I want revenge

Ryandavis1959

I'm sure you are good for money, but maybe that extra £250 can be tipped to the nurses when you win?

Umkomaas

I will commence legal proceedings without further notice. Should you decide to pay, I shall not accerpt (sp)any confidentiality clause. .

I can confirm that I am willing to engage in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in order to avoid the need for this matter to be resolved by the courts and would invite you to put forward any proposals in this regard. I look forward to hearing from you within the next 28 days.

Have your contingency planned should they suggest using the IAS as their preferred provider for the ADR service. Unbelievably, the IAS holds full ADR status!

I attach a copy of their Notice to Keeper, final acknowledgement of my appeal, and five debt collectors' letters

Have you decided against also copying them the POPLA confirmation that they did not contest the appeal?

a case can only be brought by the Train Operating Company in a Magistrates Court within six months. against the owner of (or) driver.

It occurs to me that this may be a criminal offence [STRIKE]aud[/STRIKE] and you might like to consider bringing a prosecution, in which case, I shall be delighted to help you in any way I can .

You need to use a consistent version of the word 'byelaws'. There are a couple of different ones in your draft.

Good work TD. Keep us posted.

HTH

The_Deep

Thank you for your input, it is much appreciated.

I do not understand, why should they want to use the IAS, they are members of the BPA. In any case, both parties would have to agree the ADR and I would not agree to the Red Cow gang. .

The PPC appeal, POPLA appeal and the cancellation will be sent in the bundle along with all pertinent documents. .

DoaM

I can confirm that I am willing to engage in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in order to avoid the need for this matter to be resolved by the courts - Ombudsman Services is an acceptable, recognised ADR service. I look forward to hearing from you within the next 28 days.

Better to propose your own choice?

Umkomaas

I do not understand, why should they want to use the IAS, they are members of the BPA. In any case, both parties would have to agree the ADR and I would not agree to the Red Cow gang. .

On the basis that your claim is no longer a parking charge case, and membership of the BPA vs membership of the IPC is therefore irrelevant.

Essentially they could select the (imaginary) Chewing and Bubblegum Board dispute resolution service as an accredited ADR to provide impartial resolution.

As I said, the IAS is (unbelievably) so accredited, and any PPC, no matter which side they bat for, will be well aware of their less than impartial record in favour of PPCs. They might think they'd have a chance with them?

As you say, you'd need to agree to it, but you might need to articulate your reasons. Perhaps it's just my out of the box thinking as to possibilities.

The_Deep

As you say, you'd need to agree to it, but you might need to articulate your reasons.


I do not see that as a problem, I have done similar in dozens of Immigration Tribunal cases.

The_Deep

I have now received a reply to my letter of complaint to GWR.

It contains some interesting information on railway land PCNs.

Dear Mr Dance

I have been passed your letter of 29 April 2017 to Great Western and I have been asked to reply to your letter.

In your letter, you raised the case concerning your son in law, whose was the registered keeper of the vehicle parked at Tilehurst Railway station. In summary, he feels that the Parking Charge Notice that was issued to him was not valid as it was in respect of him having parked his vehicle at a railway station. His argument for this is that because the land is classed as railway land it is outside the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 and only enforceable by the Train Operating Company as a criminal breach of the Byelaws.

If there are other points that you would like me to cover, please let me know.

It is correct that this land is railway land and is covered by the Railway Byelaws, the last version of which was issued in June 2005. The relevant part of those Byelaws is paragraph 14 and in particular, sub-paragraph (2). This says that “No person in charge of any motor vehicle, bicycle or other conveyance shall leave or place it on any part of the railway: … (ii) otherwise than in accordance with any instructions issued by or on behalf of an operator or an authorised person.”

For these purposes, an authorised person includes, by virtue of paragraph 25, someone who has been authorised by a Train Operating Company. In respect of the station at which the Vehicle was parked, APCOA is such an authorised person having been appointed by Great Western Railways to manage the car park on their behalf.

