Hawkshead Parking Eye charge

LakeDistrict

I have received a Parking Eye 'Parking Charge Notice' from Parking Eye, for being in the Hawkshead car park, in the Lake District for 30 minutes without paying, but I believer we have mitigating circumstances...
We arrived at the car park intending to go walking and I checked the parking charges when we arrived. I then returned to the car where my partner told me that our 3 month old daughter had been sick. We cleaned her up and then found she's filled her nappy. This complicated matters, as she's on medication for reflux, which leaves her constipated, so when she goes, she goes! We ended up changing her nappy and clothes, then decided not to go for a walk, so we left. As we'd not been away from the car and had been dealing with our screaming daughter, we didn't even think how long we'd been there as we left.
I'm going to contest the charge and ask for a POPLA code, but was looking for advice of these charges. Many things I've found say to ignore them. Where do we stand on this legally?

The_Slithy_Tove

Don't bother with mitigating circumstances, they will always fail an appeal with PE and with POPLA. You must challenge the very premise of the charge. The PE signage for the LDNP car parks is somewhat vague as I recall. They are probably alleging breach of contract, which means you owe the LDNP the cost of half an hour's parking at most.

Do not ignore PE. You must appeal, and onward to POPLA. Take a look around the forum for strong appeal points.

FYI, did you know that the Lake District National Park has thrown out PE from managing their car parks because of all the bad publicity and negative feedback they have been getting. As soon as PE's contract for each car park runs out, they're gone.

bazster

Mitigating circumstances will get you nowhere. But don't ignore this.

Was the notice you received in time? You have to get it within 14 days after the day of the alleged event, and out of that 14 days they have to allow 2 working days for postage. So check those dates.

You'll be wanting to send an appeal, as registered keeper, to Parking Eye. Invalidity of the notice due to it being out-of-time would be a show-stopper for them, meaning they can no longer hold the keeper liable - and, of course, you are not going to tell them who was driving.

But if it was in time, send something like this:

Dear Parking Creeps

The keeper rejects all liability for this charge on the grounds that it is an unenforceable contractual penalty.

No further correspondence will be entered into, so either cancel the charge or send me a POPLA code. Your failure to send a POPLA code will indicate your acceptance of this challenge.

Yours insincerely,

The Keeper


Come back here when you've got the POPLA code.

bazster

The_Slithy_Tove wrote: »

Don't bother with mitigating circumstances, they will always fail an appeal with PE and with POPLA. You must challenge the very premise of the charge. The PE signage for the LDNP car parks is somewhat vague as I recall. They are probably alleging breach of contract, which means you owe the LDNP the cost of half an hour's parking at most.

Do not ignore PE. You must appeal, and onward to POPLA. Take a look around the forum for strong appeal points.

FYI, did you know that the Lake District National Park has thrown out PE from managing their car parks because of all the bad publicity and negative feedback they have been getting. As soon as PE's contract for each car park runs out, they're gone.

I didn't know that, good news.

Umkomaas

bazster wrote: »

I didn't know that, good news.

I wonder whether Aldi might be following suit very shortly?

spacey2012

The_Slithy_Tove wrote: »

Do not ignore PE. You must appeal, and onward to POPLA.

Why ?
please explain why Parking eye can not be ignored.

Hovite_2

Umkomaas wrote: »

I wonder whether Aldi might be following suit very shortly?

They seem very quiet today !

bazster

spacey2012 wrote: »

Why ?
please explain why Parking eye can not be ignored.

Because not everyone wants to receive months and months of threatening letters and then finish up having to submit a defence to a court claim.

The_Slithy_Tove

spacey2012 wrote: »

Why ?
please explain why Parking eye can not be ignored.

If you look on Pepipoo you will see a large number of threads where people have been receiving court papers from PE. It seems they are all from people who have ignored them in the past. While the court claim is relatively easily defended and PE seen off, it's far easier to kill the ticket earlier through the appeals process.

Guys_Dad

spacey2012 wrote: »

Why ?
please explain why Parking eye can not be ignored.

spacey - you come over as a "one solution fits all". It doesn't.

Things have changed. Parking Eye in particular are getting militant and sending out court papers.

By going through POPLA, you get 2 bites of the cherry and the success rate of people going there with help from here and pepipoo so far looks pretty good.

Your "Ignore" is sometimes the best solution, but not in others.

spacey2012

How many court claims have the submitted ? out of what percentage of tickets unpaid ?
How many have they won ?
Just trying to gauge percentages .
Large numbers of claims ? hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, thousands, hundreds, a dozen or less ?