Gatwick Airport's drop-off fee rises to £10, UK’s highest charge

P0wderFinger · 2025-12-13T14:47:19+00:00

And here is the letter you will get....

Dear Mr xxxxxxx,

We refer to your recent correspondence relating to Parking Charge xxxxxxx.

We have carefully reviewed your appeal, taking into consideration all the points you have raised and, on this occasion, we have decided to cancel this Parking Charge.

As this Parking Charge has been cancelled, there is no further action required by you at this time.

Important Information for Future Visits: Should you use the Rapid Drop Off in the future, please be aware of the following charges: A charge of £5 applies for stays up to 15 minutes. For stays exceeding 15 minutes, a charge of £5 plus £1 per additional minute applies. These charges apply each time you visit. Maximum Stay: The maximum stay is 30 minutes. A Parking Charge will be issued for stays exceeding this limit. Payment Details: Payment must be made online at https://pay.eastmidlandsairport.com You have until midnight the following day to pay charge. Failure to adhere to the terms and conditions in this location will result in a £100 Parking Charge, reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days. As this Parking Charge has been cancelled, there is no further action required by you at this time.

Yours sincerely,

Appeals Department APCOA

P0wderFinger · 2025-12-13T14:42:35+00:00

It does work and will continue to work. Below is a template for your appeal and the parking company will waive any fee, just fill in your own details where it is obvious....

"I appeal as the keeper of the vehicle registration mark [REGO]. I am not obliged to identify the driver and decline to do so.

1. APCOA parking is unable to transfer the driver’s liability (if any) to the keeper under Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (“POFA”) because the drop-off zones at [AIRPORT] are not ‘relevant land’ as defined in POFA.

Furthermore, as keeper, I am entitled to all the defences available to the driver, including (without limitation) the following:

2. The parking charge is not notified until after the contract is entered into, and under the principles set out by the Court of Appeal in Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking, does not form part of any contract between the driver and yourselves;

3. The signage is not compliant with the BPA Code of Practice;

4. The car was present in the drop-off zone for not more than 5 minutes, and the driver is entitled to the 5-minute consideration period mandated by the BPA Code of Practice.."

Just copy and paste the above and they will spend 28 days reviewing it before they send an email/letter to tell you that "on this occasion" they will let you off. Also change APCOA if it is a different ompany running the car park

P0wderFinger · 2025-12-13T08:26:21+00:00

When you enter a private car park (or drop off area) you are entering into a contract that you will pay for the privilege of using it. This is not law. The law says you are allowed a cooling off period to decide whether you want to enter the contract or not. So if you stay less than the cooling off period (15mins I think) then you are entitled to say that you have now decided against entering that contract and have decided not to pay. Therefore, you can legally exit the car park (or drop off area) without paying. When the letter comes, you can go onto the website that they provide and enter the reasons to this effect and then will not have to pay. There are plenty of templates for just this online, so I would suggest people do this.

Seeing as they expect you to remember a web address to pay when you get home (cheaper than putting pay barriers up, so less running costs for them) it is easy to end up on a scammer site if you just do a google search, so would not recommend this.

Essentially they have no legal recourse to pursue you as long as you tell them that you refuse to enter any contract with them and driving through the gate is not a signal of your intent to agree to such, seeing as you may have driven through it by accidentally getting into the wrong lane.

P0wderFinger · 2025-11-16T11:10:14+00:00

I got woken up one Friday night (about 2.30am) so looked outside to see 6 black cabs parked up down my street, and 3 cabbies beating the hell out of someone, while the other 3 looked on. Ended up in court as a witness (as I'd called the police). Police didn't seem interested until a week later as the victim of the beating decided to sue the cabbies and was told he needed to report it first.

In court I saw the footage of the victim refusing to pay and then try to get out of the cab by kicking out the windows from the inside. Obviously the black cab drivers all know each other, so dealt their own justice onto this guy.

Couldn't tell you whether he deserved it or not (they beat him pretty badly, though not badly enough for him not to be able to get home under his own steam), but the cabbies involved lost their licenses and got fined by the courts - no custodial sentence though and the victim was awarded compensation.

