Parking Eye POPLA appeal

thehig

Coupon-mad wrote: »

No POPLA ref on that letter. Or have you redacted it? All POPLA PE decisions are frozen at the moment anyway so this will take MONTHS. So, complain to the retail park for quicker cancellation or choose a few national retailers there and email them!

I blanked off the POPLA reference, I'm fine to wait I'm not paying the ticket either way.
The fun continues just got a ticket for parking at a car park in St Helens the company this time is "Care Parking"

choice4

We got exactly the same letter from parking eye, I guess popla is the next step for us as well

Ralph-y

yes ........

as you appear to have read

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=4816822






the reason being that advice can get mixed up/lost/misread



so one thread per problem please

Ralph:cool:

thehig

Below is what I said in appeal, it says CareParking because I also have an appeal ongoing with them and I used the same letter for each case.
Will update on decision.


As the registered keeper of this vehicle I wish to appeal this PCN on the following grounds

The Charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss

This car park is Pay and Display. The most CareParking could claim is the amount required for that period of parking my car had overstayed the free period at the car park. The overstay was a total of 21 minutes.

There is no loss flowing from this parking event because the car park was no-where near full, the time was after midnight so all businesses expect McDonald’s were closed.

Care Parking charge the same lump sum for a small overstay of 21 minutes as they would for 3 hours, and the same fixed charge applies to any alleged contravention (whether serious/damaging or trifling), it is clear there has been no regard paid to establishing that this charge is a genuine pre-estimate of loss caused by this incident in this car park.

The DfT Guidance and the BPA Code of Practice require that a parking charge for an alleged breach must be an estimate of losses flowing from the incident. CareParking cannot change this requirement so they have no option but to show POPLA their genuine pre-estimate of loss for this charge, not some subsequently penned ‘commercial justification’ statement they may have devised afterwards (since this would not be a pre-estimate)

All the above points highlight that CareParking cannot possibly demonstrate how a 21 minute overstay (at a time 99% of businesses were closed) could have caused them to suffer losses even close to £100.

ANPR is unreliable

CareParkings ANPR images do not show a parking time, they show the times the vehicle entered and exited the car park. This does not discount the possibility of a double visit during this time.
The entry and exit photos are not evidence of parking times at all.
This Operator is obliged to ensure their ANPR equipment is maintained as described in paragraph 21.3 of the BPA Code of Practice and to have signs stating how the data will be stored/used
I say that CareParking have failed to clearly inform drivers about the cameras and what the data will be used for and how it will be used and stored. If there was such a sign at all then it was not prominent, since the driver did not see it.
I question the entire reliability of the system. I require that CareParking present records as to the dates and times of when the cameras at this car park were checked, adjusted, calibrated, synchronised with the timer which stamps the photos and generally maintained to ensure the accuracy of the dates and times of any ANPR images. This is important because the entirety of the charge is founded on two images purporting to show my vehicle entering and exiting at specific times. It is vital that this Operator must produce evidence in response and explain to POPLA how their system differs (if at all) from the flawed ANPR system which was wholly responsible for the court loss recently in ParkingEye v Fox-Jones on 8 Nov 2013. That case was dismissed when the judge said the evidence from ParkingEye was fundamentally flawed because the synchronisation of the camera pictures with the timer had been called into question and the operator could not rebut the point.

So, in addition to showing their maintenance records, I require Careparking to show evidence to rebut the following assertion. I suggest that in the case of my vehicle being in this car park, a local camera took the image but a remote server added the time stamp. As the two are disconnected by the internet and do not have a common “time synchronisation system”, there is no proof that the time stamp added is actually the exact time of the image
The operator appears to use WIFI which introduces a delay through buffering, so “live” is not really “live”. Hence without a synchronised time stamp there is no evidence that the image is ever time stamped with an accurate time. Therefore I contend that this ANPR “evidence” from the cameras in this car park is just as unreliable and unsynchronised as the evidence in the Fox-Jones case. As their whole charge rests upon two timed photos, I put CareParking to strict proof to the contrary and to show how these camera timings are synchronised with the pay and display machine.

Also note in my original appeal to CareParking they never gave a response with regards to ANPR.

So in conclusion I contend it is wholly unreasonable to rely on unlit signs(unlit signs when it was obviously dark given the time of incident) in an attempt to profit by charging a disproportionate sum where no loss has been caused by a car in a free car park where the bays are not full. I put CareParking to strict proof to justify that their charge, under the circumstances described.

I therefore respectfully request that my appeal is upheld and the charge is dismissed.

Yours Faithfully

TheHig