Parking Eye - ANPR Overstay 'Parking Charge Notice'

AndyBSG · 8 September 2017 at 1:39PM

Apologies for starting a thread, I have read the newbies thread but am a little unclear on how to proceed.

In the incident in question my registered vehicle entered an ANPR monitored Car Park.

- A fee was paid using a machine there, one of the ones where you enter the vehicle reg, for 1 hour of parking.

- The ANPR recorded entry at 14:48 and exit at 16:17 so there was an alleged 28 minute overstay.

- There is no 'double dip' being alleged

I have 4 questions which I will put in bold for ease of reading.

Reading the thread my first step should be to appeal using the following template?

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Dear Sirs

Re: PCN No. ....................

I challenge this 'PCN' as keeper of the car.

I believe that your signs fail the test of 'large lettering' and prominence, as established in ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis. Your unremarkable and obscure signs were not seen by the driver, are in very small print and the terms are not readable to drivers.

There will be no admissions as to who was driving and no assumptions can be drawn. You must either rely on the POFA 2012 and offer me a POPLA code, or cancel the charge.

Should you obtain the registered keeper's data from the DVLA without reasonable cause, please take this as formal notice that I reserve the right to sue your company and the landowner/principal, for a sum not less than £250 for any Data Protection Act breach. Your aggressive business practice and unwarranted threat of court for the ordinary matter of a driver using my car without causing any obstruction nor offence, has caused significant distress to me.

I do not give you consent to process data relating to me or this vehicle. I deny liability for any sum at all and you must consider this letter a Section 10 Notice under the DPA. You are required to respond within 21 days. I have kept proof of submission of this appeal and look forward to your reply.

Yours faithfully,

Is that all I need to put in the initial appeal or do I need to put everything in that I will later use in the POPLA appeal?

Should my appeal fail, have I lost the right to pay the reduced £60 fee?

When should I appeal? Immediately or at the last possible minute?

My obvious concern is that a fee was paid so unsure if by paying a fee the defence of not seeing the signs is inadmissible?

Hopefully once those are answered I can send it off and the appeal will end there with them dropping the case.

If not i'm sure i'll be back with further questions!

AndyBSG · 8 September 2017 at 1:46PM

The notice in question that was received

Coupon-mad · 8 September 2017 at 3:10PM

If it's a retail park the FIRST thing to do is a complain to the retailer or site management firm, to ask them to call their dogs off as you were a genuine shopper/patron of the premises.

Is that all I need to put in the initial appeal or do I need to put everything in that I will later use in the POPLA appeal?

Yes that's all, and no, you don't. However if decent money was spent there - over £30 - then a receipt is definitely worth attaching.

Should my appeal fail, have I lost the right to pay the reduced £60 fee?

Yes, but in practice PE will re-offer the discount, but they WILL reject the appeal anyway, unless you attach an enormous retailer receipt, or unless the retailer tells them to cancel for 'goodwill'.

When should I appeal? Immediately or at the last possible minute?

After exhausting the retailer/site complaint, but in any event, by the end of this month (28 days from the date it was sent). No rush, complain first.

My obvious concern is that a fee was paid so unsure if by paying a fee the defence of not seeing the signs is inadmissible?

Probably unlikely to win at POPLA with nearly half an hour extra on site, sorry to say, that's why a site management complaint, and/or a Social Media public complaint to embarrass any retailer, must be 'Plan A'.

Was the back of the PCN one that has the paragraph about the POFA and 29 days to keeper liability?

AndyBSG · 8 September 2017 at 3:12PM

Coupon-mad wrote: »

If it's a retail park the FIRST thing to do is a complain to the retailer or site management firm, to ask them to call their dogs off as you were a genuine shopper/patron of the premises.

Unfortunately it was a sea side car park, not a retailer one.

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Was the back of the PCN one that has the paragraph about the POFA and 29 days to keeper liability?

Yes, it does have that on the back.

One other point, the payment at the machine was made by debit card. Can that be used to identify the driver making the 'driver not identified' argument null and void?

Probably getting ahead of myself here until I know if they reject the appeal.

Cheers for the feedback Coupon Mad, will send that off and see where it goes from there.

Redx · 8 September 2017 at 3:22PM

AndyBSG wrote: »

One other point, the payment at the machine was made by debit card. Can that be used to identify the driver making the 'driver not identified' argument null and void?

all that does is identify the person making the payment , an occupant of the vehicle who was present on the day

for all they know , the driver stayed in the vehicle whilst a passenger got out and paid

dont overthink this , assume they dont know who was driving unless somebody is fool enough to admit it

Coupon-mad · 8 September 2017 at 3:57PM

One other point, the payment at the machine was made by debit card. Can that be used to identify the driver making the 'driver not identified' argument null and void?

assume they don't know who was driving unless somebody is fool enough to admit it

Yes, but it's null and void anyway, as this is a POFA PCN served in time and a significant overstay. I think the OP will struggle.

AndyBSG · 8 September 2017 at 4:16PM

There are mitigating circumstances for the overstay but not sure how they will wash when it goes to POPLA.

The date in question was Bank Holiday weekend, on a very hot day, at a seaside car park.

In short, the car park was rammed and there is no barrier to only let in cars when there are spaces so there were more cars in the car park than there were spaces, all queuing for spots.

I understand itt took a good 10 minutes to find a space and roughly the same again to get out.

I think the start time on the windscreen ticket reflects that as it was about 10 minutes after the ANPR snapped my vehicle but I do not have the ticket so not sure if they are obliged to provide me that information along with information on how many cars were actually in the car park according to the ANPR cameras and how many spaces the car park has).

Also, it is a single lane entrance and exit to get in so if a car comes in at the same time as one exits you get a mexican standoff which causes delays.

Finally there are no marked bays so my vehicle was actually blocked in by another vehicle and took a lot of maneuvering to get out, adding time to the eventual exit.

So, not sure if I can argue that the vehicle was only parked for the hour that was paid for

Redx · 8 September 2017 at 6:22PM

yes you can try that argument as a part of the 2 GRACE PERIODS , both at POPLA and in court

one was one in court a few years ago by ivor pecheque (fistral beach) on similar arguments because driving reound and waiting for a space was not parking

so its already won in court on at least one occasion and this was reported on here and in parking pranksters blogs too

the more research you do, the better equipped you will be

Coupon-mad · 8 September 2017 at 11:53PM

I think the start time on the windscreen ticket reflects that as it was about 10 minutes after the ANPR snapped my vehicle but I do not have the ticket so not sure if they are obliged to provide me that information along with information on how many cars were actually in the car park according to the ANPR cameras and how many spaces the car park has).

I think if you log in online, PE's page will show you the times?

Parking Eye - ANPR Overstay 'Parking Charge Notice'

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