Parking Eye PCN Leisureworld Southampton

Dorsetgal

Hello everyone,
I have tried to read many of the sticky threads and links within threads, but find I am sinking.
I am at the stage where my initial appeal has been rejected and I can now appeal to POPLA (by 6 Nov).
I did, unfortunately, disclose all my mitigating circumstances in my initial appeal letter to ParkingEye.
Circumstances are:
I live in Bournemouth, I had an appointment at AppleStore West Quay Southampton to repair son's phone. Carpark full so went into LeisureWorld, for the first time, not sure of procedure, didn't notice any cameras clocking me in.
Paid 3 hours parking, entered regn number, displayed ticket in windscreen. (which I still have)
Repair was due to take 2 hours, so a 3 hour ticket adequate, I thought.
However, there was a zone fire evacuation at West Quay, which turned out to be a false alarm, but that effectively meant my repair was delayed due to evacuation. I couldn't just leave West Quay as my son's phone was in the Store and it was too far to walk back to renew ticket (which wouldn't have made any difference with their cameras, it turns out!)

The overstay according to PE is 25 mins. However, there are 9 mins between Parking Eye's picture of me entering and the time on my ticket, after parking, locating where to pay and queuing up, walking to and from machine, making just 16 mins overstay.

I now have am email from WestQuay confirming the zone fire evac.

I would be grateful if someone could please steer me to the best thread to set out my mitigation, many many thanks!

Jim_AFCB

Difficult to say at this stage how much, if at all, the "new POPLA" as run by Ombudsman Services, will do mitigation. Certainly the old one didn't, and would only look at points of law.

Your best bet might be to appeal using the standard legal points - have a look at more recent POPLA decisions in the POPLA Decisions sticky at the top of this forum to get an idea.

Also, do a search n this forum for "Parking Eye Leisureworld Southampton" - several cases for this location on here.



One of the real experts on here may be along to offer more advice in time.

Coupon-mad

However, there was a zone fire evacuation at West Quay, which turned out to be a false alarm, but that effectively meant my repair was delayed due to evacuation.

I would include that at POPLA stage in the background introduction because a fire evacuation of West Quay (which is where this car park is) counts as exceptional circumstances and POPLA might consider it relevant. I would NOT talk about the phone being elsewhere and it being 'too far to walk' to renew the parking.

Please look at the NEWBIES thread about POPLA stage - I linked a thread or two there recently in the post #3 about POPLA, and one was where I helped someone fine-tune a decent POPLA appeal about a tariff payment car park of PE's where she was accused of a small overstay.

You can use a LOT of her final POPLA appeal so get to the NEWBIES thread post #3 and go find it. Make sure you include the fact that for PE to be using two timings but favouring the one which is secret and works disadvantageously against consumers, and starts before a contract even begins, is an unfair term, a breach of consumer Regulations and contrary to good faith.

I am guessing you've alreasy blabbed about who parked the car/was driving? So yu cannot use any appeal point about the POFA not about the fact West Quay is not 'relevant land'. If you'd appealed as keeper (not driver) you could have argued you are not liable in law. You can't now use that appeal point, which is a shame but a fact. But look at the rest of the appeal points in the thread linked in the NEWBIES thread where a decent POPLA appeal including the 'Aziz test' and Beavis, was put together last week.

Dorsetgal

Thank you both - yes unfortunately replied to PE effectively saying "I was driving to West Quay" etc. so revealing it was me. Will have a good read of where you have pointed me to, Coupon-Mad.

Coupon-mad

OK, so you cannot use anything about the POFA 2012 'no keeper liability/not relevant land' which is a bummer as it's a sound legal appeal point! But all the other stuff is worthwhile in a POPLA appeal.

Also wait until the Beavis v ParkingEye outcome in case anything useful comes from that Supreme Court case. You'll read it here, whichever way that case goes.

Dorsetgal

(hope I have cut and pasted correctly, and removed GPEOL) Evening, I posted recently about my ParkingEye experience at Southampton Leisureworld and have had a go at a draft POPLA appeal. I would really appreciate an expert eye, as I have to submit by close of play tomorrow. Thanks everyone:-

POPLA APPEAL

I should start this appeal by explaining the situation of how I was, as a keeper of the vehicle xxxxxx, issued with a £100 parking charge notice (PCN) from ParkingEye. I am the registered keeper of the vehicle and this appeal will probe that I am not liable for the parking charge.
The driver parked in the Leisure World, Southampton, car park on Saturday 12th September. The driver paid £3.00 for 3 hours, at 13.21, at a paymachine. The driver noted that the car registration had to be inputted and duly did so. (See copy Ticket enclosed). The driver had an appointment for a mobile phone to be repaired in West Quay. During the visit to West Quay there was a Zone Fire Evacuation (see copy email enclosed) which delayed the collection of the mobile phone (see copy Receipt enclosed). The arrival time on the PCN is 13.12, the departure time 16.37.

