Indigo PCN - Chatham railway station

Jackie_N

I park at Chatham station car park 2 or 3 times a week. I usually buy parking scratchcards which have the car registration number printed on them.

I had run out of scratchcards and as we were about to change our car, I did not want to buy any more as some would be wasted so for 2 weeks I knew that I would have to buy tickets on the day from the ticket machine at the station.

On 31 March I duly paid my £6 at the machine, the machine made its usual whirring noise and displayed the message “printing”, but no ticket was produced. I left a note on the car dashboard to say that I had paid my money but that no ticket had been provided. That evening, I had a ticket on the car.

I sent an appeal to Indigo and included a scanned copy of the notice I had left in the car. However, they rejected my appeal on 5 May and included photos which showed the notice left in the car so it had been seen by the person doing the ticketing. The comments were that “it is the customer’s responsibility to make sure that a ticket is purchased”. Would I really go and buy another ticket when I had already paid £6 for the day’s parking? I have been given a reference number to appeal to POPLA but have not done any more yet.

We no longer own the car which was ticketed as we sold it shortly afterwards.

On reading through the posts on here, I now realise that I should not have given my name as driver of the vehicle although my husband was the owner of the car.

I am very confused as to what to do next so any help would be appreciated.

Redx

draft a popla appeal based on any recent railway popla appeals by other members here , dont look at anything prior ro 2016 and preferably this year

if the driver has been admitted (bad mistake) then dont use KEEPER based arguments based on legal arguments

post #3 of the NEWBIES sticky thread will help you too

bear in mind that after 6 months the TOC cannot take you to magistrates court under any bylaws, although INDIGO will still think they can issue a civil case , but we dont see court cases when railway and airport land is involved, due to bylaws

Jackie_N

Thanks Redx and I realise that I should not have admitted that I was the driver, however I did not appreciate this until it was too late.

I have checked other cases on here as suggested and have come up with the following based on (and copied from) others posts.

On the material date, the driver parked the vehicle at Chatham station. The driver placed £6 in the ticket machine but no ticket was produced. The driver left a note on the car dashboard stating the fact that the machine did not produce a ticket.

The location in question is not 'relevant land' as defined by the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, as it is owned by London Southeastern Railway Limited and is subject to the Railway Byelaws. The Operator is not the owner of the land in question, and therefore does not provide any consideration which may form a contract with motorists. Any consideration, in the form of a parking space, is provided by the landowner, in this case London Southeastern Railway Limited , and any liquidated damages for breach of contract would be owed to the landowner, not to the Operator. The Operator has provided no details showing their authority to exercise parking controls on railway land, nor provided contact details at the London Southeastern Railway Limited to whom I can direct a complaint. Further, the Operator has not provided an unredacted copy of their contract with the landowner as required under Section 7 of the BPA code of practice. The operator has omitted clear information about the process for complaints including a geographical address of the landowner.

The Operator has affixed a “Penalty Notice” to the vehicle which is a misrepresentation of authority under clause 14.2 of BPA code of practice, with whom the Operator is affiliated. It appears this has been done in order to intimidate the general public into paying a legal penalty such as a traffic warden would issue, rather than a Parking Charge that the operator is able to issue. The term “Penalty Notice” is used twice with prominence on the issued paperwork. (Appx 3)

The assessor is therefore invited to allow this appeal.

I have checked other posts which are similar to mine, however I cannot find anything specific to my situation where the machine did not produce a ticket. I did state in my appeal to Indigo that CCTV would show that I tried to pay but failed due to their machine not working but of course they did not respond to this point. I have looked at the notice by the ticket machine which states "CCTV may be in operation by London Southeastern Railway Limited and evidence recorded may be used by us in proceedings". So they can use it to prosecute but not to prove that I paid what was due?

I have seen that Byelaw 14 states that the owner of the vehicle is liable. I was the driver, not the owner, but to complicate matters we have sold the car since.

My 28 days to appeal expire next Friday so need to submit my appeal this week.

