Northern Rail Parking Ticket

RachRog

Bit of an odd one - our local railway station has provided free parking since time began. However, last night when myself and 50 other users returned to our cars we were all faced with 'Penalty Parking Notices' for £50 - apparently Northern Rail had changed their parking regulations, placed signhs high up on lamposts where no-one had noticed them, and then issued us all with tickets.

There are no designted parking areas - it is simply a country road, although I assume it must form part of their land.

Can I challenge this? It seem ridiculous that every single car owner was issued a ticket and that no-one knew of the new regulations until faced with a Penalty Parking Notice...

All advice gratefully received!!

Fergie76

Railway Stations are tricky ones, as they can be covered by some Railway by-laws.

Who issued the ticket?

You could try posting on pepipoo or someone with more knowledge than me will be along shortly.

peter_the_piper

If this is a genuine Northern Rail ticket then its possibly best to pay. If its a private company using there name then just ignore. The way to tell is to look at who you appeal to, if its to magistrates court then you're stuck, if its to northern rail via another address its possibly a ppc.
check this first and come back.

AlexisV

Appeal to Northern Rail.

If you get no luck it'll be a trip to magistrate's court.

walkli

I know exactly which station you are referring to, my husband also received a ticket there last night. Most cars also got a note on Monday informing you must only park within designated parking areas or marked bays, not obstruct exits/entrances/access to the line. It does mention railway bye-laws. The only real complaint that we may have is that it has been customer practice for many years to park on the station approach AND we don't feel it clearly states the road isn't a designated area.
It is official Northern Rail customer helpline guy knew about this and said it was fro mthe 'top down' and a decision had been made to reinforce parking at all north-west stations. We have officially complained to them, local councillors (Michale Winstanley has replied promptly to say he will take this up with Northern Rail) and this mkorning I managed to get hold of the e-mail for Northern Rail CEO
[EMAIL="ian.bevan@northernrail.org"]ian.bevan@northernrail.org[/EMAIL]
We really don't know whether to appeal or not...but Northern Rail have lost a lot of custom over this.

peter_the_piper

As far as I know, not having a ticket or not parking in bays are not the concern of rail bylaw 14, it does cover obstruction though. I would also suggest that you go to pepipoo.com. for accurate info

Stigy

Genuine byelaw tickets are quite rare, however, as has been said, we really do need to know for sure. From experience, a strongly worded letter of complaint to the Train Operating Company can work wonders, even if a PPC issued the ticket.

Stigy

peter_the_piper wrote: »

As far as I know, not having a ticket or not parking in bays are not the concern of rail bylaw 14, it does cover obstruction though. I would also suggest that you go to pepipoo.com. for accurate info

Both of those are covered by Byelaw 14.1 and 14.3. 14.2 also covers obstruction, as well as not adhearing to instruction of an operator (in other words if the signage says dont park there, you don't park there, obstruction or no obstruction).

F_T_Buyer

I would suggest you look on Pepipoo, a forum I read and they know their stuff:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/

peter_the_piper

Stigy wrote: »

Both of those are covered by Byelaw 14.1 and 14.3. 14.2 also covers obstruction, as well as not adhearing to instruction of an operator (in other words if the signage says dont park there, you don't park there, obstruction or no obstruction).

Question.
I know the tfl document is a consultation doc but does this try to enshrine the ppc/clamping model into law?
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/termsandconditions/5004.aspx

Could be legislation by the back door.

Livingthedream

peter_the_piper wrote: »

Question.
I know the tfl document is a consultation doc but does this try to enshrine the ppc/clamping model into law?
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/termsandconditions/5004.aspx

Could be legislation by the back door.

If this legislation is passed?? then only in the Tfl area, as the railways have their own byelaws which are separate from the Tfl byelaws.

Amending Railway byelaws/Acts cost money and time and as the byelaws already cover parking would it be beneficial for the Train companies to pursue this?

IMHO PPCs at the moment are happy to use dodgy worded tickets that imply 'Railway byelaws' to scare the person into paying.