Care Parking Lapse in Formal Demand Letter

lozzabeth

Hi There,

Just for a big of background, I parked in a disabled bay to shop in NEXT Cheshire Oaks on 27th March 2014. It was early morning the car park was deserted, I'm heavily pregnant and was collecting some large bedding items.

Anyway needless to say I received a windscreen tickets. I've just received a follow up letter (formal demand) to this dated 26th May 2014 from Care Parking. Before I start the appeals procedure, I noticed a thread which stated the following: -

6. If it was a windscreen ticket, do not contact the PPC at this point, you must wait for the 'Notice to Keeper' (NtK) to arrive. This should be no sooner than 28 days after the incident and no later than 56 days after it. Theses dates are very important, and you must retain all tickets and letters you receive.

I calculated the time from 'incident' to date of issue as 63 days. Can I just write and tell them to go away on this basis? I don't have the original windscreen notice but the demand letter covers the dates.

Many thanks

Stroma

Just use the appeal letter in coupon mad's sticky thread, you could add this at point 4

4) Your Notice to Keeper does not comply with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 by being late and over the statuary date allowed

bod1467

Stroma wrote: »

4) Your Notice to Keeper does not comply with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 by being late and over the statuary date allowed. As such there is no registered keeper liability for this charge

Worth adding that sentence?

lozzabeth

Great thanks, will do!

lozzabeth

Hi Everyone just to let you know my appeal was rejected and I received a very irate letter from them claiming that I have taken the template from a parking forum and it is outdated and inaccurate confirmed by a recent case by HHJ Moloney QC.

I used the appeal letter in the sticky thread.

I did type the whole letter up for you to read (two pages worth of their justification) but the website crashed and I don't have another hour to spare typing up again just now.

Is there a way for me to copy from PDF at all? I have a scanned in copy and would rather copy and paste than go through a whole new type up!

Thanks

Redx

use an online free website like pdf2word to upload the pdf and download the word copy for free, then copy and paste into notepad and save it

then copy and paste from NOTEPAD onto here

DO NOT download the pdf2word tools found in google, just use a free online conversion site

check if they gave you a popla code too (10 digits) - you can then weigh ANCHOR on them at POPLA

The_Deep

lozzabeth wrote: »

Hi Everyone just to let you know my appeal was rejected and I received a very irate letter from them claiming that I have taken the template from a parking forum and it is outdated and inaccurate (as) confirmed by a recent case by HHJ Moloney QC.


Thanks

Should they be mentioning Maloney? It was not even their case. Complaint to BPA?

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/arguments-to-use-if-parkingeye-try-and_11.html

Dee140157

I wouldn't worry too much about the reply, it was an expected rejection.

The important thing is, did they give you a POPLA code? If so then look for a suitable POPLA appeal, adding in a paragraph about EA2010 and the protected rights of people with needs. Being heavily pregnant may fall under that area.

Of they did not give you a POPLA code, you need to fire an email back saying you have nothing to add to your appeal and that you want them to either cancel parking charge or give you a code for further appeal.

The HJ Maloney case is going to the court of appeal so the PPCs know they can't rely on it as evidence and Cooupon-Mad has written a very good rebuttal of that point.

lozzabeth

Hi

The PDF converters weren't liking my scanned document so here goes the re-type....!

Your appeal against the parking charge notice (PCN) issued on 27 Mar 14 at Coliseum Retail Park for the alleged contravention of Parking in a Disabled Bay without clearly displaying a valid Disabled Badge has been considered by our appeals team, having reviewed the evidence and the details supplied by yourself your appeal has been rejected.

Your appeal has been rejected for the following reasons:

