Popla appeal could someone please check

Fightback_Jack

Dear POPLA Assessor,

I am the registered keeper and I wish to appeal a recent parking charge from ParkingEye.
At the time of the incident, the driver and an 87 year old man were shopping in The Range, shopping at his pace allowing him to rest and catch his breath and also a stop in the cafe the store provides. The store has been told of this on several previous occasions.
A service provider which refuses to make a 'reasonable adjustment' without lawful justification is in breach of their mandatory duties under the following statutory Code:

The EHRC Equality Act Code of Practice for Service Providers (which became law in April 2011):
14.58 Indirect discrimination will be intentional where the defendant (or defender) knew that certain consequences would follow from their actions and they wanted those consequences to follow. A motive, for example, of promoting business efficiency, does not mean that the act of indirect discrimination is unintentional.
5.4 Indirect discrimination may occur when a service provider applies an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice which puts persons sharing a protected characteristic at a particular disadvantage.
5.34 In a case involving disability if the service provider has not complied with its duty to make relevant reasonable adjustments, it will be difficult for the service provider to show that the treatment was proportionate.


I would remind the POPLA assessor that POPLA is also a 'service provider' to the public and has broadly the same duties under the Equality Act 2010 and the statutory EHRC Equality Act Code of Practice for Service Providers as the Operator and landowner/occupier client. The Chief Adjudicator will no doubt be familiar with these regulations and I am sure that all employees, including all POPLA Assessors, are trained in this law and know that they must demonstrate compliance when making decisions which affect disabled groups or individuals

Notwithstanding the above, I submit the points below to show that I am not liable for the parking charge:

1) No genuine pre-estimate of loss
The Amount of £100.00 demanded by ParkingEye is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss. This car park is free and there is no provision for the purchasing of a ticket or any other means for paying for parking. There was no damage nor obstruction caused so there can be no loss arising from the incident. ParkingEye notices allege 'breach of terms/failure to comply' and as such, the landowner/occupier (not their agent) can only pursue liquidated damages directly flowing from the parking event. Given that ParkingEye charge the same lump sum for a 15 minute overstay as they would for 150 minutes, and the same fixed charge applies to any alleged contravention (whether serious/damaging, or unavoidable due to disabilities ), it is clear there has been no regard paid to establishing that this charge is a genuine pre-estimate of loss.

This charge from ParkingEye as a third party business agent is an unenforceable penalty. In Parking Eye v Smith, Manchester County Court December 2011, the judge decided that the only amount the Operator could lawfully claim was the amount that the driver should have paid into the machine. Anything else was deemed a penalty. And in my case this was a free car park with no payment due whatsoever.

The Office of Fair Trading has stated to the BPA Ltd that a 'parking charge' is not automatically recoverable simply because it is stated to be a parking charge, as it cannot be used to state a loss where none exists. And the BPA Code of Practice states that a charge for breach must wholly represent a genuine pre-estimate of loss flowing from the parking event.

ParkingEye and POPLA will be familiar with the well-known case on whether a sum is a genuine pre-estimate of loss or a penalty: Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company Limited v New Garage and Motor Company [1915] AC 79. Indeed I expect ParkingEye might cite it. However, therein is the classic statement, in the speech of Lord Dunedin, that a stipulation: “… will be held to be a penalty if the sum stipulated for is extravagant and unconscionable in amount in comparison with the greatest loss which could conceivably be proved to have followed from the breach.'' There is a presumption... that it is penalty when "a single lump sum is made payable by way of compensation, on the occurrence of one or more or all of several events, some of which may occasion serious and others but trifling damage".

No doubt ParkingEye will send their usual well-known template bluster attempting to assert some ''commercial justification'' but I refute their arguments. In a recent decision about a ParkingEye car park at Town Quay Southampton, POPLA Assessor Marina Kapour did not accept ParkingEye's generic submission that the inclusion of costs which in reality amount to the general business costs incurred for the provision of their car park management services is commercially justified. ''The whole business model of an Operator in respect of a particular car park operation cannot of itself amount to commercial justification. I find that the charge is not justified commercially and so must be shown to be a genuine pre-estimate of loss in order to be enforceable against the appellant.''

My case is the same and POPLA must be seen to be consistent if similar arguments are raised by an appellant.

2) Entering, Parking and Exiting
The Respondent uses camera’s at the entrance/exit of the retail park. The cameras only record the time that a vehicle enters the car park and when it leaves, they do not record the actual parking event nor the point at which the contract to park is entered into. There are five separate actions involved here that relate to the parking event.
1.Driving into the car park. (Entry time recorded on camera).
2.Parking the car in an empty parking space.
3.Reading the terms and conditions of parking offered at the retail park.
4.Acceptance of those terms and conditions by remaining at the car park.
5.Driving out of the parking space.
6.Driving out of the retail park. (Exit time recorded on camera).
The times of the actual ‘parking under contract’ event therefore differ significantly from the entry and exit times recorded by the cameras. This is particularly relevant at this car park due to the proximity of the exit to a busy junction resulting in queues within the car park to exit.

