Newbie request for appeal to POPLA

moneysavingamateur2

Hi,
Back in January we recieved a PCN from ParkingEye. We had parked in Morrisons' car park in Reigate on a Sunday afternoon. Their photos showed us arriving at 15:58 and leaving at around 20:30. The car park allows for 2 hours free parking before 18:00 on a Sunday and then unlimited free parking thereafter for the rest of the evening. Thus, effectively it is free from 16:00.
We immediately made representations to ParkingEye stating that by the time we'd parked, found the terms and conditions and read them it was after 16:00 by our watch (there being no clock available showing the time they were using). We felt that we had arrived just after 16:00.
ParkingEye did not acknowledge our representation. However, this week (11 months later!), they have written to us saying that our 'recent appeal' has been unsuccessful. In their letter, they also claim to have written to us asking us to provide further evidence and that the 14 days that they provided to us to respond have passed. We did not receive any further letters from ParkingEye.
Nor have they provided a reason for rejecting our appeal.
We are naturally planning to appeal via POPLA citing the following points:
1. ParkingEye failed to acknowledge our appeal (let alone within the 14 days of receiving it as per paragraph 22.8 of the AOS Code of Practice).
2. ParkingEye neither sought for further information nor accept or reject our challenge within 35 days of our appeal (also as per paragraph 22.8).
3. ParkingEye did not advise us that they needed more than 35 days to investigate our appeal.
4. ParkingEye have provided no evidence that they have judged our appeal on its individual merits by not explaining why they have rejected the appeal.
5. Eleven months is clearly an excessive and unreasonable elapsed period to resume the pursuit of the PCN.
6. ParkingEye do not provide a clock either upon entering the site or anywhere else within the car park, so the contract is unfair in that drivers cannot acccurately judge the time from which the 'meter' starts ticking. They therefore have to allow some reasonable discrepency between their timepiece and the motorist's.
7. ParkingEye have not explained why they do not respect a 'grace' period.

Are there any other points that I should be including (or are any of the above unacceptable)?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

pogofish

You need to get into the Newbies sticky and read it carefully.

Also start considering drafting a strong complaint the the landowner/operator and the BPA - all is covered in the sticky.

Umkomaas

Have they issued you with a 10-digit POPLA verification code?

moneysavingamateur2

Hi Umkomaas,
Yes they've given me a POPLA verification code and it is valid (dated for 8th December).

hoohoo

Complain to the bpa at aos@britishparking.co.uk that PE did not reply in the allowed timescales. Dont bother with popla; they dont case about this.

For POPLA, your number one argument is that no contravention has occurred, as the ANPR records time of entry, not time of parking. Therefore, at the time of parking it was free to park.

Number 2 is that the charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss
3 is signage was not sufficient to creatre a contract between pe and the driver
4 is that you have a reasonable belief they do not have a contract with the landowner to issues charges

Umkomaas

moneysavingamateur2 wrote: »

Hi Umkomaas,
Yes they've given me a POPLA verification code and it is valid (dated for 8th December).

I take it that 8th December is the start date of the code, not the end date?

moneysavingamateur2

Yes - its the start date and the date on the letter that ParkingEye sent us

moneysavingamateur2

hoohoo wrote: »

For POPLA, your number one argument is that no contravention has occurred, as the ANPR records time of entry, not time of parking. Therefore, at the time of parking it was free to park.

I have revisited the car park and read their signage. It does actually say that they use the time of entry for determining the start of the free period (though I do not know if this has changed since January).

BenefitMaster

The aren't allowed to do that - time spent driving round looking for a space, and implicitly time spent leaving the space and the car park, is not parking.

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/waiting-for-space-is-not-parking.html

Will ParkingLie ever learn, I wonder? I'm going to be spending a lot of time and effort trying to teach them in the next few months.

Coupon-mad

moneysavingamateur2 wrote: »

I have revisited the car park and read their signage. It does actually say that they use the time of entry for determining the start of the free period (though I do not know if this has changed since January).

Just use the nearest version of a PE POPLA appeal in the Newbies thread post #3 link, and tweak it to suit if the details about signs or time periods are a bit different from the example.

moneysavingamateur2

Many thanks to all and especially hoohoo.
As advised, our POPLA appeal was based on one of the 'standard' appeal letters.
I also e:mailed BPA to report the breach of the code of conduct and, almost as soon as they forwarded it, ParkingEye withdrew the PCN.
That was only a day or so before the POPLA decision was due - to which ParkingEye had sent no evidence, so our appeal was upheld as well (the timescales are such that I suspect ParkingEye weren't going to send any evidence anyway and that they knew they were going to lose).
Thanks again