F1RST PARKING tickets - University of Bath

stampy18

Hello,

I have received various tickets whilst parking on the university of Bath campus, managed by F1RST parking. I stupidly repeated to park in the same place despite receiving tickets. However the area in which i parked has no signage informing you that you cannot park there, there is merely a white print on the tarmac saying 'drop off'. The company have now sent many threatening letters to my house requesting money for the tickets. I wrote to the company informing them that the area was unclearly signposted (stupidly not referring to the driver as 3rd person) and they are yet to reply, but instead i have received an email from the head of security who has been contacted by the company saying i need to pay, however he is threatening a disciplinary panel at the university which i am more than happy to attend and argue my point. My main concern is how to deal with F1RST parking. There can be no doubt that the area in which i was parking is not signposted with parking restrictions, however I am unsure as to what to do next.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Captain_Leaky

More info needed - dates on tickets, copies of any letters you have sent/received.

stampy18

I am struggling to upload the image containing the dates for the tickets, however these were all issued in November and December 2014. I have left it so long as the letters were being posted to an address at which I no longer reside.

Thats a link to an image with all the tickets on.

My Letter to the company read as follows:

'Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing this letter regarding the parking tickets I have received to my car (Vehicle registration: XXXXXX) whilst parking at the University of Bath campus, managed by F1RST parking. The query relates to all tickets received on campus, the following reference codes: 1034006, 1360043, 1360040, 1311012, 16520102 (Please note there may be others which I do not have letters for at this point).

I am now receiving threatening letters regarding the payment of these fines, however as I previously mentioned to the enforcement officer who I had a lengthy and informative conversation with, the bay in which I was parked has no signage allocating parking restrictions, which he agreed created a lack of clarity on the restrictions in place. It is approximately 150metres from any car park on the campus, and to the best of my knowledge is an area that doesn't fall under the parking restrictions. After being informed that the parking space is (despite being unclearly signed) not meant to be for parking use, I have refrained form parking there, in an attempt to avoid any conflict which could result form further using the space. At a stressful time of my university life the continued harassment regarding incorrectly issued parking tickets is causing me distress and affecting my capability to carry out my work.

I am writing this letter as a formal appeal against the tickets and to inform you that I will not be proceeding with the payment of these tickets as I have broken no rules by parking in an un-signposted area. I have been unable to find an email address to send the supporting photos of where I was parked at the time of ticket issuing to. Please provide an email address to send these if they are required.

Confirmation of receipt of this email and clearance of the parking tickets would be greatly appreciated, and in the instance that I do not hear anything I will also assume that the matter is closed.'


The letter was sent approximately 10-12 days ago, and i am awaiting a response, however as they have informed the university that i have written an appeal it is clear they have received my letter.

Many thanks in advance.

HO87

Another Uni that seems to think that it can use its students as a cash cow.

Before we go any further are you able to get a photo of one of the car park signs (a fully worded one) and post that here (via Photobucket for example - you can't post the full link but if you omit the http://www bit and show the rest as plain text we can do the rest) together with a scan of both sides of any of the tickets?

Also how many tickets are we talking about?

The Uni's website implies that they offer the contract to park (and that by extension failing to buy a ticket/display a permit is a breach of that contract) but it would be very useful to understand what F1rst Parking have to say on the matter.

The important element to keep in mind - like all other Uni's - is that as a student you have a "contract" with the Uni over your education. Undoubtedly contained within your agreement with them will be a section that you should, in terms, abide by their rules on pain of disciplinary sanction. If they want to be able to deal with you (by way of F1rst Parking's PCN's) for breaching a contract by levying a charge then also seeking to deal with you via the disciplinary route sounds very much like double jeopardy to me.

Having said all of that the University shoots itself rather obviously in both feet by having the following on its website:

Parking Charge Notices

Sanctions have been agreed by the University's senior management team to:

• deal effectively and proportionately with transgressors against the regulations and conditions of parking
• ensure collection of revenue owed for the parking service
• deter drivers from breaching the regulations and conditions.

Any breach of the regulations and conditions leaves the driver/registered keeper of the vehicle liable to the issue of a Parking Charge Notice.

Read the whole page here (copy page saved in case it "disappears").

Coupon-mad

Why not just search the forum for 'Bath' or F1rst' (spelt like that) and copy the appeal the last poster(s) used recently, who posted about the same thing - loads on here if you just search. My nephew is at Bath and I have been to pick him up before now - we laughed at the F1rst parking signs - and no we did not cause any issues/obstruction but may have taken more than 20 minutes...big wow.

Errrmmm...why have you outed yourself as the driver?