Back in June—or possibly July; I cannot be certain because I was never sent the notification about the proposed ANPR cameras. I only became aware of it after reading the message on a neighbour’s mobile phone.
The message was clear enough: register with the parking control company by 1 August, or risk a £100 parking charge for parking in your own designated bay, once ANPR cameras were installed and operated by a third-party parking company.
I understand that a number of residents duly paid the £5 registration fee.
That means handing personal information to a commercial parking company simply to protect the right to park in a space you already have a right to use. A vehicle registration number is personal data where it can be linked to an identifiable individual.
But here we are, halfway through September.
No ANPR cameras. No apparent installation. And, as things stand, no indication that they will ever be installed.
So a perfectly reasonable question is this:
Will the directors reimburse those residents who paid the £5 registration fee in response to their instruction?
I certainly would not expect residents to be asked to fund those costs through the Service Charge accounts if the expenditure is not a properly recoverable service-charge cost.
And if the directors consider that the £5 payments should be reimbursed from another source—including, if appropriate, the Company's Directors' and Officers' insurance—then surely that is something they should now explain to the residents who paid.
After all, if residents were asked to pay because the directors said ANPR was being introduced, it seems only fair that residents should not be left out of pocket if that instruction ultimately leads nowhere.
A simple question, then:
How many residents paid the £5, how much was collected, where is that money now—and who is going to reimburse it? .