£12 pcn

bazster

Interesting report from the Prankster:

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/total-parking-solutions-set-overstay.html

Of course, this is a P&D car park and so this might be legally watertight. For free car parks there isn't a contract, regardless of the level of charge for breach.

One imagines that, in this instance, should the occasional court case be contemplated pour encourager les autres, the NHS Trust will bring it. Can't see TPS wanting to do so for £20. Of course, at £12 initially, they will probably get a much higher payment rate anyway than most of the scumbags achieve.

bod1467

I see this as a positive development. It is clear that there are places where parking is at a premium and some form of control is required. What is contained in this blog would seem a fair and reasonable approach ... £12 would be deemed acceptable by a "reasonable person" (which tends to be the accepted test of whether or not something is a penalty/unfair).

bazster

bod1467 wrote: »

I see this as a positive development. It is clear that there are places where parking is at a premium and some form of control is required. What is contained in this blog would seem a fair and reasonable approach ... £12 would be deemed acceptable by a "reasonable person" (which tends to be the accepted test of whether or not something is a penalty/unfair).

I broadly agree, and if someone could come up with a legal basis for PCN's of £20/£12 in free car parks then I would have no problem with it, but I fail to see what the legal basis might be.

You can't even present it as a contractual charge, since there is no contract. When I go to the supermarket I park under the terms of an implied licence they have given me. Any contract purportedly offered by ParkingEye, TPS or whomever is worthless since they can't offer as consideration that which I already have i.e. permission to park, and I offer no consideration whatsoever.

Possibly there is a £20/£12 claim for trespass if I breach the terms of the licence, but that would probably involve the landowner more than they would wish.

peter_the_piper

Personally, if this happened to me I'd pay it. I've always said that if they came up with a sensible amount it would be payable and this forum would have a lot less to do.

salmosalaris

Good evidence to use in a defence of how charges of £100 are quite clearly a penalty and unjustifiable

Stroma

I would appeal it, and take it to popla if they reject, if popla decides it is gpeol then pay the £20 afterwards. Me being bloody minded would take satisfaction of costing the parking company money. I just think that any cost to patients and visitors is a disgrace for the nhs.

Umkomaas

Stroma wrote: »

I would appeal it, and take it to popla if they reject, if popla decides it is gpeol then pay the £20 afterwards. Me being bloody minded would take satisfaction of costing the parking company money. I just think that any cost to patients and visitors is a disgrace for the nhs.

They'd be stumping up £27 to recover £20. Rejecting a well worded appeal which looked likely to end up at POPLA would be pretty pointless. I wonder whether they've factored that into their calculations (or even had the foresight to anticipate it)?

Of course they might be playing smart and passing on the cost of any POPLA appeal to the Trust. Will be interesting to see how this pans out after we get our first 'Help! I've just got a £12 PCN'.

Stroma

I agree, but as this is England they must offer popla on rejection or they are in breach of the BPA CoP, whilst commendable to actually charge probably the gpeol in the car park, they must abide by the CoP. Might be worth doing an FOI on this matter to the trust.

nigelbb

Pay & Display is totally inappropriate for a hospital car park where both patients & visitors have no way of knowing precisely how long their visit will be. If P&D is to be used then there should be the facility to 'top up' before departing as seen at the car parks at Fistral Beach & Whitlingham Country Park.

Assuming that the £12 reflects what the parking rate for 24 hours this would be in line with 'Lost tickets will be charged at daily rate" usual in pay on exit car parks.

4consumerrights

Stroma wrote: »

I would appeal it, and take it to popla if they reject, if popla decides it is gpeol then pay the £20 afterwards. Me being bloody minded would take satisfaction of costing the parking company money. I just think that any cost to patients and visitors is a disgrace for the nhs.

as quoted by Parking Prankster:

There may be some legal loophole available to allow motorists to wriggle out, but frankly, for the sake of £12 any motorist would have to consider whether it was worth the time and effort to avoid payment.

I would take great pleasure in appealing this also and taking it to POPLA as this particular set up may have more legal loopholes in it than a sieve, including the signage wording in relation to disabled users::D



I also do not agree with third party charging for hospitals and patients as a general rule either - and the influx of this only occurred when private parking companies pitched their sales patter to health trusts that they need car park management.

Hospital parking IMHO should be free - patients and visitors and staff have enough to contend with and should not be troubled with either finding money or pay or contesting parking charges.

Stroma

I agree as well, it's free to park in nhs hospitals in Wales but they are still infested by parking companies, on a recent emergency visit to hospital my wife's car was ticketed, we had enough on our minds to think about parking. Vinci chickened out of pursuing me, they obviously thought it wasn't worth the 15% of £40 they get for this.

It's about time these hospitals in England stopped charging people and stop having these companies lurking the car parks, it costs them no more to run these car parks than doing it themselves, it's mostly self ticketing so they employ the staff anyway, the profit mostly goes into the ticketers coffers, except in the bizarre case of Vinci mentioned above.