ParkingEye @ ASDA, Brighton Marina - POPLA help please!

I am going to go back to the car park when it's dark later in the week and take some more photos to show exactly how poor the signage is

Sorry if this is obvious, but some people do mess this up - make sure the flash on your camera is switched to 'off' and you take your shots at approximately the same time as the parking event.

You will need to factor in that clocks have gone forward and the fact that after 21 December there is a daily gain in available light (15 mins a week I think).

Can you get someone to travel with you to do the camera work?

You don't need a covering letter and won't be posting it to London. Not even sure the address is right but anyway we always say people must upload their POPLA appeals under 'other' on the POPLA appeals site as a PDF. Never by post.

I would remove your second picture of the signs because you can read clearly '2 hours max stay' and your first pic is far better.

I didn't see anything added about the fact this is a new site for PE, because Smart were kicked out only a while ago and so PE have failed to add extra signs to tell locals that the regime and rules and parking firm, the entire 'contract' is not as it was a few months ago.

I didn't see this (sorry if it was buried there!):

'The driver had absolutely no idea there were restrictions in place in the car park! The driver has been using it for years, primarily in the dark when also visiting a restaurant and/or going to the cinema and not once has the driver noticed any signs, neither has the driver's girlfriend.'

Here are 2 points I used in a POPLA appeal about this car park, that I submitted for a fellow Albion fan last year and PE threw in the towel. So read, edit if necessary and add these:

4) This is a very new car park for ParkingEye. No extra signs warning of new restrictions (BPA breach) and no advertising consent for these new signs.

Until a few months ago, I find from researching this site, that Asda used Smart Parking then cancelled that contract. There were no extra signs warning locals that the previous rules and restrictions had changed. This is a requirement of the BPA CoP and this operator ignored it.

Further, as this was such a new site I contend that ParkingEye were ticketing without Local Authority Advertising Consent. I can find no Planning Application for their signs on the Brighton & Hove Planning Register and this suggests they are operating contrary to the law:

http://ww3.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=c1199915&action=SearchByFilter


5) Breach of the BPA Code of Practice on ANPR – DPA and CPUTRs breach.
It is submitted that this charge was not properly given because it breaches the BPA Code of Practice regarding ANPR. The signs fail to inform a driver what the ANPR data will be used for, which is a ‘misleading omission’ in consumer law and a Data Protection breach.

The driver had no idea that secret camera data would later be used against him to bind him to a charge he knew nothing about and did not agree to. The driver believed any cameras were there for security at the Marina, due to the lack of any other information (a black icon showing a camera communicates nothing and there was no such information anywhere in sight in the dark, in any case).

Failure to tell a driver how the data will be used is a ‘misleading omission’ of a material fact – prohibited by The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2008/9780110811574/regulation/3
’’Prohibition of unfair commercial practices’’: 3.—
(1) Unfair commercial practices are prohibited.
(2) Paragraphs (3) and (4) set out the circumstances when a commercial practice is unfair.
(4) A commercial practice is unfair if—
(a) it is a misleading action under the provisions of regulation 5;
(b) it is a misleading omission under the provisions of regulation 6; ‘’

I have shown that ParkingEye have failed the above tests by:

- installing cameras without information and warnings about the commercial purpose of the data collection;
- beginning a new enforcement/ticketing regime without extra signs to tell local drivers who may reasonably expect the old regime to be continuing;
- beginning a new enforcement/ticketing regime without Advertising/Planning Consent;

All of the above are ‘misleading actions’ and ‘misleading omissions’ of material facts, a series of commercial practices which are unconscionable and unfair. Even a BPA breach (and certainly DPA and Planning Consent breaches) render a charge under these circumstances ‘prohibited’, unrecoverable and therefore, not properly given:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2008/9780110811574/regulation/5

(3) A commercial practice satisfies the conditions of this paragraph if— (b) it concerns any failure by a trader to comply with a commitment contained in a code of conduct which the trader has undertaken to comply with, if
(i) the trader indicates in a commercial practice that he is bound by that code of conduct, and
(ii) the commitment is firm and capable of being verified and is not aspirational, and it causes or is likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise, taking account of its factual context and of all its features and circumstances.