APCOA PCN for Airport Drop-off - HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY DISPUTE

OY98

Hi All,

The purpose of this post is to provide you with a cardboard cut-out response to APCOA and then to POPLA in order to avoid paying those creeps. I am doing this as thanks to the contributions made by knowledgeable members of this forum on other related threads which enabled me to submit an appeal to POPLA which APCOA did not contest (I received this welcome news from POPLA today), and I imagine they will not ever be able to do so unless relevant laws are changed in their favour. It took me time to read, understand, filter, collate, etc., the information on other threads so I wanted to put all you need right here in one post.

Here's the jist.
Number 1) If you did happen to be the driver, do not admit this. If you weren't the driver, don't tell them who was. You have no obligation to do so.
Number 2) Airport roads operate on byelaws, and those byelaws do not give the private operator any right to transfer the liability from the driver to the registered keeper. End of.

OK, so here we go. I worded my appeal based on the written judgement of a POPLA officer who ruled in favour of the registered keeper on another thread. Thanks to them for posting.

INITIAL EMAIL TO APCOA - INTERNAL APPEAL

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you as the registered keeper of the vehicle [insert vehicle reg] involved in Parking Charge Number XXXXXXXXX, where the alleged contravention took place on the [date of offence] and the PCN Date of Issue is the [date of PCN].

Schedule 4 of PoFA 2012, section 1, states that: “(1) This schedule applies where – (a) The driver of a vehicle is required by virtue of a relevant obligation to pay parking charges in respect of the parking of the vehicle on relevant land”. Following on, in section 3, PoFA 2012 states that: “(1) In this schedule “relevant land” means any land (including land above or below ground level) other than - … (b) any land … on which the parking of a vehicle is subject to statutory control”, and that: “(3) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1) (c) the parking of a vehicle on land is “subject to statutory control” if any statutory provision imposes a liability (whether criminal or civil, and whether in the form of a fee or charge or a penalty of any kind) in respect of the parking on that land of vehicles generally or of vehicles of a description that includes the vehicle in question”.

I respectfully advise that there will be no admissions as to who the driver of the vehicle was at the time of the alleged contravention and no assumptions can be drawn. Further, from these sections of PoFA 2012 we may conclude that if statutory provision exists that imposes a liability in respect of parking on the land, PoFA 2012 cannot be used to transfer liability for any charges incurred from the driver of the vehicle to the keeper of the vehicle. Furthermore, under PoFA 2012 you have not issued the PCN within the strict requirements and timeframe set out (in particular section 9).

If APCOA does not work, seek payment, or issue notices under PoFA 2012 as the site is covered by Airport Byelaws, then please provide the information on relevant Byelaws that detail APCOA’s right in terms of transferring liability of a parking charge from the driver of the vehicle to the registered keeper of the vehicle.

If you are unable to demonstrate that you have the right to transfer the liability from the driver to the keeper, then I kindly request that you cancel the PCN.

Sincerely,

Terrific, step one of two done! You may need to remove the sentence about timeframes if you received it within 14 days. Now to state the obvious...they will reject your appeal because they are a bunch of cowboys. I'm not going to put what they sent me, because it is irrelevant and it may differ from what they send you. They will probably say something about having 28 days to notify under BPA, and then repeat what they said in the first PCN. Blah blah. Let's move on.

The final move for checkmate in this dull dull game is to send your POPLA appeal. Just to clarify, on the POPLA website you will be submitting your appeal under the "Other" reasons section, as the only option on the "I was not the driver" is to also not be the registered keeper. Not to worry. In the the description of your other reason, you can just put "No registered keeper liability". I attached the above in a word document and sent it in the POPLA appeal to refer to it.

APPEAL TO POPLA

Dear POPLA,

I am appealing the PCN issued by APCOA on the grounds that there is no registered keeper liability. Please find attached my internal appeal to APCOA . In short, I requested APCOA to provide the information on relevant byelaws that detail APCOA’s right in terms of transferring liability of a parking charge from the driver of the vehicle to the registered keeper of the vehicle. In their response APCOA did not provide this information.

As per and further to my reasons for appealing in the attached document, I submit this appeal to you as airport land is not 'relevant land' as it is already covered by statutory byelaws and so is specifically excluded from 'keeper liability' under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. As I am the registered keeper I am not legally liable as this Act does not apply on this land. If APCOA disagree with this point I would require them to show evidence including documentary proof from the Airport Authority that this land is not already covered by byelaws.

I would also like to refer to POPLA appeal XXXXXXXXXX that was made on the same basis and in circumstances applicable to this appeal, and in response to which APCOA withdrew their appeal.

Yours sincerely,


BOOM!!! Take that you parasitic bunch of £$%$^ little £%$%^$ useless ""(^*^%. Get a real job.....Ahem, apologies, got a little sidetracked. When referring to the other case, I did give the appeal number that was posted on another forum. Thanks again to those superstars. I wont give it here as it's not mine to give, but you can use mine, which was 0511136036. You probably don't even need to refer to another case, but what the heck. Drives it home (without the fine ).

I imagine this would work at any airport against any private operator. Please note, this was for an alleged drop-off contravention. While I'm sure much of this info is relevant to other situations, if you use it, amend it, apply it differently or to other alleged offences, etc., I don't know what your outcome will be.

A final word if I may (stop reading now if you don't want to hear a personal opinion)...yes this is avoiding a fine which some may think you deserve to pay if you were guilty. True, but it is the nature of the way that Airports outsource to these monkeys without consideration and then increasingly seem to refuse people a free drop off zone in order to squeeze cash out of every situation but can't be bothered to police the application themselves. Luton Airport, £2 to pull over and let someone out? Really??? And then obviously said monkeys come along and they make their profit by trying to wrangle money out of every offence no matter how small or innocent, which many are (can you always read every sign in time as you drive past amongst the road works??), and that they then purposefully choose to send intimidating letters on the knowledge that a certain percentage of people will either not know their rights, not have the time or resources to appeal, or feel bullied into the less risky choice of paying the lower fine within set days. They are skimming off the uninformed, vulnerable, and wearied from all the other admin we have to do in life. If that isn't bottom-feeding I don't know what is.

Phew, and breathe. Hope this helps some of you.

dazster

Or you could just ignore them. Which is not general advice, but it is perfectly valid for APCOA at airports and railway stations.

sdk72

Hey , nice write up, I am just in the process of questioning / challenging a pcn i received for stopping at a pelican crossing at BHX picking up the missus.

thread is "BHX pelican crossing pick up"

I'm not sure if what i am doing is right or wrong as there is some discrepancy about car parks and airport roads and i am also curious as to what would be classed as parking or stopping?

any help appreciated. thankyou