MSE News: Motorist takes parking charge challenge to highest UK court

fisherjim

esmerobbo wrote: »

Barry Beavis was a naughty boy contravening Parkingeye's car park management, by overstaying for 50 mins.

What he should have done is abused 3 disabled bays by parking sideways over all 3, but leaving in 1hr 59mins. Then Parkingeye's management would not have been abused.

Lets see this for what it is Parkingeye dont give a rats about landowners rights, most landowners probably don't have too much car park abuse, Parkingeye and others, convince them they have.

If in this instance how does charging someone after the fact £85 stop abuse? It may penalise the driver, but it is more likely to stop them returning to the retail park.

I don't know what the rates are in that area, but here I could park all day on a DYL for £35 and the lines and the TRO all have to be correct. The CEO has to follow correct procedure, however if I overstayed at my nearest Aldi with PE infestation I would be charged £60 for a few minutes overstay all done with non-calibrated CCTV cameras.

Spot on the nail!

arthurx1234

nicechap wrote: »

What do you think of Parking Eye not following their COP in the Beavis Case?

Well my employer regularly takes people to court with a 100% success rate, however this involves me and the rest of the team sitting down with the solicitor and going through all statements and evidence with a fine tooth comb ensuring all the i's are dotted and the t's crossed. Its a pain in the bum but the solicitor insists and he has never lost

PE must not have the same high standards and i can only assume that they have won in the past even with flawed evidence and failing to stick to their own rules--- so they assume that they can win the Beavis case too.

PE must invest a vast amount of money installing equipment at these car parks and it would take years to turn a profit if they relied on the parking tarrif to fill their coffers. So they must rub their hands in glee when issuing a pcn as it hastens the profitability of that car park.
Most people pay the charge as they are aware due to high profile cases that they could be taken to court and are also under the impression that the pcn if left unpaid will lead to a bad credit rating, baliffs etc etc

PE could win this one

Arthur

Captain_Leaky

"What is the parking attendant suposed to do perform a Q+A clinic and wait for each driver to return and then decide if he/she should be charged?"


In a retail park, you are invited, through media advertising, to visit stores and make purchases.

What SHOULD happen, is that a ruling should made as part of the initial planning application that free parking 24/7 should be available whilst ever the land remains in use as per the description made in the application.

If the landowner wishes to profit from the use of his land in addition to the lease income from each retail outlet, then the cost of providng 'Free Parking' should be built into the cost of each lease, OR, the system should only permit a 'Pay to leave'.

Private parking companies should be outlawed overnight.

This is not about some stranger blocking the end of your private driveway, this is about buying and selling goods, and being invited to do so, and it should be hassle-free and not time-constrained in any way.

Fight_the_good_fight

Circles,which you must be dizzy by now!!

Half_way

You employer?, and who may that be, it cant be a ppc as as far as I'm aware not one has a 100% win rate.

pustit

Arthur says;-
PE must invest a vast amount of money installing equipment at these car parks and it would take years to turn a profit if they relied on the parking tarrif to fill their coffers.

The parking tariff in a free car park is zero.
The Beavis car park was free.
They have no intention of deriving an income from a parking tariff at such a car park.
Perhaps they should look at their business model.

Coupon-mad

roddydogs wrote: »

Most people would say that £85 for a few minuits is not justified, but for nearly 1hr? Hes taking the Pxxxxxxxxxx

That presupposes that the 2 hours was set by the landowner and was the limit the retailers wanted...think again.

Guess what the time limit used to be before ParkingEye got in? I won't go into how the change came about.

ANSWER = 3 hours I believe. That's right, he didn't overstay under the time limit the retailers and landowners wanted before PE got their feet under the table.

Discuss!

ChiefGrasscutter

Here is the link to the text of the appeal court judgement should anyone be interested in what was actually said in it......
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2015/402.html&query=barry+and+beavis&method=boolean

HO87

arthurx1234 wrote: »

Well my employer regularly takes people to court with a 100% success rate, however this involves me and the rest of the team sitting down with the solicitor and going through all statements and evidence with a fine tooth comb ensuring all the i's are dotted and the t's crossed. Its a pain in the bum but the solicitor insists and he has never lost

That might just be because he cherry-picks the cases he pursues. Frankly, exactly what one would expect from a reasonably competent solicitor. However, were he to add in a few additional criteria to the assessment process - and who is to say that he doesn't - for example, pursuing only those parties with default judgments against them or parties who he has successfully pursued in the past - and he could substantially increase his tally.

That said, much as I would dearly love to I have never met a solicitor with a 100% success rate unless they were newly qualified and with few cases under their belts; had a propensity to wipe failures from their mind or their nickname was "Walter" - as in Mitty - and I've been "around" the game for more years than I care to think about.

arthurx1234 wrote: »

PE must not have the same high standards and i can only assume that they have won in the past even with flawed evidence and failing to stick to their own rules--- so they assume that they can win the Beavis case too.

PE must invest a vast amount of money installing equipment at these car parks and it would take years to turn a profit if they relied on the parking tarrif to fill their coffers. So they must rub their hands in glee when issuing a pcn as it hastens the profitability of that car park.

And therein lies the answer to all the proddings and prickly comments made by other posters. As I suggested many posts ago you really should read the Newbies thread.

arthurx1234 wrote: »

Most people pay the charge as they are aware due to high profile cases that they could be taken to court and are also under the impression that the pcn if left unpaid will lead to a bad credit rating, baliffs etc etc

Wrong - in that a substantial majority of people pay PPC notices simply because they take them to have statutory backing and are concerned that they have done some wrong. However, also correct in that some, by no means all, who pay up are frightened by the prospect of incurring a CCJ and all the hassle that is going to court. And why and how would they understand the court system? PE's strategy is simply one of pour encourager les autres - and it works.

What they don't understand (and I'm far from convinced that you do or perhaps want to) is that the legal basis for these charges is - regardless of the all the hypebole and protestations of "upholding landlords rights" - surprisingly, even worryingly, thin.

Attempting to argue something along the lines: "Well all of these judges can't be wrong" would be to betray an utter lack of appreciation of the court process. Apart from the simplistic answer, which is "Yes they can" court process is - largely - if it isn't argued it can't be considered and if it isn't denied its accepted. That's before you factor in the way in which cases are devised and the fact that grants of leave to appeal are usually tightly constrained and none more so than that given by HHJ Moloney in the case of Beavis. Bend your head around that in a single sitting and you'd be doing very well!

arthurx1234 wrote: »

PE could win this one

Indeed they could. However, their legal bill will have been enormous.

As an aside, I'm still waiting for an answer to the question I posed in post #52 but please don't feel under any pressure.

Coupon-mad

And I would like to know what roddydogs has to say, now they know that the original free parking time was reportedly/allegedly 3 hours, which is all the landowner wanted to be enforced at the time of the original tender and contract, I understand.

Theoretically, if a parking firm then later 'turned the screw' on consumers by changing that free parking time limit down by a whole hour - and (theoretically) if their contract was worded so that a landowner client was prevented from any reasonable objection to such a change - wouldn't that be considered sharp practice?

Who is in the wrong in that scenario, the consumer who parks for just under the 3 hours the landowner wanted to be free (because that is normal usage of the retail park if visiting more than one shop at busy times) or the parking firm?