"I had lunch with my Spanish in laws and wife during our honeymoon trip to Loch Lomond. The food was nice, portions decent and bar staff friendly. However, I have decided to give a 3-star rating because of my experience with the establishment following this. We parked our rental car in what I now know is the Balmaha overflow car park. For anyone reading this, I would urge you to avoid this car park and use the official council run car park nearby cheaper with clearer terms). The overflow car park is run by Civil Enforcement but owned by the proprietor of Oak Tree Inn. I received a PCN from CE for parking in the overflow car park despite having a valid ticket that more than covered the length of our stay stay 4 hours, ticket valid for 12 hours) and patronising the Oak Tree Inn. I appealed to CE but they declined on the basis that although I had a valid ticket, I had purchased it 25 mins after entering the car park and not within the 10minute period they mandated. I was unaware of this stipulation but had already notified them that prior to purchasing the ticket, I had to hurriedly take an unwell dependent passenger to the nearest public bathroom, whilst the other passengers waited in the car for us to return. Predictably they didn’t care. Having taken advice from POPLA, I emailed the management at Oak Tree inn to explain the circumstances so that they could instruct CE to rescind the ticket. They issued a one line response stating that as I had launched a formal appeal to CE, they could not help although according to POPLA as the land owners who contract CE to operate the car park this is untrue). Once my appeal was rejected by CE, I wrote several further emails to the Oak Tree management seeking their help that were ignored. I did manage to speak with the proprietor who kindly let me know he would look into the matter, but one month later have heard nothing concrete back. Rather than risk escalating costs, I reluctantly decided to pay the PCN. So having paid Oak Tree Inn £70 for a lunch for 4, we are a further £95 out of pocket £5 parking ticket, £60 PCN, £30 car rental admin fee due to paid PCN) despite having a valid parking ticket to more than cover our visit and simply because I needed to briefly attend to an unwell dependent passenger. As a hospitality business, I can’t help but feel you have a duty of care to your patrons, to meaningfully engage with them when they turn to you for help, and to operate an independent corporate governance framework that seeks to protect them from unjustified financial exploitation. We feel let down by Oak Tree Inn in this regard and our visit has left an unnecessary dark cloud over what was an otherwise lovely honeymoon in Loch Lomond."
