NCP Parking fine

Em8

Today i have received a parking ticket for apparently not parking in the parked parking bays. I have looked all around the car park and there are no bay markings anywhere. I am the only car to get a ticket yet there were cars parked on the ramp leaving the carpark and also on the curbs - but none of these appeared to have aparking ticket. I am just wondering wether to appeal or do i even need to bother responding?? The carpark is an NCP Carpark in Preston, Lancashire. I have parked here for the last 4 months and never had a problem. Any ideas??

ManxRed

Is the ticket called a Parking Charge Notice or a Penalty Charge Notice (odds on its the former, but please confirm)?

Ricky11

I also received a ticket from this car park today in Preston. Apparently not parking in a "bay". There are no bays on this car park. I have been parking on the NCP for the last two years. Disgraceful.

SodG24

Ricky11 wrote: »

I also received a ticket from this car park today in Preston. Apparently not parking in a "bay". There are no bays on this car park. I have been parking on the NCP for the last two years. Disgraceful.

Question remains - is it a "parking" or "penalty" charge ?

Ricky11

Parking contravention charge notice

HappyMJ

Ricky11 wrote: »

Parking contravention charge notice

With those words you can ignore it. It's a notice (a letter or an invoice) that you didn't park properly and is inviting you to pay them a sum of money. You can decline the invitation by ignoring them. It is not a fine and it is not a penalty.

prosnap

The whole private parking business relies on misrepresentation of authority. They are not the council, police or government, so they can't legally issue fines or penalties. All they have sent you is a civil invoice, which you have no legal obligation to pay or acknowledge.

Contacting them is generally a waste of time, their appeals process is worthless as it is not run by an impartial third party but rather by themselves so it's obviously within their interests to reject it.

Over 99.9% of the time they will not take you to court, because the more times they take people to court, and lose, the more chance that other members of the public get to hear that the invoices can be ignored. This would then lead to parking companies having no income because there would be no more gullible people left!

Taking people to court actually hurts their business ... Which is why they hardly ever try it.



Out of over 1.1 million private parking invoices issued last year only 49 were heard before a court and the parking companies lost half of those.