A mother of two has a warning for Christmas shoppers after she and a friend received parking fines whilst shopping for presents at the Anglia Retail Park in Ipswich.
Emma Bangay, 38, had spent a relaxing day shopping with a friend, not realising that parking restrictions were now in place at the popular shopping complex near Whitehouse.
Since the autumn parking has been limited to three hours, unless shoppers input their registration number using machines that are situated in Billy Beez and Pizza Hut.
Mrs Bangay, who lives in Stratford St Andrew, said: "I felt awful because I recommended we went there and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and now we've both been hit with a £60 fine just before Christmas."
Mrs Bangay has appealed to car park owners Ipswich Borough Council describing how "gutted" she was to receive the letter and her disappointment that the new restrictions have been brought in.
Mrs Bangay said: "It is somewhere I go quite often and I just didn't look. I was on autopilot and didn't notice anything different.
"The annoying thing is there is no where in the car park you can go if you want to pay more and stay longer and the retailers haven't got posters up, they don't seem to have brought it to their customer's attention."
In her appeal letter Mr Bangay stated she "does not understand" why the council have felt the need to impose parking restrictions at the retail park - explaining that she has never seen the car park at full capacity.
Mrs Bangay is keen that other shoppers aren't caught out this Christmas saying: "Be aware that there are new parking regulations in place and keep an eye on the time, be careful."
Responding to Mrs Bangay, a spokesman for Ipserv who manage the car park, said: "It would be inappropriate to comment on this particular case as we understand the customer wishes to lodge an appeal.
"However, we would like to stress that there are no less than 72 signs in the car park - all visible from the parking spaces - which explain the rules.
"Like other leading retailers in this area and elsewhere we put a time limit on free parking to deter non-customers abusing the system."
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