Ncp anpr

Umkomaas wrote: »

you really need to read the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post # 3 to help you in constructing a winning POPLA appeal. There are a number of ready written appeal points (long ones with all the technical and legal points being made for you) for you to copy and paste to form the backbone of your appeal.

Use these (read each one to ensure it is appropriate to your case, but in 90%+ of the time they will be) and then add other points as appropriate.

Thanks, but is anyone able tell me what broad grounds my appeal falls under according to the POPLA thread? I also assume that when I am being referred to post #3, everyone actually means the post listing at #2? #3 seems to just focus on a failed appeal from 2012.

Not Genuine Pre-Estimate Of Loss (GPEOL)
PSDSU/Cancelled
Authority
ANPR
Signage
Mitigating Circumstances
Equality Act
Relevant Land

I am just struggling with what the relevant laws are to back up my case and under what category my appeal falls under. As I mentioned, there are 2,700 posts on the POPLA thread and I'm not sure which section I should focus on based on my appeal letter I posted on here a little earlier:

Poor Signage and No Offense committed. At the end of the day, how can it be refuted by POPLA that the driver was in the car park using the on-site carwash. The signage is secondary, but my photos clearly detail just one sign that show ANPR, and that was obscured by a tall vehicle parked in front of it.

OK, another stab at it. Again, I have enclosed a number of pictures where Terms & Conditions are a "dot" to the driver line of sight. I have also now added a map of the probable route of the driver through the car park and the camera angles. If this one reads well, I will provide a PDF'ed, redacted version before it goes for one final check. Thanks again for all the input!

P.S. Yes I was looking at the POPLA Decisions thread, not the Newbie one !! Sorry about that!

Dear Sir/Madam,

Re: Parking Charge Reference number [xxxxxxx]! Vehicle registration: [xxxxxxxx]

I am the registered keeper of the above vehicle and have received the above demand from NCP.

My appeal to NCP was rejected and they gave me POPLA code [xxxxxxxxx].

The basis of my appeal is: Unclear/Obscured Signage and that No Offense was committed
I am the keeper of the vehicle with the above registration, the driver was not able to observe the one “ANPR” sign located on the CL side entrance of the car park due to a tall vehicle obscuring the signage. As you will note from the below, the entrance to the car park has no height restrictions in place which means that vehicles of any size can enter the car park and spaces are available directly in front of the one sign from that side of the car park (pictures not taken at the time of the alleged offense). It is also noteworthy that the “main” entrance sign makes no mention of the ANPR system in legible or reasonable lettering. The only mention is small text underneath the camera icon which itself is small from an entering drivers “point of view”. It cannot be assumed that either the camera or the text underneath it can be observed in a vehicle travelling at 15-20 miles per hour.

PHOTOS

The signs in this car park are not prominent, clear or legible from all parking spaces and there is insufficient notice of the sum of the parking charge itself

There was no contract nor agreement on the 'parking charge' at all. It is submitted that the driver did not have a fair opportunity to read about any terms involving this huge charge, which is out of all proportion and not saved by the dissimilar 'ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis' case.

In the Beavis case, which turned on specific facts relating only to the signs at that site and the unique interests and intentions of the landowners, the signs were unusually clear and not a typical example for this notorious industry. The Supreme Court were keen to point out the decision related to that car park and those facts only:

http://imgur.com/a/AkMCN

In the Beavis case, the £85 charge itself was in the largest font size with a contrasting colour background and the terms were legible, fairly concise and unambiguous. There were 'large lettering' signs at the entrance and all around the car park, according to the Judges.

Here is the 'Beavis case' sign as a comparison to the signs under dispute in this case:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eYdphoIIDgE/VpbCpfSTaiI/AAAAAAAAE10/5uFjL528DgU/s640/Parking%2Bsign_001.jpg

This case, by comparison, does not demonstrate an example of the 'large lettering' and 'prominent signage' that impressed the Supreme Court Judges and swayed them into deciding that in the specific car park in the Beavis case alone, a contract and 'agreement on the charge' existed.

Here, the signs are sporadically placed, indeed obscured and hidden in some areas. They are unremarkable, not immediately obvious as parking terms and the wording is mostly illegible, being crowded and cluttered with a lack of white space as a background. It is indisputable that placing letters too close together in order to fit more information into a smaller space can drastically reduce the legibility of a sign, especially one which must be read BEFORE the action of parking and leaving the car.

It is vital to observe, since 'adequate notice of the parking charge' is mandatory under the POFA Schedule 4 and the BPA Code of Practice, these signs do not clearly mention the parking charge which is hidden in small print (and does not feature at all on some of the signs). Areas of this site are unsigned and there are no full terms displayed - i.e. with the sum of the parking charge itself in large lettering - at the entrance either, so it cannot be assumed that a driver drove past and could read a legible sign, nor parked near one.

This case is more similar to the signage in POPLA decision 5960956830 on 2.6.16, where the Assessor Rochelle Merritt found as fact that signs in a similar size font in a busy car park where other unrelated signs were far larger, was inadequate:

''the signage is not of a good enough size to afford motorists the chance to read and understand the terms and conditions before deciding to remain in the car park. [...] In addition the operators signs would not be clearly visible from a parking space [...] The appellant has raised other grounds for appeal but I have not dealt with these as I have allowed the appeal.''

