Parkingeye exceeded paid for time limit

MotoristPaper

Hello,

POPLA sided against me on this one. I went into ignore mode but recently received an LBCCC for PE. I've read the post from 2013 about responding to these but it appears PE have updated their wording so that it is more compliant with the practice direction.

About the only thing I have in my back pocket is an email from my local planning department confirming that the parking signs on site do not have planning permission and that they do indeed require them. Whats the best way to use this? Should I send the LBCCC acknowledgement and slip in there that I will be invoking ex Turpi Causa and see if I get a bite?

This was part of my POPLA evidence bundle so PE may already be aware of this if they bothered to read it. Checking other posts from here, Parking Prankster and Pepipoo does reveal that PE have dropped or lost cases based on Ex Turpi Causa but its highly dependent on the judge and no cast iron on its own.

Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

Cheers

MotoristPaper

Hello,

I!!!8217;ve received a second LBCCC from ParkingEye and I need some advice please.

In summary no luck with POPLA when appealing an overstay. I received my first LBCCC in November (LBCCC linked below). I responded with the below email including evidence from my local council planning department that they have no advertisement consent. I got the standard placeholder email in response but never received any further response to this email

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Dear ParkingEye,

I acknowledge receipt of your letter before county court claim on 23rd
November 2017 reference xxx

No advertisement consent has been obtained for the signage at the
Bailey Lane car park in Sheffield . The Town and Country Planning
(Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007 requires that
advertisement consent is required for signage such as this. I have
enclosed a copy of correspondence between myself and Sheffield City
Council planning department that confirms that no advertisement
consent has been obtained for the signage at the Bailey Lane car park.

By pursuing a claim based on a contract being formed with signage that
has no advertisement consent would allow for a defence of ex turpi
causa to be invoked. As there is a long established legal precedent
that the courts shall aid no man in profiting from their immoral act,
ParkingEye will be liable for all costs associated with an
unsuccessful court case along with my expenses incurred for attending
court.

In order to mitigate your losses I strongly urge to to cease this
claim forthwith.

Yours Faithfully

After this nothing and then more recently I received a second slightly differently worded LBCCC linked below along with an 8 page Annex 1 reply form, also linked below.

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So I!!!8217;m a mite confused as to why they are sending a second slightly differently worded LBCCC along with these debt forms and how to respond. Should I resend the previous email and reiterate that I stand by my previous statement and that they ignored my previous correspondence? Or do I fill in their crummy form stating that I dispute the debt and I will not be paying.

Any advice greatly received, I have not as yet made any response to the latest LBCCC.

Cheers

Coupon-mad

I would email again, referring to the new LBCCC and protesting that they appear to be firing out LBCCCs without replying to your valid questions. You contacted PE last time they sent a LBCCC, in an effort to meet the Pre-Action Protocol (PAP) by discussing the facts and issues around the dispute, before resorting to court. And PE have ignored your contact and hoped to catch you out with a new LBCCC in the hope that you would not reply this time, well, you are engaging in discussion and will defend any claim, and will point out to the Court their abject failure to comply with the PAP.

You should read these links and watch the MPs debate in Parliament, to fire you up:

http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2f0384f2-eba5-4fff-ab07-cf24b6a22918?in=12:49:41

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-02-02b.1149.0

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5787731

This month, the private parking industry's little game and 'outrageous scam' (Hansard), has been finally been condemned unanimously by MPs in Parliament in the private parking Code of Practice Bill debate, where (guess who?) PARKINGEYE were named and shamed along with their Trade Body, the BPA.

Watch it, read it, get it!

Refer to it(!) - they will not like it - and quote the words from the Hansard transcript at PE in this latest robust email.

Say you will include the transcript of the 2nd February 2018 Parliamentary debate as evidence for the Judge, which condemns not only ParkingEye (named and shamed in no uncertain terms) but also condemned the BPA. And by the Bill's clear intention, Parliament are also declaring that MPs believe that any independent appeal service (including POPLA) is not good enough, not fit for purpose, or there would be no need for the Parking Code of Practice Bill at all!

Say that you will also provide as evidence, photos of the small writing on the signs and show the height of them, as opposed to the clearer words on the actual machine, where the screen does NOT warn of a penalty charge, and only lists small tariffs for drivers to read.

