flashpark popla appeal letter

TRICKY360

hi everyone,
just join today as i need to send off a popla appeal letter to contest flashpark

quick outline ,
i work for an estate agent who asked me to attend a plumbing leak , the car park has only parking for visitors only, who need to got a permit from the owners house.
we parked up and walked round the car park to the front of the house, got the permit, and walked back and displayed it on the dash.
letter in the post from flashpark with one photo from about 5 feet away from the van.
doesnt show dash in any detail so cant tell if permit is displayed or not.
rejected , and now they have given me a popla code.
can i ask if this template is ok?
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Dear Sir or Madam,

Ticket number: xxxxx

Vehicle registration number: xxxxx

POPLA appeal code XXXXXX

I write to lodge my appeal to POPLA regarding the above-detailed Parking Charge Notice issued to me by Flashpark as a Notice to Keeper in respect of an alleged breach of parking terms and conditions at “place” on "day" "month" 2017. I confirm that I am the vehicle’s keeper for the purposes of the corresponding definition under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (“POFA”).

When I initially raised my dispute with Flashpark, I took great care to explain why it had no valid claim and I was therefore very disappointed to receive from Flashpark a rejection letter that was very clearly a standard template.

I set out below the principal reasons why I am not liable for this parking charge”.
On the “date” I received a PCN in the post for an alleged contravention with a contravention date of “date”. The vehicle in question is described as parking in an area for permit holders only without a permit displayed.

The date of the PCN was labelled as “date” with an outstanding amount of £85 which would be reduced to £55 if it was paid within 14 days.

I submit the points below to show that I am not liable for the parking charge:

1. The Notice to Keeper is not compliant with the POFA 2012 - no keeper liability

2. Any discounts for paying within 14 days should be at least 40%

3. No standing or authority to pursue charges nor form contracts with drivers

4. The signage was not readable so there was no valid contract formed between Flashpark and the driver - Unreasonable and unfair terms – no contract agreed to pay £85.

5. The operator has not allowed for the BPA's mandatory Grace Periods

The Notice to Keeper is not compliant with the POFA 2012 - no keeper liability

As none of the mandatory information set out by Schedule 4 paragraphs 8 and 9 of the PoFA has been made available to me as Registered Keeper the conditions set out by paragraph 6 of Schedule 4 has not been complied with. Therefore there can be no keeper liability and as a result I request that Flashpark provide evidence to POPLA of who the driver was.

The keeper liability requirements of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 must be complied with, where the appellant is the registered keeper, as in this case. One of these requirements is the issue of a NTK compliant with certain provisions. As there has been no admission as to who may have parked the car and no evidence of this person has been produced by the operator, it has been held by POPLA multiple times in 2015 that a parking charge with no NTK cannot be enforced against the registered keeper.

The validity of a NTK is fundamental to establishing liability for a parking charge. As POPLA Assessor Matthew Shaw stated: ''Where a Notice is to be relied upon to establish liability...it must, as with any statutory provision, comply with the Act.'' This NTK was not compliant due to the omissions of statutory wording, so it was not properly given and there is no keeper liability.

Any discounts for paying within 14 days should be at least 40%

The original PCN cost is £85 with a reduction to £55 if paid within 14 days this should be at least 40% of the full charge under the British Parking Association (BPA) Code of Practice. Schedule 4 paragraph 7 of the PoFA stipulates the mandatory set of information that must be included on the parking ticket. If all of this information is not present then the Notice to Driver is invalid and the condition set out in paragraph 6 of Schedule 4 has not been complied with. Failure to comply with paragraph 6 means that the registered keeper cannot be held to account for the alleged debt of the driver.

The charge was 'not properly given' in view of a very clear breach of basic charge amounts set out by the BPA. Compliance with this Code was considered to be 'a form of regulation' in ParkingEye v Beavis.




