British parking association

landmark

HI ALL

I have noticed that there is something seriously wrong with the British Parking Association's code of conduct; namely that the charges they recommend for private parking companies to charge are excessive and punitive in comparison with the actual costs that they should charge, making them illegal.

I'm currently engaged in dialogue with the BPA (British Parking Association) about this and the latest is as follows: -

To Richard Hilton
Business Development Manager (Approved Operator Scheme)
British Parking Association
Tel: 01444 447302
Fax: 01444 454 105

Dear Richard
RE: MY OBJECTIONS TO THE EXCESSIVELY HIGH LEVELS OF PRIVATE PARKING CHARGES SUPPORTED BY BPA
Thank you for your reply (to my complaint). I appreciate some feedback on this (from you).

(1) You stated: -

"The charges that are shown in the Code of Practice are recommendations based upon research conducted in 2006/2007 that took into account market forces (ie existing private tickets at the time), and charges levied under legislation by both Local Authorities and the police."

My reply

How can you compare a private parking charge with a Local Authority parking Fine as being arbitrarily similar to a mere excess charge in the former case? Since the latter is a punishment for breaking the law (unlike the former) it would justify the amount to fairly fit the crime as clearly set by rule of law with due course of appeal. Furthermore, is it not obvious that the unregulated private parking charge notices are set (and rubber stamped by BPA) arbitrary because they are similar amount if not the same amount, as a fine when they should, (according to the regulations stated in my previous email) be significantly less in amount and only reflect real costs only and not to punish peoples in breach of contract to be reasonable?

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(2) You stated: -

"As you know, the private parking system is based on the Law of Contract (or less commonly, the tort of trespass), and as such our legal advice has told us that in forming a contract between the driver and the operator, if that contract is broken, an operator is allowed to claim for reasonable losses that have been incurred in the execution of their parking contract with the landowner. As such, the missed opportunity for parking would be taken into account, but costs incurred for maintenance of parking equipment, administration of tickets and appeals, wages for staff and other costs would also be taken into account."

My reply

Let us examine what is reasonable then mentioning point by point. You mentioned the following reasonable losses.
(a) Missed opportunity for parking:
In the case of overstaying by a matter of minutes this would be negligible and it is extremely difficult to prove exactly how much this would be. It is merely conjecture on the part of the BPA and the PPCs who unfairly make such arbitrary justifications in order to extort more money than is reasonable
(b) Administration of tickets:
(c) Administration of appeals:
(d) Wages for staff:
For c,d and e This doesn't make sense... the fact is that Parking Eye do not employ staff to attend the car park for all eventualities, only office staff and maintenance staff; their job description will involve the issuing and preparation of these invoices, therefore to imply that damages are incurred by the involvement of employees hired for these express purposes is a quite ridiculous given that the cost of one of these invoices is more than any particular member of staff are paid per day!
(e) Maintenance of parking equipment:
Parking equipment maintenance costs are even smaller than staff wages!
(f) Other costs:
This is too vague and thus does not count as a valid expense.
Therefore I cannot see any justification for charging £70 for a 38 minute overstay at a car park that costs less than £1 per hour to park in.

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(3) You stated: -

"Such cases have been to court and have been accepted as reasonable by the courts."

My reply

Acually, I have never heard of there having been any cases where Parking Eye or other such companies have brought a case to the county court themselves. I Don't think you will ever be able to find any evidence to prove this. We are witnessing a big improvement in Social justice for motorists. You see, PPCs don’t sue their victims, because they know the merits of their case are non existent.

