CP+ parking in service station

awilley

Hello Again,

It seems I am getting unlucky with these parking cowboys of late and am back again to request your advice.

A vehicle, to which I am the registered keeper of, was parked in a motorway service station for approximate 4 hours at silly o'clock in the morning whilst the driver had a power nap, an appropriately responsible thing to do to as to not endanger anyone's life on the Motorway. However, the driver didn't see any signs or ticket machines and therefore didn't pay the nominal £12.50 for 24 hours parking (after the 2 hour free limit).

I understand Moto-way has been known to overturn PCN's at their discretion and so (4 days after receiving the PCN) I have drafted the following to send directly to Moto-Way.

Please could you advise if this is the right move or if there is anything I should add in / leave out of the email? If this is unsuccessful I shall follow the procedure of appeal, POPLA, ignore/Court as laid out.

Thanks in advance


To whom it may concern,

I am writing to seek your council with regards to parking at Toddington North service station, specifically with reference to 'parking charge notices' issued by your vendor CP Plus Limited for staying over the allotted time.

As the registered keeper of vehicle registration, I am in receipt of a 'parking charge notice' from CP+ with reference number number, for my vehicle being parked at your service station on date between the hours of time, a duration of 3 hours and 52 minutes.

The driver of the vehicle at the aforementioned time assures me that, after being awake for over 18 hours and driving back from Belgium via Dunkirk, upon entering your service station no signs were visible / noticed and that after looking around the car park, no signs were present to inform a driver of the timing constraints. Please be assured that the driver had no intention of curtailing any charges and that if a ticket machine, sign-age or reminder was in prominent place, the £12.50 for 24 hours parking would have been paid in full at the time.

However, as this was not the case, the driver unassumingly fell asleep within the vehicle as he/she was unable to continue the journey safely. After awaking, almost 4 hours later, the passenger of the vehicle entered Gregg's Bakery and purchased breakfast foods, which were consumed within the vehicle and then continued onwards with the journey home, I am further assured that there were no signs visible, no ticket machines visible and the clerk within Gregg's did not mention anything with regards to parking.

Please see the screen capture below showing a bank transaction to Gregg's on the date in question.

Inline images 1

CP+ captured images of the vehicle entering and leaving your service station, to which I do not contest the times. However, without prejudice or admission of guilt, I understand that the nominal fee of £12.50 was not paid within the 24 hours and would therefore politely request that you allow myself, the registered keeper, to pay this fee at this time. Upon confirmation that you will instruct your vendor to retract the aforementioned speculative invoice, and I am in receipt of the bank details you would request the monies to be paid into, I will oblige and complete a bank transaction to yourselves.

Many thanks in advance for your understanding in this matter.

Me

ampersand

For some reason, op, have been unable to post this - 'message too short' a dozen times.

Obviously it isn't:-)
#
Some housework done:)- 'counsel', not 'council', but unnecessary anyway. Less is more applies.

To whom it may concern,

As the registered keeper of reg.no., I am writing with reference to 'parking charge notice' [no. ]issued by your agent CP Plus Limited at Toddington North service station.

This parking event, oddly labelled 'offence', covered 3 hours and 52 minutes' parking between [time/date] by a fatigued driver arriving in complete darkness and sleeping, in accordance with all Safe Driving motorway signs.

After being awake for over 18 hours, travelling from Belgium via Dunkirk, the driver saw no signs, despite looking around the ill-lit car park. As registered keeper, I have checked this. No compliant signs are present to inform a driver of timing constraints or payment terms, conditions or locations. Nothing would be seen at night by someone seeking a safe dark area to sleep.

Please be assured that the driver had no intention of avoiding any valid charges. No ticket machine, compliant signage or reminder is prominent.

Had it been so, £12.50 for 24 hours' parking would have been paid in full at the time.

Waking, almost 4 hours later, a passenger of [reg.no] consumed breakfast from Gregg's outlet.

Again, be assured that there were no signs, no ticket machines visible and Gregg's sales assistant did not mention anything with regards to parking.

Please see the screen capture below showing a bank transaction to Gregg's on the date in question.

Inline images 1

CP+ captured timed images of the vehicle entering and leaving your service station, not of parking duration. This must also allow the grace period fully described in BPA's Code of Practice[February 2014, version 4], section 13>


As the parking area was sparsely populated at the times alleged, there has been no loss to you or to the landowner/landholder. In fact, Gregg's benefitted from the passenger's custom.

[STRIKE]However, [/STRIKE][STRIKE]without prejudice[/STRIKE][never use this when you don't know its legal meaning]

I would be grateful if you would instruct your agent to cancel this speculative invoice.

Thankyou for your attention. I look forward to your confirmation within 10 working days, failing which, I will regard this matter as closed and the invoice cancelled at source.

Yours faithfully

Me[/QUOTE]
#
yes, para. 3 = mitigation, but this is early stage fishing for popla or cancellation.
This situ is identical to mine for my only 'invoices', late 2013.

This is that applicable bpa grace period section. Don't let them find holes to pick. This is just for you to see.

13 Grace periods

13.1 Your approach to parking management must allow a
driver who enters your car park but decides not to park,
to leave the car park within a reasonable period without
having their vehicle issued with a parking charge notice.
13.2 You should allow the driver a reasonable ‘grace period’
in which to decide if they are going to stay or go. If the
driver is on your land without permission you should still
allow them a grace period to read your signs and leave
before you take enforcement action.
13.3 You should be prepared to tell us the specific grace period
at a site if our compliance team or our agents ask what it is.
13.4 You should allow the driver a reasonable period to leave
the private car park after the parking contract has ended,
before you take enforcement action.

awilley

Thanks for your swift reply, I have amended and sent it off to them, hopefully it will end with that.