The BPA Ltd Code of Practice requires that parking operators can only rely on camera evidence if it does so in a reasonable, consistent and transparent manner. Thus the Respondent has failed to recognise that it takes time to get in, find a space, consider the terms and conditions and then eventually to leave.

The Respondent’s claim for a parking charge for an alleged overstay based solely on the entry and exit times recorded by cameras is therefore fatally flawed and cannot be relied upon, on a balance of probabilities, to prove its case.

3) No standing or authority to pursue charges nor form contracts with drivers
ParkingEye do not own the land mentioned in their Notice to Keeper and have not provided any evidence that they are lawfully entitled to demand money from a driver or keeper. Even if a contract is shown to POPLA, I assert that there are persuasive recent court decisions against ParkingEye which establish that a mere parking agent has no legal standing nor authority which could impact on visiting drivers.

In ParkingEye v Sharma, Case No. 3QT62646 in the Brentford County Court 23/10/2013 District Judge Jenkins checked the ParkingEye contract and quickly picked out the contradiction between clause 3.7, where the landowner appoints ParkingEye as their agent, and clause 22, where is states there is no agency relationship between ParkingEye and the landowner. The Judge dismissed the case on the grounds that the parking contract was a commercial matter between the Operator and their agent, and didn’t create any contractual relationship between ParkingEye and motorists who used the land. This decision was followed by ParkingEye v Gardam, Case No.3QT60598 in the High Wycombe County Court 14/11/2013 where costs of £90 were awarded to the Defendant. District Judge Jones concurred completely with the persuasive view in ParkingEye v Sharma that a parking operator has no standing to bring the claim in their own name. My case is the same.

4)The signage was not compliant with the BPA Code of Practice so there was no valid contract formed between ParkingEye and the driver
I submit that this signage failed to comply with the BPA Code of Practice section 18 and appendix B. The signs failed to properly warn/inform the driver of the terms and any consequences for breach. Further, because ParkingEye are a mere agent and place their signs so high (six and a half feet from the base to the ground), they have failed to establish the elements of a contract (consideration/offer and acceptance). Any alleged contract (denied in this case) could only be formed at the entrance to the premises, prior to parking. It is not formed after the vehicle has already been parked, as this is too late. In breach of Appendix B (Mandatory Entrance Signs) ParkingEye have no signage with full terms which could ever be readable at eye level, for a driver in moving traffic on arrival. The only signs are up on poles with the spy cameras and were not read nor even seen by the occupants of the car, who were there at the invitation of The Range, to shop and enjoy free parking as expressly offered to customers in the principal's advertising and website.

5) ANPR Accuracy and breach of the BPA Code of Practice 21.3
This Operator is obliged to ensure their ANPR equipment is maintained as described in paragraph 21.3 of the British Parking Association's Approved Operator Scheme Code of Practice. I say that Parking Eye have failed to clearly inform drivers about the cameras and what the data will be used for and how it will be used and stored. I have also seen no evidence that they have complied with the other requirements in that section of the code.

In addition I question the entire reliability of the system. I require that ParkingEye present records as to the dates and times of when the cameras at this car park were checked, adjusted, calibrated, synchronised with the timer which stamps the photos and generally maintained to ensure the accuracy of the dates and times of any ANPR images. This is important because the entirety of the charge is founded on two images purporting to show my vehicle entering and exiting at specific times. It is vital that this Operator must produce evidence in response and explain to POPLA how their system differs (if at all) from the flawed ANPR system which was wholly responsible for the court loss recently in ParkingEye v Fox-Jones on 8 Nov 2013. That case was dismissed when the judge said the evidence from ParkingEye was fundamentally flawed because the synchronisation of the camera pictures with the timer had been called into question and the operator could not rebut the point.

So, in addition to showing their maintenance records, I require ParkingEye to show evidence to rebut the following assertion. I suggest that in the case of my vehicle being in this car park, a local camera took the image but a remote server added the time stamp. As the two are disconnected by the internet and do not have a common "time synchronisation system", there is no proof that the time stamp added is actually the exact time of the image. The operator appears to use WIFI which introduces a delay through buffering, so "live" is not really "live". Hence without a synchronised time stamp there is no evidence that the image is ever time stamped with an accurate time. Therefore I contend that this ANPR "evidence" from the cameras in this car park is just as unreliable and unsynchronised as the evidence in the Fox-Jones case. As their whole charge rests upon two timed photos, I put ParkingEye to strict proof to the contrary.

I request that my appeal is upheld and for POPLA to inform ParkingEye to cancel the PCN.

Yours faithfully,

THE REGISTERED KEEPER