Clarity between Membership and Logo - IE: BPA/IPC

Coupon-mad

The machine on the day wasnt working which is why I didnt buy a ticket or stay - although I cant prove that as it was another member of the public that contacted them to report the faulty machine - not me. And I have since found out there is another machine in the corner of the carpark (although dimly lit with no signs) .

All sounds like a good basis for a defence. Frustration of contract, broken machine, so you left, simple. No contract accepted and the usual ten minutes grace period cannot apply where a PPC is enticing you in with an entrance sign offering pay and display, then not providing you with the means to make the payment, yet still capturing your car's VRN from the moment it crossed the site threshold.

A reasonable step when one machine (or both, who knows?) are out of order, is to turn off the ANPR feed until the machines are fixed. Or as another reasonable alternative, cancel any PCN from people who took, say, under 15 minutes to park, try to pay, find out the machine was broken, look for another one, not find one due to the unlit location, get back in the car and leave.

Now a PPC will take neither of those steps, but a Judge might well find in your favour due to the circumstances and I think they'd have a hard job convincing a court that your 14 minutes was unreasonable, and that you entered into a binding contract when in fact, THEY frustrated it.

You do not have to prove things: just show evidence and be an honest witness as to the fact the machine was not working, and you could see no other in the dark, hence you probably spent half the time dealing with the broken machine and looking for another one, and mere minutes driving in/out, all of which explains the supposed 14 minutes captured by ANPR.

Kelvin Reynolds BPA statement about grace periods (Google it) is a formal article from the original ATA - never mind the firm is now in the IPC, having forum-shopped for the place that offers them 80% won 'appeals' due to the way the system *works*. The article is from the industry's main and most well-known Trade Body and it explains that grace periods are part of good parking enforcement practice and that they are not set in stone, depending upon the circumstances.

Have you watched the Parliamentary debate from last month? You need to.