Simply outrageous

Coming to a car park near you from Monday

S&M has announced it is to start charging customers to use its Petersfield car park from Monday, February 22.

The cheapest car park in town, will, over the course of Sunday night, become the most expensive, with customers having to fork out £2 for the first hour and £4 for stays of up to 90 minutes.

In a carefully worded announcement S&M is at pains to point out that this should not affect any of its real customers because the £2 is refundable once any customer spends £10 or more in the store.

The introduction of this system would cause outrage among the customers of many stores, but of course at S&M £10 is pretty much a minimum spend.

We sent our reluctant ace reporter to buy his lunch there today; he came back to HQ with a free-range ham sandwich on pumpkin-seeded malted brown bread, a bottle of old-fashioned lemonade and lime, and a bag of hand-crafted cheddar and chive crisps with a hint of oregano - the cost was £23.12.

We spoke to Claire Duncan-Biscuit who clarified the reasoning behind the change.

She said: “You need to understand that our target customer is aged over 80 with poor eyesight.

“Our customers like to be able to park without any regard for the guide lines that map out the parking bays and they like to have enough room to get in and out of their cars with ease.

“From our studies we estimate that from Monday our car park should be at least 80 per cent empty, giving our loyal customers as much room as they need to swing their car doors open.

“I would also like to reassure our loyal customers that Ray Gunn, our enforcement officer will be on duty to keep the car park clear of 99p Shop oiks. This is not just any car park; this is an S&M car park.”

This is a bold move at a time when car parking in the town centre has never been cheaper. Any visitor to Petersfield knows you can now park anywhere for as long as you like for free.