Paragraph 14(3) of the Byelaws goes on to say that no person shall park any motor vehicle in a place where charges are made without paying those charges as long as they are displayed. The notice issued to the vehicle (and therefore to the driver of it) was for parking otherwise than in accordance with the clearly displayed instructions and he/she therefore received an additional charge for doing so. The amount of this additional charge is clearly displayed at the signs where the other instructions to the motorist are on display. Therefore, the notice received by the driver is an additional charge for having not parked in compliance with the instructions. That charge is on display, thereby meeting the requirements of the Byelaws. This is different to a penalty for breach of the Railway Byelaws; such a breach would be a criminal matter but would only occur if he failed to pay the additional charge for not having followed the instructions. That penalty can indeed only be imposed by a Magistrates Court.

As to the liability of the owner, this is covered in paragraph 14 (4) (i) – the point being that if the driver is not the owner, then the owner needs to be contacted to give them the opportunity to tell APCOA who was driving or to accept that they can be referred on for their vehicle having been parked by someone else otherwise than in accordance with the instructions given by the authorised person. There is nothing to stop the owner paying the charge. The owner may decide to do so because they were the driver or on behalf of the person who was driving, that is up to the owner. Equally, if they were the driver they can dispute that the additional charge is due on the basis they parked in compliance with the instructions, or can pass it to the actual driver to do the same. They can do this in order to avoid the owner being referred to the Train Operator for proceedings to be taken to enforce the breach of the Railway Byelaws for failing to pay the additional charge for having parked other than in compliance with the instructions.

Turning to the decision of POPLA, the rules of our trade body, the British Parking Association, required at that time that all those who appealed their Parking Charge Notice be given the opportunity to appeal to POPLA. However, for quite some time POPLA has put a hold on examining appeals in respect of land covered by the Railway Byelaws.

You will appreciate that this put the members of the BPA who manage railway land on behalf of the Train Operating Companies in a difficult position. If the person appealed to POPLA, then it would be held up for some considerable time and was likely to be found against the parking company. This would be done without any examination of the question of whether the parking was in fact contrary to the instructions regulating the use of the car park concerned. In so doing the Car Park Operator also had to incur the cost of the referral to POPLA. APCOA is therefore not alone in deciding at that time to decline to pursue such appeals and incur the costs knowing it would be wasted money.

I understand that the British Parking Association has been lobbying the government for some time on this issue. However, I also understand that having recently been told by the government that there will be further delay in addressing this situation, the BPA are in the process of relaxing their rule to remove temporarily the requirement to offer the POPLA service in cases where the Parking Charge Notice is issued on land covered by relevant byelaws.

The above background is by way of an explanation of why APCOA chose not to defend the matter at POPLA. The decision was not made because it believed the Parking Charge Notice to have been incorrectly issued. APCOA believe that the notice was correctly issued. The reason for this is that [the driver] entered into a contract for parking his motor vehicle and that contract included the instructions issued under the Railway Byelaws as outlined above. It also believes that a term of that contract was that if [the driver] parked his vehicle otherwise than in accordance with the instructions given to him by an authorised person, he would be subject to an additional charge for and in respect of that use of the car parking facility. A failure to pay that would, in the first instance be a civil issue of breach of contract, but in the event of a continued or repeated failure, the matter could be referred to Great Western Railways who could then make the decision on whether or not that action amounted to a breach of the Railway Byelaws.

Therefore, in summary, APCOA do not believe that they have broken any law, nor does APCOA have any reason to believe that they were not entitled to receive the registered keeper details from the DVLA that would allow them to seek to enforce their right to payment for breach of contract, or if it proved necessary to do so, to pass the matter to Great Western Railway for them to take action for breach of the Railway Byelaws.

Whilst I believe that this is not the outcome that [the driver] may have been hoping for, I hope that my letter has addressed the points he has raised.

Yours sincerely,

David Carruthers

Director & Company Secretary
APCOA Parking (UK) Limited


My son in law is too busy making obscene amounts if money to take this further, but we have the satisfaction of knowing that dealing with this will have cost Apcoa more than they bargained for.


 [EMAIL="david.carruthers@apcoa.com"]david.carruthers@apcoa.com[/EMAIL]

Fruitcake

So nothing from GWR themselves then. Just the parking company trying to explain why they are all such good chaps and did nothing wrong.

nosferatu1001

And still not actually explaining how the keeper can be liable. They go round and round of things the keeper COULD do, but dont actually state the keeper has any liability - because they know they dont.