In addition, the Beavis case does not assist their cause of action because the facts differ significantly, and the site has no planning permission/advertising consent...blah blah...

Keep replying, again and again, to:

enforcement@parkingeye.co.uk

MotoristPaper

Coupon,

Thank you so much for your advice. I wondered what they were playing at with sending me a second one. I have watched the debate and that was a truly beautiful thing to watch. I think it speaks volumes that MPs from both sides of the floor were all in agreement and its heartening that something is finally being done about these parking leeches.

I've taken some choice quotes from the report, reiterated all my points and evidence in the below email, I'd be really grateful if anyone could please give it a once over before sending it on its merry way.

Dear ParkingEye,

I acknowledge receipt of your second letter before county court claim dated 6th February 2018 reference xxx. I will once again attempt to engage in dialogue with you regarding your correspondence. I previously emailed you regarding the first LBCCC dated 23/11/17 carrying the same reference xxx on Sunday 26th November to the stated correspondence email of enforcement@parkingeye.co.uk

To date I have received no response to my valid questions. If you proceed to take me to court I will provide evidence of the correspondence to demonstrate your abject failure to comply with the Pre Action Protocol (PAP) that provides a framework for parties to attempt to resolve a dispute by asking questions and providing answers to in order to resolve the dispute

I will also provide as evidence in the form of photographs of the site that there is insufficient signage that contains small writing and are not clear, prominent or legible from all parking spaces.

I will provide further photographs as evidence that demonstrate that the signage on the parking payment machine does not warn of the penalty charge and only advises of the parking tariffs.

I will also provide evidence in the form of correspondence from Sheffield City Council!!!8217;s planning department that confirms that there has been no planning or advertisement consent obtained for the signage at the site upon which you are forming the basis of your case. This correspondence formed part of my POPLA evidence bundle that was submitted on 14/09/17. Not only does a case of ex turnip causa apply in my case, but it will also demonstrate your flagrant disregard to planning law and that you have been aware of there being no planning and advertisement at this site for a number of months and have taken no action to rectify it.

I will provide further evidence in the form of photographs that there is insufficient ANPR signage and it does not explicitly state its detail purpose and the nature that it is being used for.

I will provide further evidence in the form of photographs and extracts from both my own and ParkingEye!!!8217;s submissions to POPLA that demonstrate ParkingEye provided false and inaccurate information regarding the number of signs and their location on the site plan that they provided to POPLA.

I will also provide evidence in the form of ParkingEye!!!8217;s supposed evidence of landowner authority which formed part of their POPLA evidence submission that demonstrates they have not complied with my request to provide the full contract with the landowner to prove their authority to provide parking enforcement services. As the document is dated on the non-existent date of 31st February 2017, it will clearly demonstrate that there is valid no proof of landowner authority.

Finally as evidence I will provide the full transcript of the Hansard report of the Parking (Code of Practice) Bill, debated in the House of Commons at 12:43 pm on 2nd February 2018. A number of the tactics used by ParkingEye I have stated above were raised in the report, I quote the following directly from the report:

ParkingEye is specifically referred to in a negative context on no less than three occasions in the Hansard report.

!!!8220;I want to point out several companies with which I have had particular problems, and against which I have had to advocate on behalf of constituents: Link Parking, New Generation Parking, UK Parking Control and ParkingEye!!!8221;
!!!8220;I have had dozens of complaints about ParkingEye!!!8221;
!!!8220;I completely agree; I have had problems with ParkingEye too.!!!8221;

Ignoring correspondance:

!!!8220;Does he agree that the statutory code of practice he proposes ought to take into account the poor response by parking companies to inquiries from our constituents and from us as MPs?!!!8221;
!!!8230;
!!!8220;Does that not show that some of the companies in this industry are cowboy companies?!!!8221;
!!!8220;It is only common courtesy in business to respond to correspondence!!!8221;
!!!8220;I have experienced on many occasions exactly the frustration that my hon. Friend describes. My constituents and I have tried to contact the company by phone, in writing and via email.!!!8221;

Poor and insufficient signage:

!!!8220;Poor signage, unreasonable terms, exorbitant fines, aggressive demands for payment and an opaque appeals proces!!!8221;
!!!8220;There are signs that say different times and days, and when Members of Parliament point out these quite fundamental problems in their systems, the companies often write off the fine but do not rectify the original problem.!!!8221;
!!!8220;My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In some cases it appears that confusion is designed to ensure that a parking ticket is issued against the unsuspecting motorist.!!!8221;

The report deems that any independent appeals service including POPLA is not good enough, not fit for purpose or else there would be no need for Parking code of practice bill at all:

!!!8220;Self-regulation has obviously failed dramatically. The British Parking Association is as much use as a multi-storey car park in the middle of Gobi desert. The parking cowboys hide behind BPA membership to give a veneer of legitimacy.

