Car Parking Partnership Invoice

BritishLion

Hi all,

After picking up a parking ticket myself a couple of months ago (awaiting POPLA code from ECP), my wife, clearly jealous, has gone and got her own today!


The circumstances are as follows...

• It was a hospital car park in England
• She is employed at the hospital
• She has a valid parking permit
• The parking permit fell off window and was not visible
• Car Parking Partnership slap ticket on car for not displaying a valid permit

This happened to her three years ago in the same car park and she called CPP to explain and they waived the invoice as a "one off".


So what would be the best way to proceed with this? Should she...

• Contact CPP as before and hope they waive it?
• Speak to the hospital to see if they can get it waived?
• Wait for the NtK, soft appeal and go to POPLA?

Obviously payment is not an option!

Any help as always would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

BL

Umkomaas

So what would be the best way to proceed with this? Should she...
Contact CPP as before and hope they waive it?
Speak to the hospital to see if they can get it waived?
Wait for the NtK, soft appeal and go to POPLA?

Wait for NtK and see what that brings, plenty of time to do things then. Tackling the RK under PoFA 2012 is more hazardous for the PPC than pursuing the driver.

Golden Rules for the moment:

1. No contact (especially, despite any temptation, by telephone) with the PPC.
2. Absolutely no indication as to who was, or who was not, the driver.

Get back when NtK arrives.

HTH

BritishLion

Hi all,

The NtK has finally arrived for this! We will be appealing, but would like to know on what basis to appeal?

I have another invoice going through appeal at the moment and my first 'soft appeal' was rejected for not being detailed enough. The circumstances of my other invoice are completely different though (I forgot to buy a ticket) so I don't know if I should be using the same appeal or not?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Many thanks,

BL

Umkomaas

Same process, soft appeal to the PPC (inevitable rejection) acquire POPLA code from the PPC, put together appeal to POPLA (draft it up and post here for comment - don't go it alone, don't put it together on a mitigating circumstances basis), send to POPLA, await (successful) decision, parking charge cancelled.

But there are things you can do in parallel, like contacting the hospital and try to get them to cancel the charge. You also need to do lots of reading on the forum about similar cases (use search engine on 'dashboard' or similar, should bring up plenty of threads/posts). Also lots of reading of POPLA Decisions sticky, especially the most recent and get your head around 'pre-estimate of loss', 'signage', 'contract with the landowner' as you will need to use these particularly in your POPLA appeal.

As the PPC's contract is with a public body you could issue a Freedom of Information Request for the contract to be released to you for evidential purposes in developing your POPLA appeal.

HTH

Coupon-mad

Some very good advice already from Umkomaas above!

Your wife should reply as the registered keeper only, talking about 'the driver' in the third person. As per this link:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=63033637&posted=1

So the appeal - if you prefer a longer one - could be:

'I am not liable for the parking charge and the vehicle was not improperly parked, so if this challenge is rejected I have grounds to appeal to POPLA and will require the verification code from yourselves and full details about how I can appeal further. For your information I will exercise my right to appeal as the registered keeper and will not discuss the driver's details.

The driver always displays their permit/scratchcard and I attach a copy of it {cover the name if it has your name on it}.

Quite clearly, as the registered keeper of this car - and having received your letter six weeks after the alleged incident- I have no idea if later in the day, when the ticketing employee squeezed between the parked cars, he may have dislodged it or if the wind or another car or passer-by caused it to move.

If CPP are saying it wasn't there later on then how could any employee have known? Surely if CPP really wanted Hospital staff to have a secure way of displaying permits, as a BPA member of the AOS scheme they should have provided a mechanism (e.g. a sticky permit/scratchcard) to facilitate that, in order that genuine staff members were never penalised. CPP should have made the permit/scratchcard sticky, to attach to the dash or windscreen or provided a display wallet or clip to attach to the mirror, for example.

Because CPP didn't bother to protect staff from such common events as flipped permits, I contend that for CPP to profit from that is unfair and wholly disproportionate. I suggest that this 'charge' is nothing but an illegal penalty which will not be upheld at POPLA stage. The driver entered into no contract with CPP whatsoever; having already paid for a permit this meant that the consideration of the parking space was already offered by the Hospital and accepted by the driver when paying for that permit. So the elements of a contract between CPP and the driver did not exist. CPP may well have some signs on site - but these were not prominent and were not seen/accepted by the driver.

You have suffered no loss and neither has the Hospital so I urge you to consider my challenge and the proof of permit enclosed (copy) and allow my appeal.

yours,

PRINT NAME (NOT YOUR SIGNATURE, THEY DON'T NEED A REAL ONE)

Umkomaas

Another hair-triggered grenade into the PPC's lap C-m.

OP - this is top drawer advice that you should confidently take and action.