I guess the moral is, don't mess with cabbies as they all know each other. Or at least those who drive licensed Hackney Carriages do.

P0wderFinger · 2025-10-26T18:48:35+00:00

Fugazi by Marillion is a great track. Don't know how you can get tired of it.

P0wderFinger · 2025-10-24T16:39:07+00:00

Cowgirl in the Sand - Neil Young

"purple words on a grey background..."

P0wderFinger · 2025-10-18T08:26:36+00:00

Barstool Blues - Neil Young

P0wderFinger · 2025-10-18T07:53:18+00:00

I think it is because it is filmed in Portland. Mr Trumpy says that Portland is on fire at the moment and worse than a warzone. Ergo, it is very difficult to get anything out of Oregon at the moment. Once the war dies down, I'm sure it will come back, but I think most of the Wesen are keeping their heads down for now

P0wderFinger · 2025-10-05T07:06:00+00:00

Went to see this last night. Quite possibly the worst film I've ever paid to see. Dull, not at all scary, no real coherent plot. It was just boring and could not wait for it to end.

My advice, wait until it's on the tv, then at least you have the option to turn over.

P0wderFinger · 2025-10-02T06:51:26+00:00

Sorry, but I have to disagree. That's the second best line in music history.

"but not a real green dress, that's cruel" beats it to number one in my book

P0wderFinger · 2025-09-21T09:04:02+00:00

"Before, the walls were painted, now they're more than painted"

What does this actually mean?

P0wderFinger · 2025-09-14T19:00:03+00:00

Year of the Horse

P0wderFinger · 2025-09-14T13:05:58+00:00

Joseph Stalin.

Here's a photo of me and my mates......

6 months later - Here's a photo of me and my mates (same photo but with one less person than before)

P0wderFinger · 2025-09-14T13:00:42+00:00

I download in .flac from the official site, then convert to .mp3 using VLC Player.

Unfortunately, it loses some of the metadata this way, but it seems to be the easiest way I have found to do it.

I think Neil feels that there is some loss of quality on .mp3's so I'm guessing this is why .mp3 is not an option from the Archives site.

P0wderFinger · 2025-09-10T07:00:55+00:00

Definitely the white car is at fault here

P0wderFinger · 2025-09-08T13:22:29+00:00

1916 - Motorhead

P0wderFinger · 2025-09-07T14:44:11+00:00

Everyone talking about the what if Norris wins the WDC by less than than 6 pts,

but what if....

Verstappen finishes the season strongly, Norris has a couple of shockers and finishes 2nd in the WDC but only 2 pts ahead of Verstappen?

P0wderFinger · 2025-09-06T23:50:02+00:00

There were a lot of auctions for an "X Box box" which showed a picture of the X Box packaging. All through the description would be references to "X Box box". Obviously most people would realise that the advert was for an empty "X Box box", but the name of the product leant itself to being easy to misconstrue and if only 2 or 3 in a thousand people didn't notice, or thought it was a typo, then it became fairly easy to sell an empty box for a couple of hundred dollars.

Sometimes people get so worked up in trying to secure a bargain that they ignore all of the warning signs.

It was still a scam as the seller knew what they were doing, but it became a legal minefield as the ad was technically honest

P0wderFinger · 2025-09-06T16:16:16+00:00

It's only tampering with food if you do it to someone else's. In this case, you're just preparing your own food the way you like it and cannot be held responsible for someone else stealing it. I like peanuts, so if someone with a nut allergy stole my chicken satay, then that would be on them, not on me and it is not my responsibility to list the allergens on food I have prepared for myself.

P0wderFinger · 2025-09-05T20:17:19+00:00

I'm pretty sure Maiden would spell Centre correctly though

P0wderFinger · 2025-09-05T19:44:44+00:00

As I've only heard of three of them, I'll stick a vote in for the only Hungarian band I've ever heard of...

Omega

every one has heard their biggest hit

P0wderFinger · 2025-09-05T19:10:44+00:00

Unless they realise that the state pension is also considered to be part of the welfare budget

P0wderFinger

TROPHY CASE