Parking in a disabled bay (Peel Centre Stockport)

happysheep

Please can someone offer me some advice as to a recent parking ticket that I have received?

I went to the Peel Shopping Centre in Stockport to buy apresent from Hobbycraft. As I drovethrough the car park there were numerous spaces available (the car park was, atbest 2/3 full). I drove up towards Hobbycraft, observed several empty spaces and chose to park in one next to the parking meter, reversing into the space. At the time of choosing the space, I checked and did not see anyindication as to why I should not park there (I specifically looked for the eyelevel signs indicating disabled/parent child). I immediately went to the ticket machine and paid for a ticket to park my car, returned to the car and stuck it on the windscreen.

I then walked towards Hobbycraft and, out of the corner of my eye, noticed a traffic attendant who had been sitting on a bench or windowsill about 10 cars away. He was in the process of standing up and he then marched towards my car. I remember thinking ‘he must think I haven’t bought a ticket but he’s going to be wrong’.

I returned to my car in less than 15 minutes and found that there was a Parking Charge Notice stuck on my window. I immediately went to the parking attendant hut to question why I had received a ticket despite clearly displaying a valid parking ticket. When I arrived at the hut one of the parking attendants present asked where I was parked and, on telling him that I was outside Hobbycraft he immediately said words to the effect of ‘Oh, you’ll be in the disabled space, loads of people do that, it’s onlymarked on the road and when the roads wet it’s almost impossible to see’. I was upset to hear that I had parked in a disabled space as it is not something that I would ever do so returned to my car thinking that I would have to pay the ‘fine’ and get on with my life.

On return to the car I did indeed see that there was awheelchair symbol painted in the parking bay that I had parked in. The pay and display ticket that I had purchased showed a purchase time of (let’s say) 11:00 and the PCN ticket has the times ‘observed at 11:01, issued at 11:03’ written on it ie it took the attendant 3 minutes from me parking to get that ticket stuck on my car!

I have since done a little research – mainly on this site –and now believe that I may not be wise to immediately pay the £100 fine(reduced to £60 if I pay within 7 days) and may have grounds to appeal.

Firstly I believe that there was insufficient signage indicating that the space was for disabled permit holders only (this information was not available anywhere obvious that I could see) and secondly that the size of the penalty – namely £100 - is excessively high.

However, does the fact that I did buy a normal ticket to park in this carpark actually indicate that I have agreed in some way to their terms and conditions? Every othe rcomplaint against a parking charge seems to involve someone who does not have avalid ticket at the time that they received their PCN whereas I actually did have a valid ticket but am being penalised for failing to spot the road marking image of a wheelchair.

Please can someone advise? Thank-you.

vax2002

There is NO APPEAL.
Its is an impersonation of authority scam ticket.
They have no legal right to fine you, they are just a two bit private company with a silly invoice .
Ignore and they will send lots of silly letters impersonating more authority such as debt collected and solicitors, again all as fake as your "parking ticket"

IGNORE = pay nothing
Do anything = play their silly game and get taken in by the fake court threats and pay out.

Coupon-mad

happysheep wrote: »

I have since done a little research – mainly on this site –and now believe that I may not be wise to immediately pay the £100 fine(reduced to £60 if I pay within 7 days) and may have grounds to appeal.

Please can someone advise? Thank-you.

You haven't done enough research yet - and the info is easy to find on this board.

This is not a fine, you are calling it a fine and taking it far too seriously.

What do you mean 'grounds for appeal'? It's not a real parking ticket!

It is a scam, a FAKE PCN, there is NO appeal procedure! Oh yes it says so on the fake ticket doesn't it? It would do...it's an impersonation of a real one!

If you reply to the scam company they will have got information from you such as who was driving, your name & address, and the fact that you have clearly mistaken it for a parking ticket and are a hooked fish who might just pay them some money if they push you and scare you with their letters. That's why they want you to 'appeal' so they get some information and so their ticket looks like a real one.

All 'appeals' are declined. We have come across Excel at the Peel Centre before and so have Watchdog. Here are a couple of our threads on their little racket:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3945371

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2105923

Now the important piece of research you seem to have missed is:

A 'Parking Charge Notice' is NOT a real PCN but a fake one.
Just ignore it.

The most that will happen is even more junk mail letters that you can ignore; you are just in the middle of a mail scam at the moment with the fake PCN being the first of many threatograms which mean nothing.

No private parking company (PPC) can actually issue a real fine or penalty. Nor can they affect your credit rating nor send a bailiff round without the small matter of winning a Small Claim in Court first! Won't happen. Excel tried it as a rare one-off case at the Peel Centre and lost:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2012/04/excel_parking.html

And since then, there has been a binding ruling in a higher Court which should basically scupper any future attempt at Court by a PPC if the defendant simply gives their defence and also cites the case of VCS -v- HMRC. VCS and Excel are part of the same group of companies.

You are perfectly safe and you need do NOTHING.

Please read on...

We have so much info on here to help newbies understand and be ready for the letters. One click & you see all current threads here, most of which are about the 'fake PCN' scam.

Third from the top, click on 'PPC letters & threats'.

