Parking Query

[Harrykanefly]

Hello all,

The car park at my place of work doesn't have enough spaces to allow each employee to park there. It usually fills up by around 8.20 meaning I would have to get to work 45 minutes early for a 9am start or park elsewhere.

Most employees would park on the retail park about 10 minute walk away, despite a warning sign, and they would never give tickets anyway. However, we received an email from the facilities manager to say that the owners had been in touch to say they were installing cameras and would begin issuing parking fines. I have no problem with this at all as it is private land.

The facilities manager included a further line in gis email which quoted the parking rules from the employee handbook:

"Employees aren't allowed to park in the car park of any local business or in any local residential areas - disciplinary action will be taken against any employees who break these rules."

How legally enforcable is the "local residential" bit? My thoughts are that if I park on a local street in a safe and legal manner that doesn't block any driveways there is nothing that my employers can do. Would this rule stand up in an employment tribunal?

[ULA]

As far are parking is concerned as long as there are no parking restrictions, residents permit schemes, yellow lines etc you can park legally. What you do not know however is whether in the past there have been issues with business employees parking and local residents have complained, which resulted in this being in the employee handbook.

If a company sets out in its disciplinary procedures examples of what constitutes behaviour that will result in disciplinary action then effectively staff have been made aware and any contravention of this will allow the company to instigate the disciplinary process.

[Harrykanefly]

Thanks for the reply. I can see how residents would get annoyed, although the problem subsides outside of normal office hours as people disperse.

I believe I have good grounds to be annoyes about the situation, however, as there really isn't an alternative to a lot of employees. The company is situated in a small city and a lot of employees commute from other nearby towns. The train station is nearly three miles from thw office and the bus services aren't regular. The closest paid car park is a 25 minute walk.

Does the employee handbook stand up to such unreasonable demands? If there were such a problem with residential parking then I believe the council should get involved and create a permits system.

[Hotglove]

If a group of employees booked a regular hire car for the 3 mile journey from the station, perhaps that would be a cost effective solution?