!!!8220;As we have heard, there is currently no standardised, central and independent regulation of private parking operators. Today, there are two different trade associations, each with its own code of practice,!!!8221;

Finally your mention of the Beavis case does not assist your course of action as it is significantly different from this case including but not limited to the facts that this was a paid for carpark and that there is no planning permission or consent obtained for the signage upon which you are relying to make the case.

I again urge to you drop this action now in order to mitigate your losses. I will robustly defend any claims made against me using all of the above stated evidence.

Yours Faithfully

me

Umkomaas

Nice response. Couple of points:

Not only does a case of ex turnip causa apply in my case, but it will also demonstrate your flagrant disregard to planning law and that you have been aware of there being no planning and advertisement at this site for a number of months and have taken no action to rectify it.

You need this 'ex turpi causa non oritur actio'. Otherwise you could look a bit of a turnip! :rotfl: Don't trust predictive text!

Finally your mention of the Beavis case does not assist your course of action

'Cause'?

Finally, the forum is having problems with apostrophes (and other punctuation) produced by (or copied and pasted from) iPads/iPhones, manifesting in !!!8221; and similar gobbledygook.

To eliminate it from your iPad/iPhone go to 'Settings' > 'General' > 'Keyboards', then flick off the 'Smart Punctuation' switch. Job done.

MotoristPaper

Hi Umkomaas,

Thank you for the feedback, do you know what, I am a turnip because I proofread it before posting and missed it somehow lol.

I'm posting from a Mac laptop but looks like thats also producing garbage, might be time to get a decent text editor.

Cheers for proofreading I'll darken parkingeye's inbox with it now.

MotoristPaper

Evening all,

PE sent me the latest instalment for their saga with me today, I was hoping for a bit of advice before I get writing back to them.

I emailed the response in my previous post to PE on 25th Feb. I received the following holding email from them on 1st March committing to responding within 30 days of receipt, which is the 26th March in my eyes.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your email.

ParkingEye can confirm that we have received your response to our Letter Before County Court Claim and that we will respond within 30 days of receipt.

Please note your Parking Charge has been placed on hold.

Yours sincerely,

ParkingEye Enforcement Team

I received the following response today (a whole 9 days beyond the timeframe that they committed to respond in)

Dear X,

We write further to your recent correspondence, wherein you have replied to the Letter Before Claim issued on 06 February 2018.

The above referenced Parking Charge was issued following a breach of the parking terms and conditions in operation within the car park at Bailey Lane, Sheffield. The parking contract is set out via the signage installed at the site, which details the terms and conditions under which a motorist is authorised to park. It is clearly stated on our signs that failure to adhere to parking regulations will result in enforcement action being taken and that vehicle keeper will be requested from the DVLA to enable this. The DVLA release the name and address details of a vehicle keeper to registered companies, such as ParkingEye, if ‘reasonable cause’ can be demonstrated; i.e. a breach of parking regulations. We ensure that signage is ample, clear, and visible, and in line with the BPA Code of Practice.

On the 31 July 2017, the vehicle with registration plate xxxxxxx was captured by ParkingEye’s ANPR cameras entering Bailey Lane, Sheffield car park at 13:58pm in the afternoon and exiting at 18:28pm. A parking ticket of £4.60 was purchased in relation to vehicle registration, this equated to 4 hours of parking time. As the vehicle remained on site for 4 hours and 30 minutes the parking tariff purchased was therefore insufficient for the duration that the vehicle remained on site which was a clear breach of the terms and conditions of the car park and resulted in a Parking Charge of £100 being issued.

