Civil Enforcement Parking Ticket

Karlos1978

Hi. My housemate got a parking 'charge' from these people on 10/3/13 but like a fool has only just decided to tell me about it. They state on their site that any appeal or anything needs to be within 28 days but as my advice is to ignore it this shouldn't matter. Turns out though she has already made contact with them basically saying she won't pay. A new letter has come through now doubling the amount requested to £150. She thought she was parking in the MK shopping center car park but it turns out that she was in a private car park adjoining the 'official' for want of a better word shopping center car parks. She maintains there is no sort of border or margin signifying that you have ventured in to a different car park and that she didn't see any signs either. She has a parking ticket from the shops machine to cover the time she was there but obviously it doesn't cover her for where she was actually parked. I hope this makes sense! So basically, is my advice of ignore it, nothing will come of it the right advice or should she send them a letter or what? Cheers!

Guys_Dad

To save you some time, look for a recent thread from nigelbb on this very point. It will help and I think he got off.

Actually, for what it's worth, there are signs when you enter the NCP car park in CMK and it iin most cases, you have to walk considerably further to buy a Council car ticket than a NCP one from most spaces in the NCP car park.

If they are asking for £150, that is outside the BPA guidelines and recommendations, but do search for threads begun in the last month by nigelbb.

Karlos1978

Cheers, I've already found the bit on here about them breaking the BPA guidelines

nigelbb

Here is the link to my original post here on MSE https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4500141 There is also a long thread about my case on PePiPoo with scans, photographs & Google Street View links. http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=77572&st=0&p=799159&#entry799159

It sounds like your housemate just got caught the opposite way to me. I evidently parked in an NCP area & bought a council ticket whereas she parked in the council area (administered by CE) & bought an NCP ticket. It's all too easy to do as was observed by Guys Dad in post #7 of my MSE thread.

This parking situation in central MK is outrageous & from my researches has been going on unchallenged for many years with different PPCs taking advantage of the situation. It obviously suits the PPCs to have an excuse to levy a whopping illegal penalty the majority of which will be paid unquestioningly rather than put up a simple fence between the two parking areas so that it is impossible to walk from your car to the nearest but 'wrong' ticket machine. A sign on each machine stating "There are two car park operators in central Milton Keynes. Ensure that you are purchasing a ticket for the correct area".

As you will see from my PePiPoo thread I have sent my appeal in to NCP but thus far have had no reply. I have heard nothing from the supine Centre MK management either.

In the past few weeks I have become an instant expert on PPCs, the PoFA 2012, the BPA CoP etc etc & am rather hoping that NCP will reject my appeal so that I can wallop them with POPLA. I am amazed that NCP who are at the respectable end of the PPC spectrum should still so blatantly flout the law & the BPA Code of Practice.

Kite2010

Maybe the council are losing a trick not to issue a CPO to buy the car park from the scammers to increase the size (and income) of their carpark.

nigelbb

The NCP car park is on land owned by the Centre MK which in turn is managed by CBRE Management Services Ltd The actual owners are Hermes Real Estate Investment Management Ltd and Prudential Property Investment Managers Ltd.

There isn't any chance that NCP have sufficient interest in the land to pursue anyone for trespass trespass & as AFAIK no cases have been brought to court so I suspect that their contract for parking management does not allow them to take people to court for unpaid charges. Alternatively they are doubtless aware that they would lose a defended case (such as I would mount) & that it's better to keep quiet & just rely on the majority of people who get ticketed in this scam meekly paying up. A loss in court would be well publicised in the local media & would reveal the scam for what it was & thus hit profits.

Coupon-mad

Karlos1978 wrote: »

Cheers, I've already found the bit on here about them breaking the BPA guidelines

Please confirm whether your friend has a PCCN from NCP and if so, does the latest letter purport to be a rejection letter and does it include a POPLA code?

Or is this a real PCN from the Council? Your post is a little confusing and the advice is different.