A Royton couple have had their parking fine cancelled after an Oldham Times intervention.

Martin Andrew, 54, and wife Jackie, 56, visited Elk Mill shopping mark to get a meal from Subway back in June.

Recovering from surgery, Martin is a legitimate blue badge holder – but weeks later, the couple received a letter in the post demanding £170 for failing to display a blue badge.

The letter stated the fine was originally £60 but had gone up to £170 due to the couple allegedly ignoring correspondence from the company.

Martin accepted that he may have forgotten to display his blue badge but is adamant that no letters were received prior to the increased amount.

He said he would be happy to pay the original £60 fine.

After The Oldham Times intervened, parking company GroupNexus agreed to drop the fine back to the original £60.

ORIGINAL STORY: Oldham couple vow never to return to Elk Mill after parking fine.

However, following the story the couple received another letter demanding a £170 payment dated Friday, October 7 – a week after they had been assured the fine had been reduced back to £60.

Now, after another intervention by the paper, the parking company has agreed to completely drop the charge.

Martin said: “It's unbelievable how the whole parking process is managed at Elk Mill at a time when consumers are cutting back on costs due to the economic situation.

“Elk Mill’s attitude will only encourage customers to avoid this farce in terms of parking, as I said fair enough – we may have made a mistake if we did not show the blue badge but to issue no PCN on the day, nor hear anything until the 28-day ‘cheap fine’ £60 period had expired, which then increased to £170, is daylight robbery.

“Many customers will have paid this unjust increase in fear of going to court.

“Without the help of The Oldham Times we would have been in fear of going to court ourselves.

“It strikes us as an irresponsible, unjustified working practice by the parking company and Elk Mill management.

“As we say, we are not going to Elk mill in the future and we encourage others to avoid or walk there.”