MSE News: Legality of private parking fines to be tested in court today

pogofish

salmosalaris wrote: »

I've just spent the weekend in Scotland and noticed how few commercial car parks were infested by PPC's . Seemed to be working ok

Depends where - PPCs are moving-in at a great rate in Urban areas and even the likes of the FC are bringing them into rural car parks - There are far more now than even a couple of years ago.

Also, PPCs have not had the impetus of POFA to encourage them to update their signage - So there are loads where PPCs do operate but you will be hard-pushed to tell because of the pathetic signage.

fermi

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/parkingeye-v-beavis-court-of-appeal.html

allan1954

parking eye fined me £50 +£2.50 credit card charge because I was 5 minutes over the 2 hours free parking.there was a Que onto the main road out of the car park.

bazster

allan1954 wrote: »

parking eye fined me £50 +£2.50 credit card charge because I was 5 minutes over the 2 hours free parking.there was a Que onto the main road out of the car park.

The mention of credit card charge implies you paid it. More fool you.

hoohoo

bazster wrote: »

The mention of credit card charge implies you paid it. More fool you.

Too bad you paid it. Appeal anyway, and complain to aos@britishparking.co.uk that you were charged even though you were in the grace period. You may still be able to pull your fat out of the fire. Complain to the landowner too. Which car park was it?

DoaM

And perhaps also register with challengethefine.com

Ragsie

I won my case at the appeal against a £90 fine at one of Liddl's car park for an overstay of 20 mins. The judge decided to reject POPLA's claim for the simple reason that there was no specific contract between the owner of the land at that site and POPLA.

Fight the bandits!

GrouchoMinx

If the judges base their conclusion on the law as it stands then PE's justification of the penalty as being 'commercially justifiable' should be thrown out - that's a big if, terribly amusing that their own representative called the charge a 'penalty' (therefore not a Genuine Pre-Estimate of Loss and not legal). Wish I'd have been there!

All could be avoided if PE ran this car park correctly instead of relying on CCTV/implied contract/signage. There is a barrier and a kiosk at entry/exit, perhaps they could employ someone to give out tickets/accept payment, or even install payment machines - a business model based on only making a profit if an implied contract is broken is a bit weird imo.

A disgrace that PE pay the landowner £1k, the retailers have no say in parking management, that PE reduced the parking from 3 hours to 2 on a large retail site, that DVLA give out keeper details with little check and at a huge profit (no matter what they say), that PE use bullying tactics and intimidate over-stayers, cynically abuse the small claims courts (not to mention hoax phone calls/telling falsehoods/severely redacting documents, blah, blah) and absolutely amazing that no one pays business rates on this car park which, obviously and, as PE admits itself is run as a commercial operation - if they 'win' I hope someone will rectify this situation ... the shopper/parker, the retailers and the Council tax payers lose. What a country!

michaels

Locally the fish and chip shop relies on trade from people parking for free for about 10-15 minutes whilst they make/collect their orders. If all those spaces were blocked by people parking for 2h 56mins people would not shop there and the fish shop would almost certainly not have enough trade to stay in business...I'm only saying.

crustacean

bazster wrote: »

The mention of credit card charge implies you paid it. More fool you.

Gratuitous rudeness - not wanted around here.

I sent a case to the RAC Foundation, which is sponsoring the case being judged. They seemed quite pleased. It is this

The public car park in Shaftesbury has just two parking periods: <2 hrs and <4 hrs. The rate is 1p/min, so 120p gets you 2 hrs. I paid 230p, assuming that, having paid over the minimum 120p, I would get time pro rata ie 230 mins. I left the car park after 200 mins, 30 mins short of what would have been my pro-rata end time.

I was penalised £25 for overstaying the 2 hr period.

Capt Mainwaring might well have said, after I realised from the parking voucher that despite having paid £2.30 I had only bought 2hrs parking, "Stupid boy...". I didn't look - I just assumed that one got pro-rata, like every other pay and display and parking meter I've ever come across. Not so in Shaftesbury.

I objected to the penalty on the grounds that being penalised for paying more than the time I actually spent parked, [at the rate that parking there costs] was not reasonable. The reply was that the ticket had been "issued in accordance with ...blah blah"

I haven't paid. Vamos a ver