Is it still correct to ignore every letter?

liseylou

N9eav wrote: »

Just an update to put an end to this thread in case anyone reads it for advice and wonders what happened.


It would be fair to mention that things had changed from the first information I was told about. My daughter had indeed been in the car park a number of times without paying as the pick up place for the beach and shops is inside the camera zone. The problem we had was PE had sent dozens of tickets mixed up with dozens of cancellation notices. It ended up with confusion over which ticket was the actual one they were proceeding on. So we were waiting for the letter before action to see what offence they were alleging before being able to continue. Of course they did not send one, but went straight to the court action. We had to wait about 3 months before anything else happened. I thought it had all been forgotten or dropped by PE..... Nope


Anyway PE sent the disclosure package to us as required by the court. We had replied some time before. I had ticked the mediation service box on our form as a way of showing our willingness to assist the court. PE did not! Although their inch thick bundle of papers did suggest the exact opposite.


Now for the shock bit to me Their disclosure package had copies the relevant parking notice which then surprisingly had a photo of an evening stay exceeding 1 hour. I knew nothing of this. Now as you can imagine I was somewhat annoyed after trying to fight a case with wrong information.
Lesson 1- Make sure anyone you help tells you the whole truth!


Anyway I knew that we were now on the back foot, but waited for the court date on the grounds that they had sent no letter before action which is required by procedural rules.
Surprisingly there was no copy of that letter in their disclosure bundle, when there was a copy of everything else. There was also mountains of case law and arguments against the points I had raised, such as Ownership of the land, paying taxes, signage and the usual points raised in many of these type of posts.


Now that I knew that the parking charge was due to a long evening visit, I went to the car park at night and saw that it was not lit and no signs could be seen. I also saw that the signs change from winter to summer (when I do not know) so that in the winter there is no evening charge. The summer is £1 after 6pm.


Armed with new information I awaited the court date. The court Judge however stayed the case and referred both sides to the mediation service.


We completed the mediation this week and PE agreed that they do change their signs at Fistral in the summer. (There is no notice of this if you are local by the way).


They agreed that they did send many tickets and cancel them as the daytime parking was less than 20 mins, but the computerised system prints the notices regardless.


They say its the responsibility of the motorist to check the signs each time they visit the car park even though they may think they know the rules...


It ended up with an agreement to pay them £75. after offering £60. They wanted £115, but took pity on my daughter (supposedly) as she was unemployed.


NOW. Before anyone starts writing replies that we are suckers or stupid or anything of the sort. I must say that it is a weight off our minds. I negotiated £165 and a court appearance down to £75 and no court. Even if I attended with my daughter and we won. Both would have lost a days pay, spent hours building our case and had stress and worry.


Yes, it was stupid advice in the first place about ignoring the ticket. But it has taken almost a year to sort this out and watching the postbox for more letters from the court is not fun. If you think you can fight it and win, please keep on going and beat them.


If you are searching for FISTRAL BEACH as you have a ticket, here is some information.


1. There is summer and winter signage. It changes without notice.
2. Most of the signs are in the sand dunes and cannot be seen at night as the car park is not lit except at the ticket machines.
3. To be fair they have 2o minutes grace before buying a ticket
4. Some times of the year the ticket is free for the first hour, Check the sign.
5. The landowner does not give a !!!!!, so don't write to him if you get a ticket. (Neither do the papers, MP or councillors)
6. Don't ignore any tickets...

I just want to say I have recently spoken to the landowner of this car park and I have to say he was extremely accommodating (surprisingly). I emailed him too as he did some research for me. Unfortunately, there was a misunderstanding as it was actually Tower Rd next door where I was parked.

I can post his email address and telephone number on here if anyone needs it? It's on my laptop so I cannot access it at the moment as I am on my phone, but let me know if you think it will help??

N9eav

I am sure it will help. I did send a letter asking for help, but got no reply...

Coupon-mad

We know the contact for the Fistral beach car park, Jon Briant of the surf school? I think his email address is in the 'successful complaints about PPCs' sticky thread hosted in Crabman's list of forum stickies.