Much-loved Liverpool bakery Homebaked slams 'scandalous' parking fines for customers

A much-loved Liverpool bakery has described parking fines handed out to customers and staff as ‘scandalous’ in a social media ‘rant’.

Situated on the border of Everton and opposite Liverpool’s Anfield Stadium, Homebaked Bakery has been serving pies to Liverpudlians for years. Always seen with large queues on matchdays, the Oakfield Road store is community-owned and was established after the closure of the old Mitchells bakery.

Mitchells served the neighbourhood for nearly 100 years, but was forced to close in 2010 as homes around Anfield were flattened. Rallying together to continue the bakery’s legacy, the community turned the site into Homebaked, and quickly became one of the city’s most-treasured stores.

But, after ten years in business, Homebaked has shared concerns about customer footfall due to an influx of what it calls ‘scandalous’ and ‘disgusting’ parking tickets for vehicles outside the shop.

The bakery is located in a residential area and there is very little parking available for the general public, specifically on matchdays. The area around Anfield Stadium - including Oakfield Road - is subject to a residents parking scheme, meaning those who park without a permit may face a fine.

The rules are strictly enforced and followed on match days by football fans and staff members at local businesses who opt to use public transport rather than drive to the stadium and its surrounding streets.

According to Homebaked, the ‘whole area has always followed’ the rules on matchdays and although the area is still residential parking only on non-matchdays, it has never been enforced, until now. The bakery said staff and customers are now being ‘targeted’ with parking tickets outside the shop.

“For some reason, after however many years since this was introduced, traffic wardens have been for around the last month and a half coming round Anfield and enforcing the ‘residents’ parking on non-matchdays,” Homebaked explained in a social media post.

They continued: “Since this has been happening in the last couple of months, we’ve now had 10 customers and three staff members and even our own two vans receive parking fines on normal mornings and afternoons. Scandalous.

“Getting a parking ticket for parking in a ‘residents’ street (where there are no immediate houses due to being flattened many years ago) when popping into our shop or even our neighbour George’s Porgies. A £70 fine for coming to get a pie or coming into work. We’re guessing people will be thinking what’s the point in risking it.”

In the statement, shared on September 4, the community bakery said ‘we get it on matchdays’ but added, ‘surely it’s not really fair that you are deciding to do this on the other 300 odd days a year in the middle of a time where people are already skint enough?’.

Noting that there is now ‘physically nowhere else’ for customers to park, Homebaked accused the parking tickets of being a ‘quick cash grab’ and said: “Makes you wonder why it hasn’t been enforced until now really doesn’t it.”

The Oakfield Road store said ‘we’ve bit our lip’ on the issue, hoping it would calm down after explaining the detrimental effects on the business, but ‘it has been to no avail’. Discussing a recent incident, Homebaked said: “We felt absolutely disgusted after we had a family come in for a cup of tea after they had been to the crematorium for their mum as they wanted somewhere to gather after what must of already been a horrible day- they come out to all three cars with tickets on. Why would they ever come back now after a Scone & Cuppas not just cost them £3 it’s cost them £50-70. Disgusting.”

Stating that whoever is responsible ‘should be ashamed’ and finished the statement by noting: “We hope this gets back to whoever feels like starting to enforce this on non match-days to have rethink on the effects it is having on local businesses and people. It’s wrong.”

Locals quickly took to the comments to share their experiences, with some saying that they too had received fines on Oakfield Road. One person described the enforcement as a ‘fiasco’, while others urged Liverpool City Council and their local MPs to look into the issue.

LiverpoolWorld has approached Liverpool City Council for a comment on multiple occasions.