I am still awaiting POPLA's verdict on another 'event' from February which has dragged on far too long (much to my own fault for not being proactive)

I did however change "covered 3 hours and 52 minutes' parking" to "covered a 3 hours and 52 minute duration". I read another thread this week wherein the dictionary definition of 'Parked' was cited.

"Bring (a vehicle that one is driving) to a halt and leave it temporarily, typically in a car park or by the side of the road:
he parked his car outside her house"

As the vehicle was never left by it's occupants, it technically was not parked, a technicality but since reading it my OCD compelled me to change it.

And thanks for the heads up on 'without prejudice' I thought I used it correctly in that it would not change my rights / standing, prior to the comment.

The_Deep

As the vehicle was never left by it's occupants, it technically was not parked,

It was stationary for nearly four hours, what word would you use?.

ampersand

Mmm,. saw t'other first.

Well-spotted re: 3h52m duration, vs ditto parking vs ':-)

The devil is always in the detail.

If you compare and contrast[exam time again] the bpa Aug 13 grace period wording now superseded, there is a distinct shift....;-)

ampersand

op - the other poster tends to dispute or mock my posts. On 'ignore' for over a year, but sometimes check when alerted by others.

Of course you are not literally parked/stopped when driving by anpr cameras upon entry and exit.

I later replicated my innocent habitual night-time stop by day:31 steering wheel pics showed not one hint of signage of any kind, let alone visible, prominent, compliant.
#
re: 'As the vehicle was never left by its occupants,' [no possessive apostrophe]
The vehicle WAS left by at least one occupant - to go to Gregg's outlet! Be careful not to trip yourself up.
This sort of 'Stopped' is parked, but not material in this 1st stage letter.

awilley

The_Deep wrote: »

As the vehicle was never left by it's occupants, it technically was not parked,

It was stationary for nearly four hours, what word would you use?.

I would use the word you used - stationary.

Furthermore, given the nature of the ANPR camera, the vehicle could have been driving round and around the car park, whilst the driver was looking for an empty space, it could also have been filled up with fuel (by the passenger, driver still at the wheel), been washed and had air put in the tyres (again by the passenger). Then, upon attempting to exit the site, have been blocked by a lorry, that had broken down...

At which point would the vehicle have been 'parked' given the Oxford Dictionary definition above?

The use of the ANPR camera at the entrance & exit does not give sufficient evidence for the agent to classify the vehicle as being 'parked'.

ampersand wrote: »

re: 'As the vehicle was never left by its occupants,' [no possessive apostrophe]
The vehicle WAS left by at least one occupant - to go to Gregg's outlet! Be careful not to trip yourself up.
This sort of 'Stopped' is parked, but not material in this 1st stage letter.

I did notice this after I had posted it , what I meant to type was 'As the vehicle was not left by the driver'.

As above, the driver could have dropped the passenger off at Gregg's, picked him/her up, eaten the food whilst stationary and moved on.

Tenuous? Yes. But the inference of the definition is that the driver is leaving the vehicle unattended, not any passengers, therefore I would argue it was not 'parked'.

"Bring (a vehicle that one is driving) to a halt and leave it temporarily, typically in a car park or by the side of the road"

Thanks for the help

awilley

Unfortunately Moto-Way have come back to me (very quickly) and have forwarded my email onto their appeal department for normal processing.

Looks like I'll be getting a POPLA code fairly shortly rather than just cancelling :-/

ampersand

That's alright, better a valid popla code and appeal chance, than kangaroo ias nonsense.

Read up on popla changes, now run by OSL; live today, with adjudication from 1 Oct. Ensure that you do indicate your intention to appeal
http://www.popla.org.uk/update.htm

You'll have all the usual non-compliant signage, gpeol, contract/penalty points.

You will have more time:-)

awilley

Overdue update on this, MotoWay replied within 7 days with:-

"Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your correspondence. With reference to the Charge Notice issued to the above vehicle, after reviewing our data and in view of the representations made in connection with its issue, we can confirm that we have decided to cancel this Notice and no further action is to be taken.

Yours faithfully,

CP Plus Limited"

Result! Thanks for your help on this!!!

GingerBlokeBlog

On a similar note to this and following a terrible night driving, where I had a rest a few hours prior to entering service station but was still very tired and ended up sleeping in the car for around 3.5 hours after using the "services", which at 07:00 in the morning was the toilet facilities, a !!!!-poor coffee outlet and a half-opened WH Smiths.

When the letter turned up to my address and my surprise I replied with a number of issues:

The !!!!-poor facilities, my dispute that the signage had been adequate and my issue that tax payers money is being used to place signs prior to services stating "Tiredness kills, take a break" when the parking company deems how long a break should be.

However, I think my main appeal point that clinched it being accepted was that of extenuating circumstances: i.e. my being too ill to drive, requiring me to take a rest until I deemed it safe to continue on my journey.

I do not think that any service station would dare hold-up a fine on anyone feeling unwell to drive due to the safety implications and let's be honest, if you require sleep whilst driving, it is fair to say that you are therefore too unwell to drive.

Plus who can prove otherwise whether the driver was too ill or not?

My advise would always be to go down the extenuating circumstances route as I'm sure that no parking or motorway service company would want a letter to one's MP with their name on, nor a letter to the newspapers.