No standing or authority to pursue charges nor form contracts with drivers

I believe that this Operator has no proprietary interest in the land, so they have no standing to make contracts with drivers in their own right, nor to pursue charges for breach in their own name. In the absence of such title, Flashpark must have assignment of rights from the landowner to pursue charges for breach in their own right, including at court level. A commercial site agent for the true landholder has no automatic standing nor authority in their own right which would meet the strict requirements of section 7 of the BPA Code of Practice. I therefore put Flashpark to strict proof to provide POPLA and myself with an unredacted, contemporaneous copy of the contract between Flashpark and the landowner, not just another agent or retailer or other non-landholder, because it will still not be clear that the landowner has authorised the necessary rights to Flashpark.

The signs in this car park are not prominent, clear or legible from all parking spaces and there is insufficient notice of the sum of the parking charge itself

There was no contract nor agreement on the 'parking charge' at all. It is submitted that the driver did not have a fair opportunity to read about any terms involving this huge charge, which is out of all proportion and not saved by the dissimilar 'ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis' case.

In the Beavis case, which turned on specific facts relating only to the signs at that site and the unique interests and intentions of the landowners, the signs were unusually clear and not a typical example for this notorious industry. The Supreme Court were keen to point out the decision related to that car park and those facts only:



In the Beavis case, the £85 charge itself was in the largest font size with a contrasting colour background and the terms were legible, fairly concise and unambiguous. There were 'large lettering' signs at the entrance and all around the car park, according to the Judges.



This case, by comparison, does not demonstrate an example of the 'large lettering' and 'prominent signage' that impressed the Supreme Court Judges and swayed them into deciding that in the specific car park in the Beavis case alone, a contract and 'agreement on the charge' existed.

Here, the signs are sporadically placed, indeed obscured and hidden in some areas. They are unremarkable, not immediately obvious as parking terms and the wording is mostly illegible, being crowded and cluttered with a lack of white space as a background. It is indisputable that placing letters too close together in order to fit more information into a smaller space can drastically reduce the legibility of a sign, especially one which must be read BEFORE the action of parking and leaving the car.

It is vital to observe, since 'adequate notice of the parking charge' is mandatory under the POFA Schedule 4 and the BPA Code of Practice, these signs do not clearly mention the parking charge which is hidden in small print (and does not feature at all on some of the signs). Areas of this site are unsigned and there are no full terms displayed - i.e. with the sum of the parking charge itself in large lettering - at the entrance either, so it cannot be assumed that a driver drove past and could read a legible sign, nor parked near one.

This case is more similar to the signage in POPLA decision 5960956830 on 2.6.16, where the Assessor Rochelle Merritt found as fact that signs in a similar size font in a busy car park where other unrelated signs were far larger, was inadequate:

''the signage is not of a good enough size to afford motorists the chance to read and understand the terms and conditions before deciding to remain in the car park. [...] In addition the operators signs would not be clearly visible from a parking space [...] The appellant has raised other grounds for appeal but I have not dealt with these as I have allowed the appeal.''

From the evidence I have seen so far, the terms appear to be displayed inadequately, in letters no more than about half an inch high, approximately. I put the operator to strict proof as to the size of the wording on their signs and the size of lettering for the most onerous term, the parking charge itself.

The letters seem to be no larger than .40 font size



As further evidence that this is inadequate notice, Letter Height Visibility is discussed here:



''When designing your sign, consider how you will be using it, as well as how far away the readers you want to impact will be. For example, if you are placing a sales advertisement inside your retail store, your text only needs to be visible to the people in the store. 1-2” letters (or smaller) would work just fine. However, if you are hanging banners and want drivers on a nearby highway to be able to see them, design your letters at 3” or even larger.''

...and the same chart is reproduced here:



''When designing an outdoor sign for your business keep in mind the readability of the letters. Letters always look smaller when mounted high onto an outdoor wall''.

''...a guideline for selecting sign letters. Multiply the letter height by 10 and that is the best viewing distance in feet. Multiply the best viewing distance by 4 and that is the max viewing distance.''

