Please help this disabled driver!

Molbysdouble

Hello Folks
Can you help me. I'm a bit of an old fool. eI am a disabled driver whose badge had slipped out of sight and was given a ticket from UKPC. Unfortunatley I thought I had appealed through UKPC Appeals website but now I have received a demand from Debt Recovery for £120. I wrote to them but have now received the following letter

"Thank you for your email regarding the above Parking Charge Notice (PCN).

As per the British Parking Association’s (BPA) Code of Practice, Point 22.7, the driver/keeper/hirer was allowed 28 days from the date the PCN was issued and 28 days from the date the Notice to Keeper was sent to challenge the PCN. The time to challenge the charge has now expired and therefore access to the Independent Appeals Service (POPLA) is no longer available.

However, in order to resolve this matter, I will offer the following comments as to why this PCN was correctly issued and is still payable in full.

My findings

There are clear and sufficient signs (example attached) throughout that site warning drivers about the rules for parking in bays that are reserved for valid blue badge holders. The signage on site is sufficient and is in line with the guidelines laid down by the British Parking Association (BPA). Those signs state that drivers can only use those bays if they clearly and correctly display a valid blue badge. They also warn that failure to clearly and correctly display a valid blue badge may result in the issue of a PCN.

On the date in question the vehicle was parked (or stopped and waiting), in a space reserved for valid blue badge holders, but no valid blue badge was clearly and correctly displayed. This means that the terms and conditions were breached and a PCN was correctly and legitimately issued and placed on the vehicle for notification purposes.

Claim permit fell off

It is your obligation to ensure that a permit is clearly and correctly displayed at all times. If the permit fell off as you claim, then that is your/the driver's responsibility and therefore your/the driver's responsibility to settle the charge for breaching the terms of parking.

While you personally may feel that the vehicle was parked reasonably and not obstructively, the site in question is private land. The terms and conditions of the site are put in place at the behest of the private landowner and must be strictly adhered to; even if you disagree with their requirements. If you/the driver did not wish to abide by these terms and conditions, you/the driver were under no obligation to park on the property in question.

Disabled tax disc

The status of the vehicle in relation to road tax is in fact irrelevant. The issue is not whether the vehicle is registered for use by disabled motorists, but whether the vehicle actually contains a disabled individual. As I am sure you appreciate, a vehicle with a disabled tax disc can still be used by a non-disabled motorist without a disabled passenger present. If any vehicle with a disabled tax disc was permitted to be parked in a disabled bay, then this could result in the unfair result of a non-disabled motorist parking in a disabled bay without the need to do so (i.e. no disabled individual in the car). Having a valid blue badge on clear display (which it was not in this instance) notifies the attendant that a disabled individual is in the vehicle and requires the bay.

Harassment

Within the correspondence harassment has also been referred to and therefore I feel obliged to point out that under S1(3)(c) of The Harassment Act 1997, a course of conduct that someone alleges to be harassment will not be deemed so if the person who pursued it shows that in the particular circumstances the pursuit of the course of conduct was reasonable.

Under the circumstances our course of action has been entirely reasonable. Our company has legitimately pursued recompense for a breach of the terms and conditions attached to our client’s site.

What you need to do now

Please pay £130.00 by 10th March 2014. You can pay online or by phone. Go to phone 0844 561 0965. You can find full details of how to pay on the reverse of the letter(s) sent to you.

What will happen if you do not pay what you owe

If you do not pay the full amount by the date shown above, I will pass your case to our legal team, who will consider taking legal action to recover what is due.

What if you do not agree

Although any correspondence that does not provide further evidence will be noted and retained, I cannot guarantee that we will reply to it"

Can anyone please help, I am struggling to prove that I had a badge but they are not listening....do I have to pay this fine or have I left it too late?

Thanks in advance

Redx

the BB is not relevant on private land, but the EA 2010 is

complain to the BPA that UKPC never gave you a popla code seeing as they never cancelled the parking invoice

complain to the landowner quoting the EA 2010 and insist they cancel it

ignore debt recovery, they cannot do anything at all

lastly, read this https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4816822

Half_way

complain to the landowner quoting the EA 2010 and insist they cancel it

The above is important, tell them the car park owners not the parking company) that as you have informed their agents, and their agents have disregarded your information that they are now in breach of the Equalities act as they are responsible for the actions of their agents, and you would like them to drop this immediately.

Coupon-mad

Please don't pay it and you are not a fool for the fact a Blue badge (which doesn't legally even apply on private land!) slipped. You don't have to prove your need, any more than you would have to show 'proof' to use a wheelchair in Tesco.

A slipped 'permit or badge' doesn't take away your disability need so you must complaint to let the landowner or Retail Store manager(s) aware of this issue and ask them to step in and cancel it. As others have said, these debt collector letters harassing you now they know you were in fact disabled, is a breach of the Equality Act 2010 which is the law which gives you the undeniable right to use the 'reasonable adjustment' of a private 'disabled bay'. i.e. it's there for disabled people under the Equality Act, not just for 'disabled people who have Council Blue Badge' DESPITE what the signs say!

Let us know how your complaint gets handled.

And are you sure you appealed on UKPC's website? If you think you did then send an email complaint to the BPA saying UKPC never responded to your appeal and never sent you a POPLA code, yet you appealed online way before they farmed it out to DRP. The BPA email address is in post #6 of the 'NEWBIES read this first' sticky thread.

By the way if you get a POPLA code in the end DO NOT send a naive appeal about the slipped blue badge to POPLA!! Eeek! The newbies thread tells you how to win at POPLA and that sort of appeal is not a winner - but we know what is and we can beat UKPC every time.

Finally UKPC are nothing to worry about and nor are letters from DRP or 'Zenith' (their other name). And that 'My findings' letter is a template computerised reply - we've seen it loads of times before. DRP are not the ones to contact.