Letter From The BPA

trisontana

A few weeks ago I emailed the BPA asking for their comments on this newspaper letter:-

http://www.violetmount.com/cambrian.png

This their response:-

Thanks for your note of 18th January 2012 and my apologies for not responding sooner but much of my time has been taken up in working on the Independent Appeals Service which the BPA plan to introduce to the private parking sector in October of this year - an initiative which I hope you will welcome.

Looking at the correspondent's letter there is much that I agree with but elements that I don't.

For expediency I will comment on the key points;

* Parking Tickets are indeed issued under the law of contract. The contract is offered on the signage and accepted when the motorist chooses to park. If for some reason the conditions laid out on the signs are breached by the motorist, then the consequences of doing so are outlined on the signage.

* I would question the correspondent's calculations of 'genuine pre-estimate of loss' He has failed to factor in the costs of managing the car park including staff and signage/equipment, the office costs of managing the debt recovery process and direct costs such as the fee for DVLA data requests, as well as other costs which a Court would take into consideration when adjudicating on a case.

* I am disappointed with the apparent acceptance by the correspondent that it is OK to park in a Pay&Display Car Park for 2 hours without paying. In a number of these debates, the right of the landowner is often forgotten.

* The correspondent's estimates of the proportion of motorists who pay immediately upon receipt of a Parking Charge notice need reviewing and validation. We believe that a figure of nearer 30% would be more accurate.

* I would urge motorists to not simply ignore these tickets as parking operators will take motorists to Court for non-payment, and also to not follow the often misguided advice prevalent on the internet. Motorists should seek proper professional advice if they are unsure.

* In October the position for motorists will become a lot clearer when the Independent Appeals Service is introduced - this will give somewhere for the motorist to go to have their case heard. As things stand this will be free for the motorist and the adjudicator's decision will be binding on the operator.

In closing I would offer one excellent piece of advice to avoid a parking ticket wherever you choose to park - pay where you should and don't park where you shouldn't.

I trust that the above is helpful.

Kind regards

As you can see, he has misread the letter. Nowhere does it say that you don't have to pay a legitimate fee to park. As for the point about "pre-estimate of loss" I have replied to him pointing to the recent Parking Eye case where they were only awarded the cost of two P&D tickets, plus less than £100 in costs. I also questioned the need for that appeals tribunal when there is a well established way of testing cases. It's called the civil courts.

esmerobbo

I wonder if they will ever give a relevant answer to a question?

The costs answer is nonsense if they need to cover costs then it should be pay and display or a barrier. Otherwise what would an operator do if just for one month everybody parked "properly" and no tickets were issued?

"In closing I would offer one excellent piece of advice to avoid a parking ticket wherever you choose to park - pay where you should and don't park where you shouldn't."

He should have added and don't fall into any of the operators contrived contraventions, like a wheel touching a line!

AlexisV

We know the BPA feed PPC's with this drivel about how a pre-estimate of loss somehow equates to the cost incurred pursuing the charge and maintaining a car park.

Time and money spent on pursuing on a non-existent debt does not amount to genuine loss. This has been ruled upon numerous times.

As for signage and car park management, that would imply that each legitimate pound per hour taken would somehow equate them losing £5 or £10 in car park management costs.

I certainly would not be wanting to run a business that loses me such vast amount of money.

TrickyWicky

You didn't really expect a serious and honest reply from the BPA did you? - They're at the top of the chain of this glorified scam and its the scammers who pay their wages.

On top of that the BPA are also in bed with many councils parking depts too for various reasons. The CEO 2 years ago was an arrogant bullying type when I met him who thought he could shout and demand anything in any car park. Didn't work on me I'm afraid I used my conflict management techniques that I've gained in other parking jobs to calm the fella down.. he tried to do battle with me and lost I even dropped a few names in to prove I was serious (a technique the public usually use against CEOs - "I know your boss Mr X who said I can park here" type stuff). Had he of dealt with my other colleagues they would of been out of their depth completely.

Nice enough guy once he's calm but totally arrogant when he's unhappy about something and things because he's the CEO of the BPA he can just bully car park operators and their staff.

trisontana

As AlexisV as pointed out above, the BPA is admitting that the only way a PPC can keep in business is to rely on the money rolling in from their "parking charge notices". So if everyone either ignored these charges, never break their silly "rules" or win in court, then the PPC would soon be out of business.

AlexisV

For a genuine adjudication process to be put in place by October we should already have seen a draft Bill, which would have be this lengthy: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/18/part/6/crossheading/notification-adjudication-and-enforcement

and feature a 'enforcement' section similar to S82.

TrickyWicky

For a genuine appeals process Alexis, the government would of made of use of the existing appeals process for authority PCNs. Tied it all up together and had done with it.

This is just another one of those "Go away and carry on making us lots of tax money" tactics.

give_them_FA

Probably an appeal system (a proper one, not the PPC's sham) might get more people to fight the baseless and extortionate tickets. However, learning from the system in use for Council PCN appeals, not only should it be free to the public, but a provision should exist for the PPC to pay the appellant a sum if the issue of the ticket was held to be wrong. And the appeal system should not be binding on the motorist, who should still have the right to a day in a proper Court, as the OP says.

If the PPC stood to pay out for unjustified tickets, the whole scene would change. At the moment all they risk is the DVLA fee and some postage, which, if the 30% payup rate is right, means they will be well in the black.

The whole concept of the PPC strategy is to cash in on these "fines". If all they wanted was to ensure people paid the correct charge, all it would take would be to put barriers up so that a valid ticket would have to be bought to exit the car park- but, of course, they wouldn't want that.

Did anyone expect the leader of this scam industry to give a straight answer anyway?

Coupon-mad

* Parking Tickets are indeed issued under the law of contract. The contract is offered on the signage and accepted when the motorist chooses to park. If for some reason the conditions laid out on the signs are breached by the motorist, then the consequences of doing so are outlined on the signage.


:T:T:T:D:D:D

They really are clueless!

TrickyWicky

Thing is with any contract you legally have a 14 day cooling off period so how do they honestly expect to enforce it?

It's all a load of b*ll*x.

Kite2010

And with contracts they come under unfair contract terms regulations, and a £70 charge if you park for 1 minute over in a 2-hour retail car-park can only be described as a penalty