Ticketing Of Cars Displaying A Blue Budge On Private Land

Scouse_Magic

Fergie76 wrote: »

Despite appealing to APCOA and not receiving a reply, I have now had a letter from Roxburghe.

Standard letter, saying no valid dispute and no payment received. I noticed another thread the other day saying the same thing. Is this a tactic, to avoid giving out POPLA codes?

What would be the next suggestion? Obviously, I'm not gonna pay.

The next step is simple... do not lose any sleep ignore everything and wait for official court papers.....The fact that they have ignored your appeal and sent it to a debt collector is not only in breach of POFA but enough to have the claim struck out...

APCOA have passed the matter onto Roxburghe who in turn will issue GPB Solicitor letters all of whom dont own the land and thus it turns into a third party claim :rotfl: Road markings on private land cannot be enforced in law although causing obstruction is not advocated....

Read all future correspondence carefully about who is acting on behalf of who....

Oh yes and here is a quote from the apcoa website that you may wish to quote in court........"APCOA PARKING is purely a service provider and does not own any property itself. Therefore it does not compete with property owners and investors."

Just goes to show the calibre of these ticket issuers who actually believe they are traffic wardens picking on a blue badge holder in a hospital car park, I wonder if they get a back hander from the ppc :money:

Fergie76

So a surprising twist to this saga this morning...

After receiving the Roxburghe letter last Saturday (which was dated 28 Aug 13), the wife today receives a letter from APCOA (dated 4 Sep 13), which say:

Thank you for your letter regarding the issue of the above Parking Charge Notice.

We have considered fully the circumstances outlined by you and on this occasion have cancelled the above notice.

It just then goes on about the drivers responsibilities etc...

So by the looks of things Roxburghe were jumping the gun with their letter, who is the best people to complain to?

My appeal to APCOA was:

I have received a Notice to Owner/Keeper in reference to the above PCN number.

I appeal on the grounds that the landowner provides free parking for disabled users displaying a blue badge.

I would also like to draw your attention to the BPA AOS COP article 16.5:

If your landowner provides a concession that allows parking for disabled people, if a vehicle displays a valid Blue Badge you must not issue it with parking charge notices.

As you can see from the pictures that you have provided, I have complied with that requirement and displayed a blue badge.

Should you not accept this appeal, I require you to provide a POPLA code within the time scales as laid down by the BPA AOS COP.

Fergie76

Is it worth complain to anyone reference Roxburghe letter?

Half_way

If you can, you should make a full on complaint to the land owner/car park owner for the actions of their agents.
And as a result of their agents actions they ( the car park owners ) are /could be in breach of the equalities act.

Fergie76

Well that is complaints sent off to the BPA and DVLA.

Fergie76

Reply back from BPA...

We have spoken to the operator in regards to your complaint and they have advised the parking charge notice was cancelled as a gesture of goodwill. The parking charge notice was issued due to non payment. Even though you are a blue badge holder, payment on site at the car park was still required. The operator has advised that no payment was made on the day for parking.

The operator has advised that the case went to Debt Recovery on the 22nd August 2013 because the case had not been scanned to the system due to human error. An acknowledgement was not sent out due to this error.

The operator has confirmed the appeal was received on the 5th August 2013 and a response was sent on the 4th September 2013.

The operator did breach our Code of Practice by not sending out an acknowledgement and not scanning It in to prevent debt recovery letters from being sent, however this was due to human error and the operator has assured us that it was a one off. Therefore we will be monitoring the situation and have added a note to their file.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Kind regards,

AOS Investigations Team

Fergie76

Wasn't happy with their reply as the missed the biggest complaint, so replied to them with -

Thank you for your reply, however I feel you have failed to consider the most important point –

[FONT=&quot]16.5 If your landowner provides a concession that allows parking for disabled people, if a vehicle displays a valid Blue Badge you must not issue it with parking charge notices.[/FONT]

The landowner does provide a concession for disabled people, therefore the car should not have been ticketed in the first place. Therefore I don’t agree that it was cancelled as a gesture of goodwill, but because they were in breach of the AOS.

I look forward to hearing your comments regarding this.

And BPA were quick to reply with this -

Thank you for your e-mail.

Please be advised the operator has confirmed that payment for parking is applicable to all motorists even those who display a blue badge.

If you wish to contest this further, we would suggest you contact APCOA.

We have closed the case as there has been no breach of our Code of Practice.

Kind regards,

AOS Investigations Team


So I sent another email -

[FONT=&quot]Well APCOA are lying. See attached photo.



They have yet to reply...
[/FONT]

Fergie76

So a nice bit of email tennis with the BPA this afternoon. In reply to email, I sent with picture -

Thank you for your e-mail.

We will raise this with the operator. Once we receive a reply we will be in touch.

Kind regards,

AOS Investigations Team

They then sent another email with nice pictures of my car parked in a normal bay. With the following words -

The operator has confirmed that free parking only applies to those parked in bays with a wheelchair on. The sign you sent does also stipulate this. The pictures below show the vehicle in question parked in a bay which is not a disabled bay:

In view of this we have closed the investigation.

Kind regards,

AOS Investigations Team

So I sent them another email saying -

[FONT=&quot]As I have suspected all along you are brushing this under the carpet. I will be contacting my MP, DVLA and the ICO. [/FONT] [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]You AOS clearly states - [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]16.5 If your landowner provides a concession that allows parking for disabled people, if a vehicle displays a valid Blue Badge you must not issue it with parking charge notices.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]No where does this state that it only applies to disabled bays. And I believe this to be in breach of disability act (or whatever the act is called now).

[/FONT]And in reply -

Received with thanks

Kind regards

AOS Investigation Team

Think they are getting fed up with me. lol

I was out this afternoon, so was emailing from phone, that's why my emails were brief.

4consumerrights

Dear Fergie76 - I've read all the posts on this thread and what you are describing are actions of direct discrimination and discrimination connected to a disability.The BPA fail continously to impose sanction points for breaches of their CoP. Don't let this matter drop - Send a reply back to the BPA and state that it is clearly evident that the BPA are now failing in their legal duties to address operators who clearly commit acts of discrimination and thereby the BPA are also discriminating against disabled motorists. Mention that you are particularly aware that the BPA does not impose sanction points against APCOA in particular, due to the fact that one of the directors for APCOA also serves on the board of directors for the BPA (Mr Graham Richard Morphew). A conflict of interest has therefore arisen.

State that you are now taking legal advice to make a joint claim for compensation against both the BPA and APCOA for the stress and inconvenence caused.

MothballsWallet

I love how the BPA (and some of these other PPCs) use "anonymous" email signatures - no named person, just the team name.

Perhaps should any of us receive these sorts of emails, we should add in our replies:

By the way, did you know that the use of an "anonymous" email signature, i.e., one without a named person in it, is against United Nations law and carries severe penalties.

(Sadly, the UN law bit's untrue, so we'd probably have to say that it's against the rules of professional etiquette, but I wish it was against UN law, there'd be a lot of lawbreakers in this country who'd get punished.)