Parking charge public road

Rissol

I stopped in Harbet Road, Paddington which runs around the back of the Hilton Metropole. It appears to be a public road. I stopped on the double yellow lines as the lay by for loading and unloading was full with contractors vehicles. I remained in the vehicle as I was picking someone up. I have since received a parking charge notice from Parking Direct uk with photographs of my vehicle parked for two minutes. Can someone tell me, are park direct legally authorised to issue a £60-£100 charge notice under these circumstances. I have challenged them but they have not accepted my objection.

The_Slithy_Tove

If it says "Parking Charge Notice" and the address to send payments to is NOT a council address, then it's an unenforceable private ticket. Did they reject your "appeal", then? And if so, did they issue a POPLA reference?

fisherjim

Rissol wrote: »

I stopped in Harbet Road, Paddington which runs around the back of the Hilton Metropole. It appears to be a public road. I stopped on the double yellow lines as the lay by for loading and unloading was full with contractors vehicles. I remained in the vehicle as I was picking someone up. I have since received a parking charge notice from Parking Direct uk with photographs of my vehicle parked for two minutes. Can someone tell me, are park direct legally authorised to issue a £60-£100 charge notice under these circumstances. I have challenged them but they have not accepted my objection.

Harbet Road is indeed a private road, there are loads of signs saying this along there so this is a Parking Charge Notice not a fine as you have correctly stated.

Where did you park, there are loads of drop of zones on the left hand side, Taxi spaces on the right, and a large Fire vehicle only space I believe all covered by double yellows.
If you stopped in a drop off for two mins they are definitely taking the P.
Do not pay it take advice from the regulars on here but they will need more info from you I would think.

Coupon-mad

Rissol wrote: »

I stopped in Harbet Road, Paddington which runs around the back of the Hilton Metropole. It appears to be a public road. I stopped on the double yellow lines as the lay by for loading and unloading was full with contractors vehicles. I remained in the vehicle as I was picking someone up. I have since received a parking charge notice from Parking Direct uk with photographs of my vehicle parked for two minutes. Can someone tell me, are park direct legally authorised to issue a £60-£100 charge notice under these circumstances.

I have challenged them but they have not accepted my objection.

Park Direct are not 'legally authorised'(!) to do anything. Nothing legally 'official' anyway, under any circumstances. It's not a fine.

You've challenged them, so:

- how quickly did they send the rejection letter

- and did they give you a POPLA code to take the appeal to the independent stage? Which you can win, probably, with help & advice on the wording.

Never just fire off a soft appeal to POPLA the same as the one to the PPC. It needs a bit of homework and reading by you to make it a strong, winning appeal so that the fake PCN is cancelled at Park Direct's expense. It needs points about wanting POPLA to scrutinise their contract or site agreement, claiming that they do not have sufficient status to issue Parking Charges there as they don't own the land, pictures of their signs as you never saw any signs {if true} and in any case the effect of 'double yellow lines' (which they've decided to mislead people by copying, on a road which looks like any other highway) actually allows a car to stop to pick up or drop off passengers. Any UK driver would understand them to mean the same as they do on the public highway and that is NOT 'no stopping at all'.

Do not state how long you 'waited for' those passengers, in your POPLA appeal, just that you only stopped for the boarding of a passenger which is an exemption on council double yellows, so if a PPC choose to copy those lines they can't pretend they mean something different (for example if they had their own traffic lights they couldn't pretend red means go and green means stop!).

So start by reading the two POPLA 'sticky' information threads at the top of the parking forum and read some threads about any PPC, just looking at the threads on page one and two will find drafts of appeal wording and links to the Parking Cowboys website.

And see what points you can find out by comparing the ticket and signs and deadlines and procedure they followed, with the BPA code of practice.

Draft what you are thinking of saying and we can help. Or did the rejection letter have no POPLA code at all?

Rissol

Thanks everyone. I have got a POPLA reference. Didn't realise it was a private road. Their photos are timed the first notice showed 13 seconds between frames, which I used in my challenge. In the rejection letter they added a couple more photos at different angles but in all it totalled 2 minutes.

Coupon-mad

Don't waste the POPLA code then! This must be a strong appeal now.

See some links I just posted here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4557733

and here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4557939

So you can now draft a strong appeal for POPLA, throwing in everything you can find that the PPC did wrong (contract law and BPA code-wise) and ending it by demanding lots of evidence to be produced for POPLA (like you will see in other people's POPLA appeal drafts such as NitramA's thread on pepipoo that I linked earlier in one of those two threads).

Guys_Dad

Double yellows on a public road are pretty well known to motorists and have legal backing, if you know what I mean.

But on a private road, that is not transferred and the PPC must have full explanatory notices, declaring the charges etc. Have they?

Coupon-mad

Guys_Dad wrote: »

Double yellows on a public road are pretty well known to motorists and have legal backing, if you know what I mean.

But on a private road, that is not transferred and the PPC must have full explanatory notices, declaring the charges etc. Have they?

...and the meaning of them is known to allow dropping off or collecting passengers.

Rissol

I see from their photo that there is a sign attached to the lamppost behind my vehicle, this could be one of their signs, but of course I wasn't looking to park I was just picking someone up the sign is about 10 feet high. Since I didn't leave the vehicle I didn't see it. I've just looked at the times of the photos again and they are span only 1 minute. Sorry coupon mad but could you remind me where I saw the time scales between parking and receipt of charge notice when they use cameras and don't issue tickets?
Thanks again can't believe the help I've received already.

Coupon-mad

Rissol wrote: »

I see from their photo that there is a sign attached to the lamppost behind my vehicle, this could be one of their signs, but of course I wasn't looking to park I was just picking someone up the sign is about 10 feet high. Since I didn't leave the vehicle I didn't see it. I've just looked at the times of the photos again and they are span only 1 minute. Sorry coupon mad but could you remind me where I saw the time scales between parking and receipt of charge notice when they use cameras and don't issue tickets?
Thanks again can't believe the help I've received already.

BPA code of practice sets it all out, all the rules the PPC have to follow including the timescale to issue postal PCNs. Or maybe you saw it on the Parking Cowboys website?

And don't worry about signs that were 10 feet high and unreadable from a driver's seat - that's another point for your appeal.