In terms of the enforceability of Parking Charges issued at Bailey Lane, Sheffield, it is our position that the same remain enforceable. ParkingEye monitor the car park in question by the use of ANPR cameras and a parking contract is formed when the motorist enters the site, considers the terms and conditions on the signage, and chooses to remain. A Parking Charge will thereafter be issued should the applicable parking terms and conditions be breached. It is ParkingEye’s position that the signage in place on site at this location is sufficient for this purpose and that sight of the signs on site, even if their presence was a purported planning breach, would result in the motorist concluding that parking was subject to certain conditions. Motorists would also be placed on notice that breaching the same would reasonably result in enforcement action and ParkingEye contend that the terms of any such enforcement action are clear.

The signage clearly states: “By entering this private car park, you consent, for the purpose of car park management to: the capturing of photographs of the vehicle and registration by the ANPR cameras […] Furthermore, you consent to the processing of this data to request registered keeper details from the DVLA, where the Parking Contract is not adhered to and a) enforcement is undertaken remotely via ANPR […] Parking Charges incurred: a) will be notified to the registered keeper by post, where the system identifies non-compliance with the Parking Contract […] Car park monitored by ANPR systems’.

The signage does not need to specifically state that the evidence obtained by the ANPR cameras may be used to initiate enforcement action. The signage is clear that the car park is monitored by ANPR cameras, alongside the commonly found symbol for a camera. Further to this, the print at the bottom of the sign states that should a motorist fail to comply with the terms and conditions, their details will be requested from the DVLA. All of this conveys in a reasonable, consistent and transparent manner that ANPR cameras are in use and that further action may be taken to enforce the charges.

We can confirm that ParkingEye are authorised to install signage on site setting out the terms and conditions of parking, to issue Parking Charges for a breach of those terms and conditions, and to recover these charges. This authority stems from a contractual agreement with the site at Bailey Lane, Sheffield, however, as the contract in question is commercially sensitive and largely irrelevant to the case, the document will not be supplied at this stage. In relation to the reference made to your reference to Hansard's report of the Parking (Code of Practice) Bill, it can be confirmed that this is not current legislation.

We can confirm that £100 remains outstanding and that full payment is required within the next 14 days to prevent further action. We are prepared to take legal action if necessary and should court proceedings be issued, further costs will be incurred. These will include, but are not limited to, the court claim issue fee and the solicitors costs referred to within the Letter Before Claim. Please note that no interest has or will accrue on the outstanding balance and no additional recovery charges have been added at this stage.

If you wish to make payment, you can do so by telephoning our offices on 0330 555 4444, by visiting www.parkingeye.co.uk, or by posting a cheque/postal order to the below address. Please note that you must quote the above Parking Charge reference on the reverse of the cheque or postal order.


Yours sincerely,

ParkingEye Enforcement Team

So forming the basis for a robust response I will call out that

1)They have shown even further disregard to PAP by taking 39 days to respond properly to my email and and 9 days beyond the timeframe that they committed to respond within. They have also provided no explanation for not responding to my first email or why its taken longer than they committed to.

2)They state that they have landowner permission to erect signs, this is however irrelevant as they still need advertisement consent from the Council which they do not have i.e ex turpi causa still applies and they don't seem to really be disputing this.

3)Reiterate that the signage is inadequate and that I have photographs to demonstrate this

4)Demand that they state the exact legislation/laws that stipulate that signage does not need to specifically state that the evidence obtained by the ANPR cameras may be used to initiate enforcement action. Further reiterate that a picture of a CCTV camera does not universallyy represent ANPR.

5)Reiterate that the redacted statement of landowner permission is invalid and that they must produce the full contract.

6)They state that Hansard report findings are current legislation, but it currently highlights the government's intention to remedy the findings and that ParkingEye are currently engaging in sharp practice and it is only a matter of time until this gap in regulation is closed.

Could you please tell me if there is anything else worth adding to these points before I get writing my formal response?

Cheers

Coupon-mad

You could quote ParkingEye v Cargius (see the Parking Prankster's case law list) at them, and the quotes from the Court of Appeal stage of the Beavis case that made it clear that the free licence to park in Beavis was 'completely different' from ordinary financial transactions. This one is an ordinary transactional matter with a quantifiable tariff per hour, unlike in Beavis.

You could also quote the BPA CoP from 2017 (the grace periods section) and Kelvin Reynolds' article here for the BPA:

http://www.britishparking.co.uk/News/good-car-parking-practice-includes-grace-periods

...and remind them this was 31st July, the height of the Summer, and that it took 20 minutes to just to drive round, queue to find a parking space and then queue at the machine to pay (if it did...check the timings they've given you for the time the money actually was paid for those 4 hours). If it shows the first bit took 20 minutes, then the end time of ten minutes, is covered by the mandatory grace period and you can argue that they have no cause of action.

