and put their hands up to say that the clamping was excessive. They agreed a sticker or warning notice would have been more appropriate to reflect the new parking charges at least over the transition period. As a goodwill gesture anyone clamped in the first two weeks of operation of the new fare can now apply here for a refund from NCPS.

The period for which refunds are available is January 1st to January 14th – so if you came back to find a wheel bracket wrapped around your front tyre in that time, apply now to avail of the refund. And from this point on at least everyone should now know the new fares!