Smart Parking appeal rejected – do I take it further? Please help!

TugaGirl

Hello lovely people. I’m really hoping to get some adviceand reassurance from you, experience people!

I’m sure you heard it all before so I’ll keep it short andto the point:

- Overstayed at a car park near Luton town centrewhich is ran by Smart Parking;

- Appealed to them but got rejected;

- Paid for 120 minutes but stayed for 140 (thereasons for this are that I had no change and the machine doesn’t accept notesor card payments so it took me about 10 minutes to get change from the casinoover the road, I had my two young children with me, plus shopping, so gettingback into the car took a while)

- The response I got from SmartParking confirmsthat they can see I in fact purchased two separate 1 hour tickets.

- The signs in the car park are in fact clearlydisplayed

I’ve been given the verification code to take this to POPLAbut I’m scared that, if rejected I will have to pay £100 instead of £60.

I’ve tried to get a draft letter together, but there is soso much information out there, that I’ve got so confused and overwhelmed by itall.
Have I got any grounds to stand on, or am I being unreasonable? I didoverstay my paid time after all? Shall I go for it and hope for the best orjust pay the £60?

I just feel like there isn’t much I can argue..
Any advice would be greatly appriciated!

pappa_golf

was this an APNR type ticket , showing pictures of your car going thru the enterance to the car park and again from the rear as you left?


note cameras on the entrance are not a true indication of the time you PARKED for , and we are getting very close to "grace periods" here


smart , are smart enough not to bother with courts , so a good POPLa appeal will either work or fail , but you can be happy knowing its cost them £31 inc vat , for the appeal

pogofish

Appeals based on fact will very likely fail.

Have a good, careful read of the Newbies Sticky at the top of this forum for your best range of options now.

TugaGirl

@pappa golf - yes, I recevied it through the post with the pictures of my car entering and leaving the car park.

I've had a read pogofish, but in all honesty, feel a bit lost with it all. I feel that little of the "argument points" apply to my case..

Thanks for your responses.

pappa_golf

do you still have the ticket? , that will show the time entering and the time you paid for parking , gosh wasn't it busy on that carpark , struggling to find a space


Waiting for a space is not Parking


http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/waiting-for-space-is-not-parking.html

Northlakes

It's very difficult, in anger, for many posters to overcome what has happened to them and the unfairness of a PCN.

This mind set has to be replaced by what the PPC hasn't done in trying to extract money off you. Like grace periods and incorrect PCN/NTK, BPA CoP, POFA 2012 etc.

That's why the NEWBIES thread needs reading and reading again until you understand that to overcome the PPC's greed, a logic has to come into play to avoid the traps which have been put in place for you.

TugaGirl

Unfortunately only one of the two tickets I bought, the second one. Which proves that I drove off 9 minutes after my time had expired.

Yes, it was busy and the car park in itself is just a bit of land, no parking bays or road marks. It's really small and cramped which makes it quite hard to drive around.

Castle

TugaGirl wrote: »

Unfortunately only one of the two tickets I bought, the second one. Which proves that I drove off 9 minutes after my time had expired.

Well it's your lucky day because the BPA's Code of Practice requires Smart Parking to allow at least a 10 minute grace period after your time expired:-(Paragraph 13.4)
http://www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/AOS_Code_of_Practice_October_2015_update_V6..pdf

TugaGirl

Hi Castle, I'm not sure this would apply as with waiting for a parking space & getting change to get the first ticket, the total extra time was 20 minutes.

pappa_golf

you don,t want to fight this do you?


given even half a defence , smart will pull out before popla , and smart are smart enough not to try court


down to costs , smart are a bit "struggling" at the moment , there UK setup is loosing money , OR not making as much as they wanted , they have just lost ASDA contract


for them to take you to court could costv them £300-400 per case , and you only have to pay maybe £150 (inc costs) , so are smart going to throw away 2 x£250?




get a decent rebuttal in , fight the !!!!!!s , and start learning how to play poker!

Castle

TugaGirl wrote: »

Hi Castle, I'm not sure this would apply as with waiting for a parking space & getting change to get the first ticket, the total extra time was 20 minutes.

Driving around looking for a parking space is not parking; (see CS018 ParkingEye v Mrs X).
http://www.parking-prankster.com/case-law.html