AN elderly woman who fell in a Lidl car park, sustaining injuries to her back, has had to fight to get a car parking notice quashed.
81-year-old Penelope Dallymore was visiting the store in Midsomer Norton when she fell. Unable to drive, the distressed shopper was collected by her son, leaving her car behind in the car park.
Days later, a parking notice dropped through Penelope’s letterbox from private parking company Private Eye, and it took two attempts to have it overturned.
Both times Penelope had to send the letters by recorded delivery, making her nearly £20 out of pocket.
A first letter written by the pensioner remained unanswered, and it took a visit to the Citizens’ Advice Bureau and their help for the charges to be suspended.
She said: “I went into the CAB in Midsomer Norton and had a word with them and they typed out a better letter than I could write and we posted that registered recorded delivery too.”
The 81-year-old fell in the middle of July and had to wait more than a month to find out the charge would be dropped.
After her fall, the pensioner has had X-rays and is now signed up for physiotherapy and is slowly on the mend. She has returned to the Lidl store since to thank the manager for his assistance.
She explained: “The manager brought a chair out for me and I went in and said, oh, thank you for the chair. I mentioned about writing a letter and he said, oh, ‘that's nothing to do with us’.”
“I think it's a bit of a money-making exercise; I think it is a bit of a con, to be honest,” she concluded.