Can anybody please advise if the above wording is accurate and sufficient for me to appeal and does my specific situation with the non-production of a ticket and also now not owning the car make any difference?

I’m grateful for any input.

Redx

I do not believe you have done what I asked and read recent popla appeals nor based the above on any recent popla appeals for railway station issues , especially INDIGO ones

what happened on the day is largely irrelevant and you have concentrated your efforts on the wrong arguments

you need LEGAL arguments , not a precis of "what happened"

INDIGO cannot issue parking charges based on penalties , bylaws prevail and the TOC should take you to a magistrates court if there has been wrongdoing

clearly you have not understood thes differences, so use these holidays to get up to speed and start again with a proper appeal based on laws and legal arguments (not mitigation)

bear in mind the perceived breaking of the rules was NOT DISPLAYING A VALID TICKET , which is true according to your account

and the TOC is not prosecuting so they wont be using CCTV and this is not relevant to a private parking ticket as the PPC is not allowed to use CCTV for these matters

selling the vehicle is not relevant either, because the owner was the owner on the day of the "incident" so why would anyone care that it was subsequently sold ?

ie:- if you were caught speeding as an owner 4 weeks ago and a penalty notice came in the post , why would not being an owner now matter ?

they do not know who the "owner" was , so have sent the PCN to the RK as detailed on the V5C on the day of the incident (which is why they dont know who was driving unless somebody is foolish enough to admit it) - ie:- there is no "register of owners" of vehicles , it could be the RK, a finance company , a hire company , a bank , a trustee etc

concentrate on what does matter, not what doesnt

Coupon-mad

My 28 days to appeal expire next Friday so need to submit my appeal this week.

No, POPLA codes last just over 31 days so you have all next weekend as well (trust me).

You simply need to search the forum for 'Indigo POPLA byelaws' and copy from a recent long appeal - they are pages long, not short!

Jackie_N

Redx - I did do as you suggested and have spent lots of time reading recent POPLA appeals. I searched for Indigo, station, popla and came up with one thread which was quite similar to mine.


I copied the first part of this including "what happened on the day". Nobody responded to say that this was not required on the appeal which is why I included it in my post.


I have become more and more confused the further I have looked into it all reading page after page of information which also includes links into further pages, none of which has really made any sense to me. A relative has also searched for me independently and is also confused by it all.


I would love to have had the luxury of using the holidays to get up to speed but just do not have the time due to work and family commitments.


I now just want to draw a line under it all so will be putting my appeal into POPLA and see what happens.

Coupon-mad

Have you been searching and not changing the search specifically, to 'show posts'?

Something is up with the way you've been searching. You need to read POPLA posts, showing the POPLA appeal. Not 'search threads'.

Redx

Jackie_N wrote: »

Redx - I did do as you suggested and have spent lots of time reading recent POPLA appeals. I searched for Indigo, station, popla and came up with one thread which was quite similar to mine.
.

its hardly our fault if you cannot use the forum properly, or the search function properly despite being given free pointers

we are volunteers here and give our time and advice freely and you wont get better advice anywhere else even if you paid for it. we all have commitments and issues to deal with , yet we try and help prople to help themselves as well (like people did a week ago in manchester city centre)

searching the forum using 3 or 4 key search words its a simple task , using the drop down menu in the banner

I just did it using SHOW THREADS and put in 3 keywords which is what I did previously before I replied to you

indigo railway popla

I received pages and pages of "hits", then you read each thread and ascertain if it helps you or not , so simple a child could do it !!

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/search.php?searchid=172467450

more effort = more reward,

you could have then done the same with search posts to refine the search or to target the actual posts you need to read

its not as if you are the first person to do this , you are one of hundreds who went before you

Jackie_N

Just wanted to post a quick update in that I put in my appeal to POPLA and have just been notified that it has been successful.

Thanks for the useful information I found on here.

pappa_golf

the appeal was never heard by POPLa , , indigo simply backed down and did not contest , as they did not have authority