Parking eye won cambridge case

pustit

bargepole wrote: »

You only have to read the VCS v HMRC Appeal judgment, and in particular the bit about offering to sell you Buckingham Palace for £1 being a valid contract, to realise how out of touch some of the higher echelons of the Judiciary are.

This is why I would have some concerns about going to the CoA, if the defendants decide to appeal. There would be three Judges, all on well into six figure salaries, who would probably regard paying £85 to extend their parking time as just small change.

I seem to remember from school that one contributory factor as to why judges are on such extraordinarily high salaries is they would be above bribery.

bod1467

How have you read "bribery" into what bargepole posted?

atilla

Bantex wrote: »

And if you decide to buy a Mars bar and go off to the station (which would charge to park) and leave your car at the retailers for the rest of the day whilst you go to work. Hence the reason for time limits and other conditions.

And just how many large retailers (supermarkets) with large (ish) car parks are next to the railway stations?
Another flawed scenario in your quest to defend PPCs

atilla

Bantex wrote: »

Agreed, but if there were no "controls" many more would just take mick and use the carparks as a free resource. Trouble is that nobody has come up with a more cost effective method than parking companies to date.

The idea that there is no cost to providing parking is just mistaken.

If a supermarket wants me to spend serious money by doing the weekly shop, then they have to provide the car park - just like they have to provide the shop itself. Their problem, not mine. The cost of all the real estate is wrapped up in the bill i pay.

bazster

atilla wrote: »

If a supermarket wants me to spend serious money by doing the weekly shop, then they have to provide the car park - just like they have to provide the shop itself. Their problem, not mine. The cost of all the real estate is wrapped up in the bill i pay.

Quite.

Supermarkets in my town:

Morrisons: infested by CP Plus.
Sainsburys: infested by ECP.
Waitrose: no PPC whatsoever.

Guess where I shop?

(Yes that's right, no Tesco, Asda, Aldi or Lidl. We're posh here).

pvt

Sorry to keep resurrecting this, but it is really playing on my mind.

Another thought raised by Moloney's decision that, although it is a penalty, it's justified because the PPC wouldn't have a business otherwise, since all its income apparently derives solely from those penalties:

If the users of the car parks in question suddenly become more compliant, and the number falling liable to a "Parking Charge Notice" drops to just 10% of it's current level, then by Moloney's logic it would be justifiable for PE to claim that £1,000+ was a reasonable charge for each one.

Taken Ad Absurdum if virtually everyone did as the Ts&Cs stipulate, then a couple of unsuspecting motorists parking with their wheels over the space markings would be liable for fines of millions of pounds, since they are the only source of PE's apparently legitimate profit.

HO87

pvt wrote: »

Sorry to keep resurrecting this, but it is really playing on my mind.

Another thought raised by Moloney's decision that, although it is a penalty, it's justified because the PPC wouldn't have a business otherwise, since all its income apparently derives solely from those penalties:

If the users of the car parks in question suddenly become more compliant, and the number falling liable to a "Parking Charge Notice" drops to just 10% of it's current level, then by Moloney's logic it would be justifiable for PE to claim that £1,000+ was a reasonable charge for each one.

Taken Ad Absurdum if virtually everyone did as the Ts&Cs stipulate, then a couple of unsuspecting motorists parking with their wheels over the space markings would be liable for fines of millions of pounds, since they are the only source of PE's apparently legitimate profit.

In theory, taken to its apparent logical conclusion. However, the logic is flawed because it takes no account of the reasonableness factor that isn't immediately obvious - not that I am suggesting that the entire situation is reasonable.

Logic does sit behind all of this. Somewhere. However, one has to marvel at a system, intended solely to put claimants back into the situation they would have been in had a so-called wrong not befallen them, that allows claimants to profit from "wrongs" their business model is designed around. In PPC World the so-called breaches of contract etc are not wrongs at all they are profit centres and business opportunities. The courts are being hood-winked in exactly the same way as the public and can't see beyond it - with the greatest respect to HHJ Moloney.

Stroma

The problem of course is that the judge says they are penalties, so how can they therefore be allowed ? Also is it the public's fault that they have an unsustainable business model? Is it up to the public to support a business that is acting unlawfully by dishing out penalties ?

I have no respect for this decision at all, and to be blunt for this judge in the way he has made a judgement on this matter, he contradicts himself and has not taken into account so many things. It's a debacle and I hope the defendants will appeal.

Computersaysno

I do wonder if the judge has set this up to force a move to a higher court and thus get a truly binding ruling??

HO87

Stroma wrote: »

The problem of course is that the judge says they are penalties, so how can they therefore be allowed ? Also is it the public's fault that they have an unsustainable business model? Is it up to the public to support a business that is acting unlawfully by dishing out penalties ?

I have no respect for this decision at all, and to be blunt for this judge in the way he has made a judgement on this matter, he contradicts himself and has not taken into account so many things. It's a debacle and I hope the defendants will appeal.

Ah, but to do so is to follow the lead of Simon Renshaw-Smith in the way that he described Judge Lateef after she found for Martin Cutts in the well-known Peel Centre, Stockport case.