• On 27 Mar 14 at 12:43 this vehicle, Registration XXX was parked at Coliseum Retail Park in a disabled bay and our operative could see no evidence of a valid Blue Badge being displayed.
• When parking at Coliseum Retail Park the driver of this vehicle agreed to pay a Parking Charge of £100 if they did not park in accordance with the terms printed on the contractual warning signs.
• The contractual warning signs in place state: Only vehicles displaying a valid blue badge allowed withing disabled parking bays. Your vehicle was parked in contravention of this term of the contractual warning signs.
• It is the responsibility of the driver of the vehicle to ensure that a valid and in date blue badge is on display prior to the vehicle being left in a disabled parking bay.
• As you can see from the photographic evidence linked below no blue badge was on display.
• Your conversation with the operative on the day is noted and your subsequent call to our offices on the same day when the appeals procedure was again explained is noted.
• When entering the site the driver passed a number of contractual warning signs stating the conditions for parking on this site. They also parked your vehicle in place sight of contractual warning signs, as can be seen in the reflected images of them in the store window in the photographs linked below.
• We acknowledge your letter dated 10 Jun 14 the contents of which we reject in its entirety and for the avoidance of doubt confirm that we d not accept any costs you purport to claim.
• We reserve the right to continue to reover the unpaid parkign charge, the subject of the above PCN.
• The appeal letter you have sent is taken directly from parking forums and is outdated and inaccurate. Recent case law by HHJ Moloney QC confirms this, therefore there is no requirement to cover the points you have raised with regards to this charge.
• This is not harassment as we are following the procedures laid down by the ATA and The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 with regards to unpaid parking charges. There is no requirement for us to demand the names and a serviceable address for the liable party as the POFA 2012 covers liability when the driver is unknown, an act you may wish to familiarise yourself with at this stage.
• Although you have submitted an appeal based on legalities you have not stated any case why you were parked in contravention of the terms, this parking charge was correctly issued.
• If you wish to identify the driver you may do so from the image of her linked below.
• As you will see in the image below the yellow PCN envelope was affixed to the vehicle windscreen, this is the initial notification of the charge and not the Formal Demand sent out, having opened the envelope it was by this means that the driver was able to contact the operative to dispute the charge, however, pregnancy is not a disability it is a life choice.

The parking of vehicles in disabled bays that do not clearly display a valid disabled card on the dashboard or window is taken very seriously by the Coliseum Retail; Park Management.


Photographic evidence supporting the issue of this PCN can be viewed by following th elink and entering your vehicle registration and PCN reference number: http://XXXXXX. Copies of these photographs are available upon request.


As you appealed outside of the 14 day discounted period the full parking charge amount of £100 is now due and payable. Please refer to your original Formal Demand for payment details.


The decision is final and no further communication will be accepted by Care Parking with regard to this appeal, therefore you are requested to now submit your payment of the monies owing.


You now have a number of options from which to choose:


1. Pay the parking charge.
2. Make an appeal to POPLA - The Independent Appeals Service by completing the accompanying form (which wasn't included) or by making your appeal online at www.popla.org.uk
Your POPLA verification code is XXX. If you opt to pay the parking charge you will be unable to appeal to POPLA.
3. If you choose to do nothing, we will seek to recover the monies owed to us via our debt recovery procedures and may proceed with Court action against you.


This letter and all the other correspondence received in relation to this PCN may be used to form part of our case for court action if necessary.




Just to add, at the same time I sent off this appeals letter I also wrote to NEXT and they got back to me three weeks ago to say they agree re the non existence of parent and child spaces and have raised this concern several times with the Coliseum Estates Management as they have had a few parents complain. Having spoken to the Coliseum Estates Management, they were 'happy' to exonerate me from this charge and they were going to speak with Care Parking to drop the charge at the same time they were severing their contract with them due to their bullish tactics!!! So they are no longer instructed by the Coliseum Retail Park and 'let go' three weeks ago!



I called my contact at NEXT and sent her a copy of this latest letter and she is going to chase Coliseum Estates Management once again, however it looks like Care Parking are going to pursue me regardless as they've nothing to lose as they've been kicked off site and will want to recover money where they can.


Should I just write back and say speak to Coliseum as they've exonerated me or am I best to crack on with POPLA? Their letter has really angered me so I want to take these guys on and waste some of their time and resources - I'm on maternity leave so I have time to play :T


Also how do they know if was me the parking attendant spoke to and on the phone? They refer to the 'driver' in all cases except this one. Should I raise this too??


Thanks everyone!!!

lozzabeth

Oh I know this is just needless detail, but I wasn't just pregnant at the time I had my one year old daughter with me - hence needing more space to get her in / out of the car seat and her buggy doesn't fit in the boot and is propped up in the passenger seat so I need ample door space else we can't get out :-/

This is most probably why NEXT were amenable (I also spent a bomb in there - shhhh hubby doesn't need to know!!)

Dee140157

Definitely crack on with POPLA . Hopefully CEM will crack on with getting cancellation for you, but do not leave it up to them.