Southampton Town Quay Short Stay

mmmatt

Hi guys,

Believe it or not, this isn't a post for advice :j

Got a PCN from the lovely people at Parking Eye - long story short, pay us money or its more money later blah blah....don't appeal because you'll lose...blah blah.

Did my research on the forum, used the newbie template letter with some extra stuff (mainly the ABP not being "relevant land")

Appealed it to PE - they immediately rejected - clearly not even read. They are quick to tell you the payment details though!

Got my POPLA code, wrote THE SAME APPEAL. With extra emphasis on the ABP land having "no keeper liability".

Parking Eye then waited until the last minute, and sent a HUGE "evidence" pack (this term used so so so loosely). But nothing about the whole ABP land.

Here is the appeal reply -

Decision - Successful
Assessor Name - Eileen Ioannou
Assessor summary of operator case
The operator issued a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) to the appellant for exceeding the time paid for at the site.

Assessor summary of your case
The appellant states that the operator has no standing authority to pursue charges or form a contract with drivers and that the signage is not British Parking Association (BPA) Code of Practice compliant. The appellant also states that the speculative parking invoice is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss and that the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) at the site is not BPA compliant.

Assessor supporting rational for decision
The appellant has raised a number of grounds for appeal but I am going to concentrate on bye-laws and the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA 2012). Schedule 4, Paragraph 3 of PoFA 2012 advises of the type of land that the recovery of unpaid Parking Charge Notice’s (PCN)’s applicable. The types of land that it is not applicable for is any land which already has statutory controls in relation to the parking of vehicles such as byelaws applying to ports. The purpose of Parking on Private Land Appeals (POPLA) is to establish and assess whether a parking operator has issued a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) correctly and in accordance with the terms and conditions at the site in question based on the evidence provided. I am unable to find any reference to byelaws in the operator response as such I am not able to establish with any certainty that this point has been considered by the operator. For the purposes of this appeal I am not satisfied that the operator has addressed the issue raised by the appellant in regard to Southampton Town Quay car park not having keeper liability, therefore this is not “relevant land”. As such I am not satisfied that the operator has issued the PCN to the appellant correctly. Accordingly this appeal should be allowed.


Basically P.E. just ignored the whole basis of the appeal, didn't submit anything about it!

Utter scum!

But thanks to the newbie guide and some older posts, we beat them!

Edna_Basher

Nice one.

This is the first time I've seen “new" POPLA uphold a Southampton Town Quay appeal on the basis of this site not being relevant land.

Your case demonstrates how PE simply churn out their rejection letters and evidence packs on an industrial scale without even properly considering the content of the appeals they receive.

You also highlight an important lesson for anyone preparing their rebuttal of a PE evidence pack i.e. bring to POPLA’s attention every appeal point for which PE have offered no response, explaining that POPLA should reasonably conclude that PE must have accepted that the appeal point was valid.

The_Deep

You should try to get this in the local papers. "Thousands of parking "fines" could be refunded."

Coupon-mad

I wonder when POPLA will actually put right the embarrassing misspelling of 'rationale'...makes them look a bit tin-pot, unfortunately.

Lovely result though and one we can quote. Could you give the POPLA code for it please, now you are safe, then we can use it in other cases.