1. Watch the Watchdog clip on there, and then

2. scroll down to the pics of Excel's threatograms, then

3. Play a nice game of snap with each matching templated threatogram, then

4. Tell your friends & family, colleagues, strangers, everyone! about the fake PCN scam so they never pay one.


It is really easy.

I have ignored one too and I am a typical law-abiding person like you.

Stephen_Leak

Firstly, the legal stuff.

Only councils, the police, train operators and Transport for London can impose legally enforceable fines or penalties. A private parking company (PPC) or an individual can't. Even PPCs call their tickets “Parking Charge Notices”, not “Penalty Charge Notices”. In law, they’re called “speculative invoices”.

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 a driver entering the car park in the first place. See The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997 and Excel Parking Services vs. Cutts, Stockport, 2011. This case actually involved The Peel Centre.

All the car park owner (CPO) can claim from a 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. Demanding more has been judged to be unreasonable and therefore an unfair contract penalty under the terms of The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997, which is not legally enforceable. See Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd. vs. New Garage & Motor Co. Ltd., House of Lords, 1914 and countless cases since.

There are also now two recent court cases, VCS Parking Control vs. Ronald Ibbotson, S!!!!horpe, 2012 and VCS Parking Control vs. HM Revenue & Customs, Upper Tax Tribunal, 2012. In both cases, the judges found that only the car park owner can take drivers to court. The Upper Tax Tribunal is a court of record, equivalent to the High Court, and therefore its judgement sets a legal precedent.

The Equality Act 2010 doesn't say that able-bodied drivers can't also use disabled parking bays. OK, they shouldn't, but they can. It's a nice idea not to take the last one, though.

What should I do now?

We don’t condone not paying or overstaying in a pay car park. If you do owe the CPO anything, then you ought to write to them, offering this in “full and final settlement”.

In any event, you ought to advise the CPO that they are "jointly and severally liable" for the actions of their agents, the PPC, and that any further actions by them would be regarded as harassment under the terms of The Protection from Harassment Act 1997. That ought to make the CPO call off the PPC and, hopefully, realise the potential cost of doing business with them.

Don’t appeal to the PPC. They always reject them. What’s in it for them to let anyone off? Actually, there is something in it for them: 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 who was 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 told them who the driver was, it doesn’t make their actions any less unlawful. It just means that instead of harassing the registered keeper, they can now harass the driver.

What will they do to me?

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

But, they can't actually do anything, for the same reason that a Nigerian e-mail scammer couldn't sue anyone who didn’t pay them.

What should I do then?

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

Best_price

found this

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3945371

screwbiedooo

Stephen_Leak wrote: »

Firstly, the legal stuff.

Only councils, the police, train operators and Transport for London can impose legally enforceable fines or penalties. A private parking company (PPC) or an individual can't. Even PPCs call their tickets “Parking Charge Notices”, not “Penalty Charge Notices”. In law, they’re called “speculative invoices”.


The Equality Act 2010 doesn't say that able-bodied drivers can't also use disabled parking bays. OK, they shouldn't, but they can. It's a nice idea not to take the last one, though.

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 told them who the driver was, it doesn’t make their actions any less unlawful. It just means that instead of harassing the registered keeper, they can now harass the driver.

Please - no-one can apply a fine except a judge. Certainly not rail companies or TfL!

Like your take on disabled spaces. I use them without issue when there's a ton of them empty. Just a matter of courtesy, not law!

They have the right to ask anything they want. The other one is "we require..." Says who? So? Is that my problem?

So, final liability lies with the driver/perp. Why is this glossed over in PCN charges, where the keeper is assumed to be liable without a shred of evidence in support...?

ManxRed

Why don't you discuss this in your own discussion thread instead of hijacking other people's threads and giving them misleading information?

bondy_lad

hi there happysheep, you have been done(oh no you have not) on my patch at the peel centre,its ran by our great friends (not) excell parking(who check this forum daily by the way),its purely and simply a SCAM,,they have zero powers to fine you, this can only be done in the form of a PENALTY charge notice issued by police/local council, you have a PARKING charge notice, which equates to loo paper nothing else, please read the stickies on what letters to expect,,letters from roxburghe debt collectors and the phoney solicitor graham white, all these are part of the scam, so when you have finished doing with their loo paper what you usually do, simply press flush and forget,there you go jobs a real good un,incidentally same SCAM in place opp peel centre at b&m, and ditto at aldi on newbridge lane, please spread the word, relax, chill, feet up and IGNORE absolutely everything you recieve about this SCAM.

The_Slithy_Tove

Oh, no, not the Peel Centre AGAIN! A quick search on these forums will show they come up time and again.

As well as all the good advice aleady given, i.e. their fake charge has no substance, no legal merit and should be ignored, Excel got whipped in court recently as their signage was deemed to be wholly inadequate, making their meaninless charges even less enforceable. They are an utter joke (the company, not the signs, though actually they are a joke, too).

happysheep

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to reply.
Feeling a little nervous but am going to follow the ignoring advice. Will let you know what happens.
x

Stephen_Leak

The_Slithy_Tove wrote: »

<snip> As well as all the good advice already given, (except post #6) <snip>

Fixed for you.