So, a letter height of just half an inch, showing the terms and the 'charge' and placed high on a wall or pole or buried in far too crowded small print, is woefully inadequate in an outdoor car park. Given that letters look smaller when high up on a wall or pole, as the angle renders the words less readable due to the perspective and height, you would have to stand right in front of it and still need a stepladder (and perhaps a torch and/or magnifying glass) to be able to read the terms.

Under Lord Denning's Red Hand Rule, the charge (being 'out of all proportion' with expectations of drivers in this car park and which is the most onerous of terms) should have been effectively: 'in red letters with a red hand pointing to it' - i.e. VERY clear and prominent with the terms in large lettering, as was found to be the case in the car park in 'Beavis'. A reasonable interpretation of the 'red hand rule' and the 'signage visibility distance' tables above and the BPA Code of Practice, taking all information into account, would require a parking charge and the terms to be displayed far more transparently, on a lower sign and in far larger lettering, with fewer words and more 'white space' as background contrast. Indeed in the Consumer Rights Act 2015 there is a 'Requirement for transparency':

(1) A trader must ensure that a written term of a consumer contract, or a consumer notice in writing, is transparent.
(2) A consumer notice is transparent for the purposes of subsection (1) if it is expressed in plain and intelligible language and it is legible.

The Beavis case signs not being similar to the signs in this appeal at all, I submit that the persuasive case law is in fact 'Vine v London Borough of Waltham Forest [2000] EWCA Civ 106' about a driver not seeing the terms and consequently, she was NOT deemed bound by them.

This judgment is binding case law from the Court of Appeal and supports my argument, not the operator's case:



This was a victory for the motorist and found that, where terms on a sign are not seen and the area is not clearly marked/signed with prominent terms, the driver has not consented to - and cannot have 'breached' - an unknown contract because there is no contract capable of being established. The driver in that case (who had not seen any signs/lines) had NOT entered into a contract. The recorder made a clear finding of fact that the plaintiff, Miss Vine, did not see a sign because the area was not clearly marked as 'private land' and the signs were obscured/not adjacent to the car and could not have been seen and read from a driver's seat before parking.

So, for this appeal, I put this operator to strict proof of where the car was parked and (from photos taken in the same lighting conditions) how their signs appeared on that date, at that time, from the angle of the driver's perspective. Equally, I require this operator to show how the entrance signs appear from a driver's seat, not stock examples of 'the sign' in isolation/close-up. I submit that full terms simply cannot be read from a car before parking and mere 'stock examples' of close-ups of the (alleged) signage terms will not be sufficient to disprove this.

The operator has not allowed for the BPA's mandatory Grace Periods

In the BPA Code of Practice:

13 Grace periods
13.1 Your approach to parking management must allow a driver who enters your car park but decides not to park, to leave the car park within a reasonable period without having their vehicle issued with a parking charge notice.
13.2 You should allow the driver a reasonable ‘grace period’ in which to decide if they are going to stay or go. If the driver is on your land without permission you should still allow them a grace period to read your signs and leave before you take enforcement action.
13.3 You should be prepared to tell us the specific grace period at a site if our compliance team or our agents ask what it is.
13.4 You should allow the driver a reasonable period to leave the private car park after the parking contract has ended, before you take enforcement action. If the location is one where parking is normally permitted, the Grace Period at the end of the parking period should be a minimum of 10 minutes.

It is respectfully requested that this parking charge notice appeal be allowed and the appeal should be upheld on every point.

Yours Failthfully[/FONT]

Umkomaas

There are some ready made template appeal points in post #3 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, use those to supplement or replace yours as they have been specially crafted. They are also very long and detailed which will likely send Flashpark into a tailspin and they will find it far easier to cancel than have to respond to all the points made.

The sticky will also include links to successful appeals. You could also do a forum search on 'Flashpark POPLA' to pull up any recent appeals, but we don't see many Flashpark cases - bit-part, smallfry operator.

Well done on your first draft, quite possibly it would win as it stands, but a little bit more reading and some copy and pasting will make it pretty watertight.