PCN issued at St Helens College Car Park

thorpette

Hi,

Hope someone out there can help.

I was issued a PCN on St Helens College car park on 8/9/14. I am an employee at the college and it was my first day back in the new term. I should have had my new car parking pass on display, but still had my pass from the previous term on my windscreen (I had forgotten to put the new one in!).

The pcn was payable at a reduced rate of £60 for 14 days and then £100 thereafter. I read the notes on the main MSE page without thinking to look on the forums and decided to appeal my pcn simply because the ticket said if the appeal was rejected I would be given a further 14 days to pay at the reduced rate (£60).

I emailed my appeal on 19/9/14 adapting the template that can be downloaded from the main site. I heard nothing then for over a month and had assumed that they had dropped the charge.

Then I received a notice to keeper letter in the post yesterday. It had no reference to my appeal, and was a demand that I pay £100 within 28 days.

Please could someone advise me on what my best course of action should be? Not sure whether I should phone them up and argue the fact that I had appealed (which I have proof of), whether I should make a new appeal, or whether I should pay up (because I suppose I was at fault in the first place for not having the correct parking permit on display).

Any help or advice would be gratefully received!

Fruitcake

Start by re-reading the Sticky thread for NEWBIES at the top of the main Motoring, Parking Tickets page.

Never, ever, ever 'phone a PPC as there will be no record of what was said.

Who is the PPC that issued the PCN? Are they BPA members or IAS.

The experts here will need to know this before they can advise properly. Also, pictures of the signs at each entrance and the area where you park will be useful as well.

Complain long and loud to the college for employing these scammers.

Don't contact the PPC until you have provided the information above and received suitable replies from the regulars here.

Coupon-mad

Is this PCN(NW) and have they 'offered' an IAS appeal ( = kangaroo court, by all reports)?

Or did they not actually reply to the emailed appeal? Did you give a postal address with that email appeal (if not why not, obviously that was basic information).

In the first appeal did you give your name and did you admit being the driver (DOH!!) and is that name the same as the registered keeper?

Can you show an urgent pic of the signs as they currently are, at that site, as they've changed a bit in recent years. We need to see the wording, it may not be worth an IAS appeal, may be best to ignore the gits as people have done, quite happily, for years. You are likely just to get some junk mail (keep it in a file but don't respond). But if you've actually NOT appealed as keeper yet with a postal address at least we can tell you what to write this time around, to try to get it cancelled (unlikely but who cares, it's not a fine).

No-one here will tell you to pay and if you do you are a mug (hope that's clear and not too forthright!). No you don't get a CCJ, yes they might try a small claim (but they may well not!) and no, they wouldn't be likely to win, if they try in a rare case this year. They tried a handful of doomed small claims last year and we sent them packing with a robust defence for a few posters. This is no biggie and such shame you didn't come here earlier, we would NOT have told you to appeal as driver, to a windscreen PCN - that Notice to Keeper is what you should have been quietly waiting for but I am concerned you've gone and admitted who was driving now!

Either way don't pay, hope that was clear...

Umkomaas

Seems to me that, in 'appealing' to the IAS, you need to construct a small claims court-like defence, with very little prospect of success, it may be best ignoring this stage and taking a chance that the PPC will (or won't) issue small claims papers. Extremely unlikely that every ignorer will be issued such - especially by the small fry PPCs who form the base of the IPC AOS.

Only if court papers are issued will you need to produce a SCC defence (little different to any IAS 'appeal') where you will get a much more transparent hearing, with likely nowhere near the same unfavourable odds of success as in an IAS appeal.

Coupon-mad

Yep it hardly seems worth anyone's time putting together decent 'defence' if the jokers at the IAS are going to pretend that Consumer Regs stemming from EU Directives are 'novel' and kid us that they don't know the difference between 'implied consent' from a sign and 'express agreement'.

Best to just use the decent arguments for a proper court not a kangaroo one, bearing in mind small claims are so rare anyway from pathetic PPCs like PCN(NW).