pcn smart parking please help!

tori1996

enquiring for my father. He had an appointment at a local health centre that he had never been to before a a check up on a long term helath issue. it was a smart parking car park.
we have a received a PCN on the terms of unauthorised parking.
the car park is free and the terms and conditions is that you have to put you registration number in a compUter in the healthcentre (which is not noticable or obvouis) and you need to be using the health centre to park there. unfortunatley he did not see the notices that you have to put your registration number in as the only sign that tells you to do so is on the way out.
so we have recieved the PCN and we did the first appeal providing copys of the appointment to prove he was there.
this was still rejected as we still are in breach of contract due to no registration logging.
we have ignored the charge and are now being sent debt collecters letters.
do we have a leg to stand on? as we were using the car park for a legitamate reason? should we do POPLA????

waamo

You may be too late for POPLA if debt collectors are writing. When did you get your code?

Take a read of the thread at the top of this forum that starts with the word Newbies and tells you to read it first.

tori1996

i believe its to late for POPLA. ive read that thread and basically it says to ignore the letters so do i just wait? how likely is a court case and would it be thrown out as its so stupid!

waamo

Go to the bottom of the page linked to see the odds of a court claim
http://www.bmpa.eu/companydata/Smart_Parking.html

Redx

complain to the practice manager and insist on a cancellation

quote the NHS guidelines at them

IGNORE drp

tori1996

there is a sign in the car park saying that the health centre can't deal with pcn queries but i suppose i can go higher up than them and that would be acceptable?

Redx

they keep saying this but if they hired the PPC then they CAN and are responsible and the NHS guidelines say so , as does Jeremy Hunt

if its NHS England then its a different story

but if you dont ask, you dont get , so nothing to lose

get your MP involved too, they wont ignore them

so yes its acceptable, because some idiot employed them

Umkomaas

get your MP involved too, they wont ignore them

Wholeheartedly agree with Redx on this. Get them involved, whoever they may be in 48 hours time, as a publicly funded body find it much more difficult to sidestep a Member of Parliament than a private sector organisation.

Make sure you have a good handle on the Department of Health's Guidelines on parking issues on NHS premises, and quote from them confidently, to ensure you are not rebuffed with a civil servant-style fob-off.

tori1996

do you have any links to the NHS guidelines for parking please!

waamo

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-patient-visitor-and-staff-car-parking-principles/nhs-patient-visitor-and-staff-car-parking-principles

Umkomaas

tori1996 wrote: »

do you have any links to the NHS guidelines for parking please!

Not sure how hard you tried, but a very quick Google search would have easily found you this:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-patient-visitor-and-staff-car-parking-principles/nhs-patient-visitor-and-staff-car-parking-principles

Or try this:

'Jeremy Hunt guidelines on NHS parking'

Which will provide lots of other reading to develop your knowledge on the subject.