Two weeks later I received a PCN of £100 for the 25 minutes exceeded. However, there are only 16 minutes exceeded from the time on my Ticket.

The grounds for this appeal are:
1. The signage was not readable so there was no valid contract formed.
2. Proprietary Interest.
3. The ANPR system is unreliable and neither synchronised nor accurate
4. The Notice to Keeper is not compliant with the POFA 2012 – no keeper liability.

1. The signage was not readable so there was no valid contract formed between ParkingEye and the driver
The only signs are up on poles, away from the Pay & Display machine, which is not a 'sign' nor does it communicate full contractual terms & conditions. Any upright signs were not so prominent among all the other signage on site that they were ever seen by the occupants of the car. I believe that ParkingEye place their signs so high that terms would only be legible if a driver got out of a car and climbed a stepladder, holding a torch, to try to read them. Any photos supplied by ParkingEye to POPLA will no doubt show the signs in daylight or with the misleading aid of a close up camera and the angle may well not show how high the sign is nor the fact the ParkingEye signs are one of many pieces of information in the clutter of this busy customer car park. As such, I require ParkingEye to state the height of each sign in their response and to show contemporaneous photo evidence of these signs, taken at the same time of day without photoshopping or cropping and showing where the signs are placed among a myriad of other information bombarding a customer.

Unreadable signage breaches Appendix B of the BPA Code of Practice which states that terms on entrance signs must be clearly readable without a driver having to turn away from the road ahead. A Notice is not imported into the contract unless brought home so prominently that the party 'must' have known of it and agreed terms beforehand. Nothing about this Operator's onerous inflated 'parking charges' was sufficiently prominent and it is clear that the requirements for forming a contract (i.e. consideration flowing between the two parties, offer, acceptance and fairness and transparency of terms offered in good faith) were not satisfied


2. Proprietary Interest

Parking Eye has not provided enough evidence of their interest in the land as they have no legal possession which would give ParkingEye any right to offer parking spaces, let alone allege a contract with third party customers of the lawful owner/occupiers. The registered keeper believes there is no contract with the landowner/occupier that entitles them to levy these charges and to pursue them in the Courts in their own name as creditor. Therefore this Operator has no authority to issue parking charge notices (PCNs) which could be BPA Code of Practice compliant. Any breach of the BPA Code of Practice means that 'registered keeper liability' has not been established, since full compliance is a pre-requisite of POFA 2012.

I therefore put ParkingEye to strict proof to provide POPLA and myself with an unredacted, contemporaneous copy of the contract between ParkingEye and the landowner, not just another agent or retailer or other non-landholder, because it will still not be clear that the landowner has authorised the necessary rights to ParkingEye.

3. The ANPR system is unreliable and neither synchronised nor accurate, and there is no evidence that this was just one visit
ParkingEye's evidence shows no parking time, merely photos of a car driving in and out which does not discount the possibility of a double visit. It is unreasonable for this operator to record the start of 'parking time' as the moment of arrival in moving traffic if they in fact offer a pay and display system which the driver can only access AFTER parking and which is when the clock in fact starts. The exit photo is not evidence of 'parking time' at all and has not been shown to be synchronised to the pay and display machine clock nor even to relate to the same parking event.
The fact that for ParkingEye to be using two timings but favouring the one which is secret and works disadvantageously against consumers, and starts before a contract even begins, is an unfair term, a breach of consumer Regulations and contrary to good faith. The ANPR timings may not be synchronised because there are several timings conflicting here. The entrance camera could be 10 minutes or more out from the exit camera and either of them might not match the Pay and Display machine timer. And then the BPA allow at least 10 minutes after expiry to leave anyway in normal circumstances.

4. The Notice to Keeper is not compliant with the POFA 2012 - no keeper liability.

As this was a Pay/Display car park, the Notice to Keeper (NTK) has to set out the position clearly in terms of 'describing the parking charges due' which remained unpaid as at the day before the date of issue of the PCN. Due to this timeline stated in Schedule 4, these 'parking charges due' can only be a tariff the driver should have paid, because no higher sum was 'due' before the PCN was even printed!

