Blue Badge not seen in Free Car Park disabled bay

TRXbloke

Hi All,
A couple of nights ago we went to the Vue Cinema at Watford. I was lucky in being able to find a disabled bay and parked up as I have many times before. This is in a private car park in which it is free to customers of the businesses on the complex.
My Blue Badge resides on the passenger side in a recessed flat part of the dash. If I put it anywhere else it either falls onto the floor, or slips down between the dashboard and window, requiring removal of the dashboard to retreive it. It is visible when you get close enough to look over the most frontward part of the dash, and I have checked with a local council Traffic Warden, and she was happy with it there.
Anyway, on the way home from the Cinema I discovered a ticket in a bag stuck (quite high up out of my eye-line) to my windscreen. It was from UKPC for being "Parked in a disabled person's space without clearly displaying a valid disabled person's badge"
The charge is for £90, reduced to £50 if paid early.
When I got home I had a look at the website, on the notice, and looked at the photographic evidence. The pictures have all been taken at an elevation which masks the Blue Badge on the dash, I hope by accident rather than with intent to distort the evidence for financial gain (it wouldn't be the first time).
Having browsed the internet for advice it seemed the best thing to do was to appeal on the basis that as a genuinely disabled person, with a badge to prove it, I had a right to park in that space (even if I hadn't displayed my badge). I took a picture showing where my blue badge sits so they could see it wasn't visible from the angle they had pictured it, but was from closer and higher. It showed my badge number clearly.
However they have replied stating
"Please rest assured that our Appeals Manager has personally reviewed your case and carefully considered the various points you raised. Their view, however, is that the Parking Charge has been correctly issued so it will not be waived.

They continue

"However, in consideration of the information you provided, and on the basis that you are a valid Blue Badge holder, if payment is received by us within 35 days of the date of this letter we will accept the sum of £15 in full settlement of the Parking Charge. Please be advised that we will be donating 10% of this amount to a registered disabled charity."

Remember this is a FREE car park.

I wish to proceed with an appeal to POPLA, but am wary that POPLA will reject the appeal and I will then be liable for the full £90, which on my disability pension is a significant sum that I can ill afford. However I don't like to give in to bullies. Any advice on how to write to POPLA would be much appreciated.

Thanks
TRXbloke

Coupon-mad

Appeal to POPLA using the templates in the NEWBIES thread post #3, and show us your draft long appeal. Even if you lose you do not have to pay, POPLA is binding of UKPC but not on you.

I guess you've given away the driver in your first appeal? Not good, but never mind. NO-ONE here tells you to appeal as driver.

Read the NEWBIES FAQS thread post #3 (no link, I never link to it). My signature tells you where to click to see it, it is really just a matter of clicking the 'back' button because it sits near the top of the threads where you clicked 'new thread'.

Put some POPLA template points together. POPLA will NOT consider mitigating circs or Blue Badges (wrong but true). So that's why you need the templates and then we can add some wording to cover the dashboard issue and that you made reasonable efforts to display the badge - and did. Their twisted angle is 'absence of evidence' and is not 'evidence of absence' of the Badge.

It would be a good idea to get someone to take a photo of how your Blue Badge looks on the dash if taken from the right angle, and embed that photo into the POPLA appeal too. Don't just start typing in and clicking boxes on the POPLA website. Show us your draft based on the templates and with your own photo embedded into the word document appeal.

TRXbloke

OK Thanks , I will work on that and post soon.

TRXbloke

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick, but I can't find where these "templates" are, or which I should use anyway. I also don't get what the difference is between Driver and Keeper in regard to a defence.

Fruitcake

TRXbloke wrote: »

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick, but I can't find where these "templates" are, or which I should use anyway. I also don't get what the difference is between Driver and Keeper in regard to a defence.

Post 3 of the NEWBIES thread contains template appeal points. The NEWBIES is at the top of the page where you started this thread.
Use all the appeal points that apply. These will usually include, inadequate signage, not the landowner, no standing to issue charges in their own name, lack of compliance with the BPA Code of Practice such as failing to allow grace periods. Also, non POFA compliant NTK but you can't use that if the driver's identity has been revealed.

Since the law changed in 2012 with the introduction of the Protection of Freedom Act 2012, the keeper of a vehicle can be liable if the driver's identity is not known by the scammers.
For the keeper to be liable the scammers have to comply with each and every requirement of the POFA 2012. Any single failure means there can be no keeper liability. Most parking scammers are incapable of complying with the Act, so most will fail miserably.
If however the scammers know the identity of the driver, they don't need to comply with the POFA and it makes it much harder to defend, but not impossible.

The_Deep

Do not pay them a penny. If this got to court, who would the judge believe, your good-self, or these fraudsters?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3229165/Is-PROOF-private-parking-firms-scamming-motorists-Drivers-say-timings-photos-doctored-legally-parked-cars-issued-fines.html

TRXbloke

I have been trying to write my appeal to POPLA, but this this has caused my stress levels to rise, and with it my pain levels and and my health has deteriorated significantly due to the worry.
I am sorry to say therefore that I am thinking of paying UKPC the £15 to make it go away, I know that is what they rely on but I am just not well enough anymore to fight things like this, that could run against me and drag on and on.
Rest assured though that UKPC will come to rue the day that they !!!!ed me off, for a piddly £15, Once they can't pursue me any more I will make their lives a living hell at every opportunity. There are a million and one ways I can annoy them and cost them money and I will make it a hobby to engage in every one of these that I can. In the past I have taken on drug gangs single handedly, and won without them even knowing who their enemy was. I will engage the same tactics against UKPC. I am looking forward to my vendetta. Wish me well. Oh Don't worry, everything will be perfectly legal ! (Remember time costs)

Coupon-mad

There are a million and one ways I can annoy them and cost them money and I will make it a hobby to engage in every one of these that I can.

I wish you well.

Start with a complaint letter to Mrs May and Marcus Jones of the DCLG, who reckons he is 'still thinking about' the government's promise to regulate the parking scummy firms.

Tell them your story and ask if this is the Britain they want people to be living in, going forward, or have we gone wrong along the way by allowing ex-clamper thugs and in particular, UKPC (who have admitted to fraudulent photo evidence but got no more than a slap on the wrist*) to be handed DVLA keeper data for £2.50 a pop, in order to harass innocent people then credit clamp them with unfair CCJs if they dare not pay.


*http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11858473/Parking-firm-UKPC-admits-faking-tickets-to-fine-drivers.html

TRXbloke

Oh I was thinking of a lot more annoying than that.... but it may be a place to start.

Half_way

As soon as you told them you were disabled and had evidence they should have dropped this immediately. They haven't.
What did the cinema say? If the cinema took on the parking company they are jointly liable for the actions of their agents. You need to tell the cinema that this should be cancelled and their agents need better training as once informed about a disability the charge should have been dropped.
Blue badges are not valid on private land, and not all people who require reasonable adjustments under the equality act poses a blue badge.

TRXbloke

I am visiting the cinema again this week, and will be complaining vigorously. I am also on the look out for the car park attendant, who will be getting a "talking to".
I don't thing the cinema will have employed UKPC tho' as they are part of a complex of facilities. The area is called Woodside Leisure Park, I am trying to find out who the actual owners are. I think it is company called Citygrove