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CONCLUSIONS REACHED
The charges were (or had the potential to be) excessive and punitive in comparison with the costs to the Parking Eye caused by my conduct which triggered the charges.
The charges were set by reference to the overall cost to Parking Eye of providing parking spaces to Aldi customers which held to account, rather than merely to the cost of my conduct thereby effectively requiring me to subsidise the provision of other customers by Parking Eye by means of rendering what would amount to a fine*see Dunlop in case law below.
In the premises Parking Eye did not deal fairly as between myself and its other customers.
The existence and quantum of the charges were inadequately and/or insufficiently explained and/or drawn to my attention either; when I read the signs
The circumstances and manner in which the charges were levied created potential for the application of multiple/subsequent charges and the levying of charges to gave rise to the application of further charges. (Evidence can be provided upon request).
The complexity of the charges and/or the circumstances in which they were levied with threats of further unregulated harassment and extortion by debt collection agencies. The nature of the charges and/or the circumstances of their application was thus such as to cause me inherent difficulties in predicting the incidence and amount of such charges in advance.
The absence of any effective competition between providers the Aldi customers' car park which restricted my ability to choose a place to park operated on terms which did not provide for charges such as (and/or equivalent to) those levied by Parking Eye.
The charges were (or had the potential to be) excessive in comparison with the short time of parking overstay which triggered the levying of the said charges.

I am therefore of the view that the charges you endorse, appear indeed by definition, to represent a penalty and are therefore irrecoverable at common law. E.G. In the Scottish case of Castaneda and Others v. Clydebank Engineering and Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. (1904) 12 SLT 498 the House of Lords held that a contractual party can only recover damages for actual or liquidated losses incurred from a breach of contract. This is also the position in English law: Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co Ltd v New Garage and Motor Co Ltd [1915] AC 79. By the same token, your charges do not reflect any actual or real loss, instead the financial evidence points to represent a corrupt lucrative profit-making scheme which has never be disproved and is extremely unlikely ever to be.
There is case law to back this up details upon request.
I look forward to your response to this most productive discussion.

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I have been waiting 1 week for a response, but the silence is deafening. I plan to follow up in 1 week. Watch this space:)

trisontana

And we know that Patrick Troy, head of the BPA, has admitted before a House Of Commons Committee that these charges are virtually unenforceable.

Regarding court cases, you should have told them of what happened last week where Trethowens and Aintree Hospital lost a case because the judge ruled that the £50 demanded did not represent the true loss suffered by the landowner.

taffy056

And let's not forget that OPC has lost about 10 cases in the last couple of weeks

Spartacus_Mills

taffy056 wrote: »

And let's not forget that OPC has lost about 10 cases in the last couple of weeks

OPC rarely turn up for cases that are defended, have been using the same tactic DCA's use of sending details to wrong addresses to get a win by default and send bogus court papers out to people.

Surely it cannot be long before a judge deems them a vexatious litigant ?

Coblcris

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

OPC rarely turn up for cases that are defended, have been using the same tactic DCA's use of sending details to wrong addresses to get a win by default and send bogus court papers out to people.

Surely it cannot be long before a judge deems them a vexatious litigant ?

Your description indicates to me that a judge may take a far more serious view than of them than being a vexatious litigant, which is actually quite rare and is used primarily to protect the courts.

Deliberately providing false information, and provably thus, is quite serious.

However bogus court papers - averring to be real and from a real court, is punishable with gaol.

peter_the_piper

Coblcris wrote: »

However bogus court papers - averring to be real and from a real court, is punishable with gaol.

Ooh good, best news today.

Coblcris

See The County Courts Act 1984 S.135

AlexisV

Judge Glover's big day is in 2 months.

Julie Thompson won't bother turning up. As sure as eggs are eggs.

Sir_Roger_deLodger

landmark wrote: »

I have been waiting 1 week for a response, but the silence is deafening. I plan to follow up in 1 week. Watch this space:)

You are wasting your time communicating with the BPA. It is not a regulatory body, it is just a club run by the parking companies to suit their own ends.

trisontana

The only time I ever had a response from the BPA was when I reported a PPC for using the BPA logo on their website without authority (remember PCN-UK?). They were quick to act on that, only so they could protect their member's interests. As you see, nothing to do with the general public.

Oopsadaisy

landmark wrote: »

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My next step is to write to my MP. Then I can explain that at least I tried to reason with them first:doh:

Lol, lol, lol....almost as pointless as writing to the BPA in the first place.