Taxi driver Shakil Suleman wins appeal after wrongly receiving fine for parking

Rochdale taxi driver Shakil Suleman, who recently got a shock when he received a £70 fine for ‘parking’ in the car park of Aldi on Rochdale’s Entwistle Road, has won his appeal against the fine.

Aldi’s time limit allows shoppers to park for up to one-and-a-half hours and monitors parking through cameras, operated by Parking Eye.

Mr Suleman successfully appealed against the fine, as he had taken one customer to the store in the morning, and picked up another later on that day.

Councillor Shakil Ahmed took up the issue, which he says probably occurred due to the nature of Mr Suleman’s job making multiple visits to the supermarket. This has been dubbed the ‘double-dip’ phenomena as people genuinely make return visits throughout the day.

Councillor Ahmed added: “Parking Eye are also difficult to contact and do not accept telephone calls. If you have a genuine complaint, it may be better to take it direct to Aldi.

“To be fair to Aldi, it is a quite small car park and you can understand that they want to ensure that there are enough spaces for people who are shopping at the store.

“The ticket has been issued based upon the first entry and last exit. Although this particularly affects taxi drivers, be extra careful if you visit the store more than once in a day.

“Make sure you always keep your receipts for at least a couple of weeks.”

You can appeal charges issued on private land though Popla (Parking on Private Land Appeals), an independent body who analyse the evidence before issuing a decision.