Motorway Services Parking Charge

msreader

Hi. I got hit with a PCN recently:o. After researching on this site, it gave me strength to fight it. First two I ignored then I got a final demand last week for £120.00:eek:

Then I wrote to CP Plus. Thanked them for bringing it to my attention. I advised my crcumstances and potential safety issue of driving without a sufficient rest. Offered a cheque in final settlement for £20 towards reasonable parking costs although I did not accept that I agreed to their contract as I wasnt aware of it.

Failing that I insisted that I would be happy to defend in court the charge and insisted that I wished to choose where in the UK I would like to defend my case.

Suprissingly I received a short letter back yesterday, saying on considertaion they have dropped the PCN and better still attached my cheque to the rear of the letter.:rotfl:

Matter closed.

I will be a bit more careful in future. But thanks for the great advise which made be feel better advised to challenge it rather than just pay out.

Cheers MSE:beer:

RENEGADE_2

It was commendable of them but I used to be a veteran of CP Plus and ParkingEye tickets and they no longer send anything to me. My name and vehicle are known to them. You can safely ignore; I'm surprised they discarded the money you offered them out of good will but I assure you that there was no need. Not only do neither of these companies ever sue, their evidence is negligible. ANPR is NOT a permissible manner for charging motorists not to have paid for parking. This is because it involves their documents being sent via post which in turn is only valid when it is the authorities doing so. Before changes to the law in March 2008, not even the council could send you postal penalties. The law changed to make the penalties enforceable when the driver fled the scene or behaved in a threatening manner toward the offcer. None of this is the case with Private Company ANPR. If you examine CP Plus terms and conditions carefully, you'll see that although they introduce a tariff for staying beyond two hours, there is no indication how soon a vehicle may return if wishing to take advantage of the free stay. To that end, your free stay does not expire and a fresh period begins every two hours.

There are many laws that go against private parking companies and they know this. Their whole operation is a scam and you've come to the right place if you wish to familiarise yourself with the nonsense. Read the other threads, or any more questions, list them here and someone will be along to answer them.

Sirdan

"ANPR is NOT a permissible manner for charging motorists not to have paid for parking. This is because it involves their documents being sent via post which in turn is only valid when it is the authorities doing so"

I think you are mudding the water here ..ANPR at present is a perfectly acceptable way for a Private Parking Company to issue it's invoices by post .
These invoices are based on contract law ..a Private Parking Company can not issue a penalty however they choose to do it ..they could photgraph the car or even video you in it and slap a ticket on it but they still can't issue any penalty..they can however send you an invoice by whatever means they choose..after all it is only an invitation to pay in effect.

, you'll see that although they introduce a tariff for staying beyond two hours, there is no indication how soon a vehicle may return if wishing to take advantage of the free stay. To that end, your free stay does not expire and a fresh period begins every two hours.

Just as well Private Parking Companies don't do court because that sort of flawed logic would be laughed out as a defence ..of course the two hour period expires if the vehicle does not leave ..although I agree it could restart again with an immediate return measured in only seconds ..but you still need to leave for it to restart.

Keep it simple..tickets,ANPR or anything else all irrelevant ..fact is these invoices are unenforceable at law and Private Parking Companies don't do court or when they do they lose . So IGNORE them .

AlexisV

A brand new poster advising people to write to a PPC? Sounds a little suspicious to me.

esmerobbo

AlexisV wrote: »

A brand new poster advising people to write to a PPC? Sounds a little suspicious to me.

It would be a first for CP Plus too I think.;)

funkycoldribena

AlexisV wrote: »

A brand new poster advising people to write to a PPC? Sounds a little suspicious to me.

Yeah maybe their happy to have £20 nowadays.

NeverAgain_2

esmerobbo wrote: »

It would be a first for CP Plus too I think.;)

A friend of mine appealed a CP Plus scam ticket and they dropped it.

I get the impression they don't rely so heavily on ticket money for their income as some of the smaller companies.

Sir_Roger_deLodger

msreader wrote: »

I will be a bit more careful in future. But thanks for the great advise which made be feel better advised to challenge it rather than just pay out.

Cheers MSE:beer:

Who advised you to challenge it? Everyone here gives the same advice - Ignore.

RENEGADE_2

Sirdan wrote: »

I think you are mudding the water here ..ANPR at present is a perfectly acceptable way for a Private Parking Company to issue it's invoices by post .

The wording of the law is unequivocal. Prior to March 2008, not even the council could send charges by post, it was not valid. Documents had to be either presented to the driver or attached to the window. The changes in the law applied to authorities only. Now for someone to have before March 2008 said, "charges via the post are not legal for authorities but are OK for private companies" would introduce an absuridity. Likewise, no law has come into effect for the PPCs to start legally using this system. This is just one more reason why this caper is a non-starter.

Sirdan

RENEGADE wrote: »

The wording of the law is unequivocal. Prior to March 2008, not even the council could send charges by post, it was not valid. Documents had to be either presented to the driver or attached to the window. The changes in the law applied to authorities only. Now for someone to have before March 2008 said, "charges via the post are not legal for authorities but are OK for private companies" would introduce an absuridity. Likewise, no law has come into effect for the PPCs to start legally using this system. This is just one more reason why this caper is a non-starter.

No you have got this wrong.

The law which you refer to deals only with statutory enforcement of road traffic acts / orders and parking places orders enforced through statute law. (i.e. statutory and decriminalised Penalties)
As this is not what PPCs do then they ARE perfectly at liberty to use this method (ANPR) to generate their invoices to which civil contract law applies.

Not an absurdity just two different types of charge 1) A statutory Penalty enforceable in law . 2) An invitation to pay by invoicing ..not subject to statute and only able to be claimed via the civil County Court Small Claims track.
As I say two totally different things ..stop confusing them.

However the use of ANPR systems is about to be restricted by Schedule 4 of The Protection of Freedoms Bill currently making it's way through parliament.

RENEGADE_2

Sirdan wrote: »

No you have got this wrong.

The law which you refer to deals only with statutory enforcement of road traffic acts / orders and parking places orders enforced through statute law. (i.e. statutory and decriminalised Penalties)
As this is not what PPCs do then they ARE perfectly at liberty to use this method (ANPR) to generate their invoices to which civil contract law applies.

Not an absurdity just two different types of charge 1) A statutory Penalty enforceable in law . 2) An invitation to pay by invoicing ..not subject to statute and only able to be claimed via the civil County Court Small Claims track.
As I say two totally different things ..stop confusing them.

However the use of ANPR systems is about to be restricted by Schedule 4 of The Protection of Freedoms Bill currently making it's way through parliament.

There is no confusion. ANPR is a system that authorities can use for speeding tickets (cameras), catching people driving in bus lanes and the like. No law forbids private companies from using it, but any invoice they generate needs to be stuck to the windscreen or handed to the driver. Had this not been the case, there would have been no changes to the law in March 2008 which named authorities exclusively, because the authorities would have been permitted to do this in the first place, but they weren't. QED.

BUT do bare in mind one thing: what I say applies purely to fines/penalties. Obviously the PPC does not admit to this document they send being a penalty but everybody knows that it is and this is where they themselves know they cannot advance. If they had been purely seeking the money lost through the period of time spent (eg. 2-24 hours, £10 for the vehicle) then this would have appeared fairer.

I know that at Weymouth, CP Plus use ANPR to enforce "Byelaw 14" on the railway carpark. I've known a few get tickets and each one has thrown the book at CP Plus on the conditions I mentioned to you and they backed down instantly.

...but then that's just CP Plus. Another rogue company whose staff have pigshιt for brains.