If you are unclear as to the time the ticket was paid for (would have been shown in the POPLA evidence pack) then ask for those timings.

If there were other reasons why it took ages to pay (using an app and having to register first?) then throw that into the reply and reiterate Kelvin Reynolds' words.

Did you try a complaint to the landowner/retailers or were there no retailers on this site?

MotoristPaper

Hi Coupon,

Thank you for the ParkingEye Vs Cargius suggesstion, I'll certainly include that.

I think I might struggle on the grace period and landlord counts. Its a fairly small car park with a few dozen spaces, no shops or anything just a disused bit of land near workplaces thats been turned into a car park. The delay between parking and buying a ticket would have been minimal, a few minutes at most.

My delay was attending a callout at work and that took a bit longer than expected. I'd been working through the night so was late into town, this is not my usual car park as the others were full, unfortunately not something I could use.

MotoristPaper

Evening all,

I've produced the following response, could anyone please give it a read and and I'm be really grateful for any feedback.

Cheers

Dear ParkingEye,

I acknowledge receipt of your correspondence dated 04/04/18 and I believe you to be in breach of point 14 of the PRACTICE DIRECTION !!!8211; PRE-ACTION CONDUCT AND PROTOCOLS which states that "The court may decide that there has been a failure of compliance when a party has!!!8212;(b) not acted within a time limit set out in a relevant protocol, or within a reasonable period"

As you have taken a total of 39 days to provide a response to my correspondence dated 25/02/18, despite acknowledging receipt of it on 01/03/18 and committing to a response within 30 days, you broke this commitment by not providing a response until 04/04/18 which is a flagrant disregard of the pre action conduct and protocols.

I would also draw to your attention the precedent established by ParkingEye v Cargius. (25 November 2014, Wrexham County Court), of which I will provide a copy of as evidence. It demonstrates that the Beavis judgement is not applicable in the case of paid for car parking. You state that £4.60 was paid for 4 hours of parking, I will also provide evidence in the form of a photograph of the parking tariff demonstrating that the parking tariff for 5 hours is £5.75, showing a total loss of £1.15. Commercial justification does not apply because the car park generates substantial revenue and therefore it was not necessary to charge large amounts for transgressions to make management commercially viable.

You state that you have landowner permission to erect signs yet this completely irrelevant as it is still a requirement that you obtain planning and advertisement consent from the local council planning department. You describe my assertion as an "alleged" planning infringement, yet I have it in writing from Sheffield city council that there is no planning or advertisement consent obtained for the signs so it is a confirmed breach of planning and advertisement rules. I again state that I will utilise a defence of ex turpi causa non oritur actio. I will also reiterate that you continue to be aware that you are in breach of planning and advertisement laws and that you continue to take no remedial action to rectify this breach.

I will also reiterate that the signage is wholly inadequate and I will use photographic evidence to prove this, notably the absence of any warnings signage attached to the payment machines. My photographic evidence will further demonstrate that any alleged text regarding terms and conditions is completely illegible due to the height it is positioned at and the text size. It is wholly impossible to read these signs from a car and more than likely that an individual would also have difficulty reading them on foot.

You state that you are not required to state on signage that evidence obtained by ANPR cameras may be used in enforcement action, but you do not provide any evidence or cite any laws or regulations to backup this assertion. I require that you specify the exact laws and regulations that make this assertion. I will further reiterate my assertion that a picture of a CCTV camera represents a CCTV camera and not ANPR.

I again encourage you to produce the full and unredacted contract that demonstrates landowner permission as I believe it is wholly relevant to this case, the redacted and incorrectly dated statement alleging landowner authority is not sufficient to demonstrate landowner authority.

I still believe the Hansard report to be fully relevant to this case, it demonstrates that parliament has acknowledged the questionable and sharp practices that parking operators are currently engaged in, ParkingEye being specifically named as one of them, and the wholly inadequate oversight provided by the current system of self regulation. It further demonstrates parliament's clear intentions to enact legislation to prevent these practices and remedy the shortcomings of the current system of self-regulation.

Regards

X