In the NTK before me I can see that the car either not purchased the appropriate parking time or remained at the car park for longer than permitted. This does not create any certainty of terms, it leaves a keeper to wonder what the hourly rate tariff even was and whether the driver paid nothing, or paid too little, or paid only for half an hour or an hour, or paid in full but put in the wrong car registration, or some other event. This Operator has the technology to record car registrations, to collect/record payments and to take photos of cars arriving and leaving, so it would be reasonable to assume that they are able - and indeed are required under the POFA - to state on the NTK the basic requirements to show a keeper how the 'parking charges' arose and the amount of outstanding parking charges (tariff).

These are the omission from POFA 2012 in the NTK issued:
''9(2)The notice must—
(b)inform the keeper that the driver is required to pay parking charges in respect of the specified period of parking and that the parking charges have not been paid in full;
(c)describe the parking charges due from the driver as at the end of that period, the circumstances in which the requirement to pay them arose (including the means by which the requirement was brought to the attention of drivers) and the other facts that made them payable;
(d)specify the total amount of those parking charges that are unpaid, as at a time which is—

(i)specified in the notice; and

(ii)no later than the end of the day before the day on which the notice is either sent by post or, as the case may be, handed to or left at a current address for service for the keeper (see sub-paragraph (4))”

The NTK specifically fails on all counts. It even fails to describe the specific circumstances for such a parking charge amount due.


This concludes my POPLA Appeal.

Redx

surely its "the drivers ticket" ? (not my ticket)

the parking time wasnt exceeded, just the time on site

you have time to arrive , park up , get a ticket and display it, plus leave the car park

clause 13 allows 10 minutes grace for the leaving the car park (BPA CoP)
surely the rest of the exceeded time is easily the arrival and payment part ?

Dorsetgal

Thank you Redx, duly amended and about to be submitted.

Dorsetgal

Evening - well after over 3 months (!) (is this normal?), I finally have a decision from POPLA - unsuccessful. Any thoughts about my next step or a steer towards the relevant thread would be much appreciated, thank you all.

catfunt

2 questions:

Did you get sent the PPC's evidence pack and advised by POPLA that you had seven days to submit any comments, and if so, did you send any rebuttals to Parking Eye's evidence pack??

Can you post the full text of POPLA's reasons for refusing the appeal, including the name of the assessor?

Next step is wait for the probable issuing of court papers from Parking Eye, they do tend to railroad people to Small Claims pretty quickly.
But this is defendable if you're up for the fight, and you won't pay much more than the charge they are asking for even if you lost, and it will cost them more than they will get from you.
If you lost and paid up, you would not get a CCJ or a black mark on your credit record, so don't worry about that particular threat.

Dorsetgal

Hi catfunt - Despite PE's evidence pack letter being dated 27th Nov, I only received it on 3rd Dec, so no real time to peruse; when I tried to add my response online the next day it was refused. I had to phone POPLA and they said I could email them and my response would be added, which I did. I did send rebuttals regarding their evidence pack, relating to the signage pictures and the ANPR and pay & display, along with my formal appeal.

Reason for refusal (by Mr S Connop):-

The British Parking Association Code of Practice under, section 18.1 states, “In all cases, the driver’s use of your land will be governed by your terms and conditions, which the driver should be made aware of from the start. You must use signs to make it easy for them to find out what your terms and conditions are. The operator has provided me with photographic evidence of the signage located around the site in question. I am satisfied that this signage, displayed throughout the car park, clearly states the terms and conditions of the site. As such I am satisfied that appellant had the opportunity to read and understand the terms and conditions before agreeing to the contract. The signage states, “You can purchase additional time (if required) at the payment machines or by phone before leaving” and that, “Failure to comply with the terms and conditions will result in a parking charge of £100.” From the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system provided within the evidence from the day in question, it shows the appellant’s vehicle entering the car park at 13:12 and exiting at 16:37. From this I am satisfied the appellant had remained at the site for a total time of 3 hours and 25 Minutes. . In terms of the technology itself, the British Parking Association audits the ANPR systems in use by Parking Operators in order to ensure it is in good working order and the data collected is accurate. Independent research has found that the technology is 99% accurate. Therefore, I am satisfied that the photographs provided are accurate From the day of the contravention, the operator has provided a whitelist print out from the pay by plate system. This shows a record of when the appellant’s vehicle registration details were taken. The record shows the appellant purchased 3 hours’ of parking time at 13:21, enabling her to park until 16:21. From the witness statement provided by the operator, I am satisfied that the operator had the authority to operator on the land in question, on the day of the alleged contravention. I have reviewed the Notice to Keeper against the relevant sections of PoFA 2012 and I am satisfied that it is compliant. From the evidence provided by the operator I am satisfied that they have answered all the questions within the grounds for appeal. As such, the Parking Charge Notice was issued correctly and with authorisation from the land owners.