A Stockport dad who was issued a parking fine during a visit to a branch of Marks and Spencer says the punishment has been unexpectedly cancelled.

Tim Coates parked up at the Peel Centre in Stockport on June 22 this year but later found out he had fallen foul of Ocean Parking's rules. The firm, which runs the site, says cars must be completely between the white lines of the parking bay.

A photo seen by the Manchester Evening News taken when the £100 fine was issued shows Mr Coates' tyre on the white line. This later increased to £170 but the Stockport dad says he never received an email telling him his appeal had been lost.

Ocean Parking have confirmed they have now cancelled Mr Coates' fine. A spokesperson for the company said this was following a request by Peel Centre owners Peel L&P on October 2, shortly after the LDRS' coverage of Mr Coates' complaint.

Shortly before being told about the cancellation, Mr Coates also contacted Ocean Parking as he believed a number of key documents had been left out when the parking fine was first sent.

Mr Coates said he never raised the issue in order to get the fine cancelled but rather highlight what he sees as unfairness and 'stop people falling into the same trap'. He plans to continue to raise concerns about what he believes are issues with privately operated car parks.

However he told the LDRS: "It's about time. Some common sense has prevailed. They must have seen the coverage they were getting.

"Maybe they are hoping this will go away. It was never the mission to get it cancelled."

He added: "When it came through yesterday, did I raise a glass? Yes I did because it feels like a small triumph for the little man."

Mr Coates said: "I feel like we as motorists are being held to ransom by private parking companies and the appeal process is heavily weighted in their favour. I do not care what they say but my experience says that.

"If people are parking up and do not realise what they have done, it's just easy money for them and I do feel they are exploiting the whole thing."

The Stockport dad maintains he never received an email telling him his appeal was rejected on July 3 with an email attachment sent at a later date continuing to mark as unread. However Ocean Parking also acknowledged emails from Mr Coates were missed as they were marked as spam.

A spokesperson for Ocean Parking said: "We have supporting evidence from our back-office system, including the appeal delivery information, a copy of the email sent to Mr Coates, and can see the email in our inbox. This evidence confirms that the document was sent to Mr Coates on July 3 2026.

"Mr Coates would not have been able to submit an appeal directly through the Independent Appeals Service on August 18 2026, as this was outside the 28-day period in which an appeal could be submitted.

"Where an appeal falls outside the standard timeframe, the appellant would need to contact us so that a non-standard appeal could be submitted on their behalf. We have no record of Mr Coates making such a request.

"With regard to the emails dated 17 and 18 August, these were held by our email system as suspected spam and therefore were not delivered to our inbox. It is important to note, however, that Mr Coates sent multiple other emails to us both before and after these dates, demonstrating that he was able to correspond with us during this period."