Crawley Leisure Park - New Parking Regime run by UK Parking Control Ltd

Stephen_Leak

jazz1989 wrote: »

hi so am i right in thinking that these fines mean nothing????just wondering as i am a student nurse and have been placed at crawley hospital for next 2 weeks and to avoid having to pay expenisive parking fees i frankly cant afford i was going to park at the leisure park and walk to work....if i can then great but dont want to get fines i cant pay instead of paying parking....any help before monday much appreciated.

thank you

A student nurse. There are moments when I hope that, one dark night, a member of a PPC owner's family is taken seriously ill, and that the nurse, who would've saved their life, is walking to the hospital because they daren't park nearer. I'm ashamed of myself for thinking this way, but this sort of thing only strengthens my resolve to see an end to all this.

OK, rant over, I feel so much better now. Where were we? Oh yes. The legal stuff.

Any warning signs are usually so badly positioned and worded, that they won’t have created a fair and legally binding deemed contract between the car park owner and the driver in the first place. (The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997.)

Even if there is a contract, all the car park owner can claim from the driver in damages for any breach of contract is what they’ve lost as a result. If this is a free car park or they paid, this is £0.00. By asking you for more, which is unreasonable, it’s become an unfair contract penalty, which is not legally enforceable. (Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd. vs. New Garage & Motor Co. Ltd., House of Lords, 1914.)

Under various legislation, only councils, the police, train operators and Transport for London can impose legally enforceable fines or penalties. Private parking companies can't.

What do I do now?

Don’t appeal. They always reject them. What’s in it for them to let anyone off?

What’s in it for them is information. They need to know the identity of the driver of the vehicle involved at the time, because that’s who the alleged contract was with. If they don’t know who the driver was, they have to make do with chasing the registered keeper.

With windscreen notices, an appeal letter will tell them your name and address, and maybe that you were driving at the time. If they don’t know who the driver was, they have to buy the details of registered keeper from the DVLA.

With postal notices, they’ve done this already. But they still need to know the identity of the driver.

They sometimes say that they have the right to ask for this information. This doesn’t mean that you have to tell them.

However, even if you’ve written and confirmed who the driver was, it doesn’t make their actions any less unlawful. It just means that instead of unlawfully harassing the registered keeper, they can now unlawfully harass the driver.

What will they do to me?

They will send you a series of letters, then a debt collector and then a solicitor. The debt collector and solicitor are usually also the PPC, but using different headed paper. These will threaten you with all sorts of financial and legal unpleasantness, to intimidate you into paying.

But, they can't actually do anything, for the same reason that a blackmailer couldn't sue their victim if they didn’t pay.

What should I do then?

Continue to ignore everything you get from the PPC and their aliases. Yes, it does seem counter-intuitive to deal with something by ignoring it. Eventually, they will run out of empty threats to intimidate you with, and stop throwing good money after bad.

PS. Can anyone remember how much Aintree NHS Trust have spent on unsuccessfully taking patients, visitors and staff to court for parking on their car park?

give_them_FA

So long as you never respond to anything then they can't really take anyone to Court. Particularly after the VCS ruling described elsewhere which confirms the Parking Company has no right to sue. At the moment its all in limbo.

marchman

Surley as they have written to you, they have your home address from the nuber plate of the car via the DVLA. so if you do not pay they may send in balliffs to the home address if it goes unpaided.

Richard_Nixon wrote: »

I got a ticket on my car on Christmas Eve for allegedly leaving the Crawley Leisure Park site for which Parking Control Ltd are demanding £60 if paid in the next 14 day. I have put an appeal in ask I bough a pizza from Pizza Hut one of the restaurants on the site

I have just had interview about the matter on BBC Radio Sussex and recorded a TV interview with BBC South East Today which will hopefully be broadcast on Friday 30th December 2011.

With every interview I have done with TV, radio and local newspapers they have asked me whether I left the site and contravened the parking regulation for the site and my reply is that I will not answer the question as to do would be to either incriminate me or I would be lying. The onus is on the parking company to prove beyond reasonable doubt that I left the site and not that I have to prove I did not leave the site. The photos they have taken only show my car parked.

Henry Smith, MP for Crawley had a private member bill in 2010 which would have allowed local council to licence the activities of private companies just like they do for the selling of alcohol and provision of public entertainment. Although Henry's private member bill ran out of parlimentary time and did not get onto the statute book, the government have agreed to include aspect of his private member bill into government legislation that currently before parliament. Please can you contact you MP asking them to support the relevent clauses of the Governments Protection of Freedoms Bill so that your local council can regulate the activties of private parking companies.

halibut2209

Troll or ignorant. Hard to be sure.

vikingaero

marchman wrote: »

Surley as they have written to you, they have your home address from the nuber plate of the car via the DVLA. so if you do not pay they may send in balliffs to the home address if it goes unpaided.

They would have to issue Court Summons first, then get a hearing, get a judgement by default (because anyone appearing is bound to give them the willies), and then get bailiffs in. Simply ignoring their fake invoices does not procure a bailiff instantly. Not paying these fake invoices does not affect your credit rating (until a CCJ is issued) no matter how many letters they send and how much red ink they use.

Stephen_Leak

If anyone lost the court case, we'd advise admitting defeat and paying up, before it got to the CCJ and bailiff stage.

PS. And don't call me Shirley.

Coupon-mad

marchman wrote: »

Surley as they have written to you, they have your home address from the nuber plate of the car via the DVLA. so if you do not pay they may send in balliffs to the home address if it goes unpaided.

Hmmmmm...just like I could send a Bailiff round to my next door neighbour's house if they owed me a tenner, because after all I know their address...

You are either very naive or work for a PPC? People or PPCs cannot just send in a bailiff!!

OF COURSE people can ignore these fake PCNs! Nothing happens! :rotfl:

Richard_T_

Its not that easy to send in the balifs, first you need a court order then all the paperwork has to be in order
see this post on pepipoo where an unfortunate motorist is in the process of sending balifs to a parking/clamping company http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=71663&st=0

HardWorker2010_2

marchman wrote: »

Surley as they have written to you, they have your home address from the nuber plate of the car via the DVLA. so if you do not pay they may send in balliffs to the home address if it goes unpaided.

Marchman joined the MSE forums the same day as spouting this crap.

Ignore Marchman, you'll be ignoring a PPC troll.