Highview Parking charge notice on a sunday

pipnigs

I recently parked at the Pinnacle in Crawley for an hour on a sunday evening at around 6pm - the car park was empty but I believe it was a business car park (but no barrier to prevent you parking there, unlike other office car parks!) . When I arrived back at the car there was no parking fine, but I have since received a letter (Charge Notice) since saying I need to pay them £50 within 14 days or £85 within 28 days. it says they are operating with the British Parking Associations Code of Practice! My understanding is that this is not enforceable (and I thought parking was free everywhere on Sundays?) Please can someone advise. they have provided photographic evidence!! What is my best course of action?

Guys_Dad

Best course of action is to read the Newbies thread. If there was a notice and you parked on the land, then they have a claim against you.

In that respect, you are no different from all the other posts on here and sufficient advice is in the Newbies thread and countless others on here unless you have some unique circumstances that could act in your favour.

Read the newbies thread and then come back if in any doubt.

Redx

being a sunday has nothing to do with it and no car parks are not free on sundays , especially not private car parks

just read and follow the NEWBIES sticky thread (ignoring the day and what happened on it)

pipnigs

Hi Guys Dad
Would appreciate some further assistance - have only got until 2 June to pay the £50 fee - I've read the newbies thread and many of the comments and am still pretty confused. I've drafted a letter appealing (can I post this here for you to look at ) but not sure whether I should confirm that the car was parked there or not as the photos only show the car being there at 1742 and 1840 (not parked). Are you able to assist further?

Guys_Dad

There are some initial appeal letters referenced from the Newbies thread. You need to appeal in the 3rd person referring to "the driver" rather than "I" - again, all in the newbies thread.

You can forget any mitigation points such as a Sunday, empty car park etc. Your penalty = their income and they are NOT going to roll over easily.

You will most likely lose the appeal to the PPC and you will have to rely on the appeal to the Independent Adjudicator on technical grounds as illustrated in the various POPLA appeal letters on the Newbies thread and the POPLA DECISIONS sticky.

Your course of action is either to pay the charge or to appeal it. Read just about any thread on here for advice and recognise that even if you do lose both appeals, their only recourse is to take you to court and that costs them real money without significantly imperilling you.

If you look on the BPA web site at the AOS Code of Practice, it illustrates what signage (size, colour, fonts, wording, height of sign etc) they should use. If they have not, then you have good technical appeal points. In addition, you have the "No Contract" and GPEOL appeal points as well.

But do look for successful POPLA appeal points for stage 2, put the headings, not details, in your PPC appeal and spend the next week or so reading up on POPLA appeals.