Forest Live
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A nasty and badly managed move to automatic parking management and billing.
OK, We visit Forestry Commission properties alot. They are great for the kids, walking and cycling. We usually buy a year-long pass as its cheaper than paying the 6 pounds or so to park for each visit. Forestry England (the new snappy post-devolution name for the Forestry Commission) have recently changed the car parking to a number plate recognition system and its all 'gone online'. We visited for the first time since this change today, we also needed to renew our pass. We were told by the lady there that 'the till wasn't open' so she couldn't process our membership renewal but we could do it online. We were also told that if we renewed our pass today we wouldn't have to pay individually for today's parking. Great; so far so good. 'But', said the lady in a manner not too dissimilar to the traditional fairy godmother;: "You must be sure to do it before midnight or you will get a parking fine". Ok must do. We got home at 1730 and tried to log in. It didn't recognise my email address. Odd. I tried resetting my password.... again it simply didn't recognise the email to send a reset to. Nightmare. Undeterred I tried to call the helpline.... they all went home at 1700. OK next: Try to register as a new customer... nope ! Apparently it remembered me then and said 'a customer with these details already exists' and wouldn't let me proceed further. I now can't buy a pass until I speak to someone tomorrow (well past the midnight deadline) and await my wretched parking fine. By midnight tonight I will be a little bit poorer and a great deal more upset. What a dreadful, frustrating and worrying experience. They can't sell you membership in person, advising you to go online only to be met with a bluff, unresponsive and ignorant website that fails at every turn and will ultimately cost me more money in fines or heartache trying to remove the fine. All for a walk in the woods. Not-worth-it. I would advise anyone to seek alternative venues or park at a nearby carpark or layby and walk to the forest. So far they haven't got facial recognition (but I guess they soon will!).