From the evidence I have seen so far, the terms appear to be displayed inadequately, in letters no more than about half an inch high, approximately. I put the operator to strict proof as to the size of the wording on their signs and the size of lettering for the most onerous term, the parking charge itself.

The letters seem to be no larger than .40 font size going by this guide:

http://www-archive.mozilla.org/newlayout/testcases/css/sec526pt2.htm

As further evidence that this is inadequate notice, Letter Height Visibility is discussed here:

http://www.signazon.com/help-center/sign-letter-height-visibility-chart.aspx

''When designing your sign, consider how you will be using it, as well as how far away the readers you want to impact will be. For example, if you are placing a sales advertisement inside your retail store, your text only needs to be visible to the people in the store. 1-2” letters (or smaller) would work just fine. However, if you are hanging banners and want drivers on a nearby highway to be able to see them, design your letters at 3” or even larger.''

...and the same chart is reproduced here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/gds/Outdoor-Dimensional-Sign-Letter-Best-Viewing-Distance-/10000000175068392/g.html

''When designing an outdoor sign for your business keep in mind the readability of the letters. Letters always look smaller when mounted high onto an outdoor wall''.

''...a guideline for selecting sign letters. Multiply the letter height by 10 and that is the best viewing distance in feet. Multiply the best viewing distance by 4 and that is the max viewing distance.''

So, a letter height of just half an inch, showing the terms and the 'charge' and placed high on a wall or pole or buried in far too crowded small print, is woefully inadequate in an outdoor car park. Given that letters look smaller when high up on a wall or pole, as the angle renders the words less readable due to the perspective and height, you would have to stand right in front of it and still need a stepladder (and perhaps a torch and/or magnifying glass) to be able to read the terms.

Under Lord Denning's Red Hand Rule, the charge (being 'out of all proportion' with expectations of drivers in this car park and which is the most onerous of terms) should have been effectively: 'in red letters with a red hand pointing to it' - i.e. VERY clear and prominent with the terms in large lettering, as was found to be the case in the car park in 'Beavis'. A reasonable interpretation of the 'red hand rule' and the 'signage visibility distance' tables above and the BPA Code of Practice, taking all information into account, would require a parking charge and the terms to be displayed far more transparently, on a lower sign and in far larger lettering, with fewer words and more 'white space' as background contrast. Indeed in the Consumer Rights Act 2015 there is a 'Requirement for transparency':

(1) A trader must ensure that a written term of a consumer contract, or a consumer notice in writing, is transparent.
(2) A consumer notice is transparent for the purposes of subsection (1) if it is expressed in plain and intelligible language and it is legible.

The Beavis case signs not being similar to the signs in this appeal at all, I submit that the persuasive case law is in fact 'Vine v London Borough of Waltham Forest [2000] EWCA Civ 106' about a driver not seeing the terms and consequently, she was NOT deemed bound by them.

This judgment is binding case law from the Court of Appeal and supports my argument, not the operator's case:

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2000/106.html

This was a victory for the motorist and found that, where terms on a sign are not seen and the area is not clearly marked/signed with prominent terms, the driver has not consented to - and cannot have 'breached' - an unknown contract because there is no contract capable of being established. The driver in that case (who had not seen any signs/lines) had NOT entered into a contract. The recorder made a clear finding of fact that the plaintiff, Miss Vine, did not see a sign because the area was not clearly marked as 'private land' and the signs were obscured/not adjacent to the car and could not have been seen and read from a driver's seat before parking.

So, for this appeal, I put this operator to strict proof of where the car was parked and (from photos taken in the same lighting conditions) how their signs appeared on that date, at that time, from the angle of the driver's perspective. Equally, I require this operator to show how the entrance signs appear from a driver's seat, not stock examples of 'the sign' in isolation/close-up. I submit that full terms simply cannot be read from a car before parking and mere 'stock examples' of close-ups of the (alleged) signage terms will not be sufficient to disprove this.

Moving onto the second part of the appeal, the vehicle was not actually parked in a space but instead waiting to use the on-site car wash (pictured below). The driver decided to abandon the carwash after 15 minutes and opted for a different one located elsewhere across town. As the driver continued the route through the car park to the TS exit, it is clear from the photos I recently took below that show multiple vantage points of what the driver would have seen there are no indications throughout the car park that ANPR is being used.

PHOTOS

I have enclosed a map of the area for you to review the camera angles, the route the car took, the position of the carwash and the entry/exit points.

MAP HERE

Based on the above appeal and evidence I respectfully request that my appeal is upheld and that the charge is dismissed.

Yours sincerely,

Thank you so much for this extra advice!

- no landowner authority - template - added

- appellant not shown to be the individual liable - template - I've gone through the newbie thread and I'm not sure this applies to me as 1) It seems specific to PE whereas mine is NCP, and 2) I don't think I have the "blank space" referred to on the linked thread

- Relevant Land (if this was a railway car park?) - Not a railway carpark, assume this is not a pertinent part of my appeal

- Your point below (but it needs a heading):

'The vehicle was not parked, just waiting for the car wash' - Done

You also mentioned about the language in the NTK, but I have cross referenced and the letter I have is exactly the same wording as this persons' NTK, so I think it cannot be referred to? http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5702376&highlight=ncp+ntk#9

Thanks again, seems like we're making progress :beer: