County Court Letter for charges of parking in private land

mark.taylor

Dear All,

I have received a letter from County court for parking of my car in a private land. 8 months back I had received a letter fro Debt Collection Plus (DCP) for payment regarding parking in a private land controlled by Parking Control Management (PCM). The original Parking Charge Notice (PCN) issued by PCM was not received by me and I requested DCP to provide me the original PCN for me to take necessary action. I had no response from DCP for 2 months of my letter to them. Suddenly I received a letter from Gladstone Solicitors asking me to pay GBP 150 for the alleged parking offence. I requested Gladstone to provide me the details of the offence claimed so that I can take some action. They refused to send any letter by post and asked me to provide e-mail address for them to send the details. They sent only the photographs and the photo of the notice board present at the alleged parking site by e-mail and provided me with the address of the alleged car park near Sainsbury in west London. No Parking Charge Notice (PCN) has been provided by Gladstone so far. I live far away from the alleged private car park and don't remember going there at the time claimed by Gladstone. Also I noticed that the area is not adequately illuminated and there is no lighting provided on the notice board.

I responded to Gladstone stating that I don't remember visiting the place at the time stated in the picture. I informed them that one of my friend who live in that area could have parked the car there but I am not 100% sure. I also stated in my letter that due to poor lighting in the area (which is clear in the photographs provided by Gladstone) it is possible for driver to miss the notice. Also, there are different notice on the same sign post.

They didn't respond to my e-mail and in return went ahead with the court proceeding. I am planning to appeal against the charges based on the following.

1) The area is not adequately illuminated (as clearly seen in the picture provided by them). I myself went to the spot and noticed that no light is provided on the sign board and the sign is under a bunch of trees and not visible in the night. I believe that the owner is legally bound to ensure that the sign is visible all the time.
2) There are multiple signs on the same post.
3) The claimant has failed to prove who parked the car in the alleged private car park.
4) They have still not provided me with the original Parking Charge Notice indicating date, time and basis on which they are claiming GBP 150.
5) They haven't provide me with the option to appeal to a third party against the charges.

I will appreciate your thought on this and will be grateful if you can suggest on how to draft the letter to to the court. I have limited time and will appreciate help on this.

Regards,
Mark

pogofish

Please get yourself into the correct forum and start by reading the Newbies Sticky and debt collector threads, plus some recent threads on this lot.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=163

mark.taylor

Thank you for guiding me in the right direction. I have now put the thread in the other forum Parking Tickets, Fines & Parking.

Cheers...