ECP - 25mins over - appeal failed

Coupon-mad

The ANPR system is neither reliable or accurate

Nope, not that one.

The one you will find when you search for ANPR Code ICO surveillance camera POPLA as your keywords. I reckon you will find a ready made one quite quickly, as everyone will have used the same templates you intend to use.

Bentles

Popla have advised me ECP have replied to my appeal and have given me 7 days to respond:

In **** appeal to POPLA he stated the following:
!!!61623; No grace period given
!!!61623; Signage is not clear
!!!61623; No landowner authority
!!!61623; No Evidence of Period Parked
!!!61623; The ANPR system is neither reliable nor accurate
Euro Car Parks and would like to respond to the points raised in **** appeal with the following:
!!!61623; Section 18.3 of the British Parking Association!!!8217;s (BPA) code of practice explains that signs !!!8220;must be conspicuous and legible and written in intelligible language, so that they are easy to see, read and understand. Signage on site is clear, when parking on private land it is the driver!!!8217;s responsibility to read the signage displayed and parked accordance with the terms and conditions as stated. (Figure 1)
!!!61623; Euro Car Parks have provided photographic evidence showing that the appellant remained at the site for 2 hours and 25 minutes (Figure 2)
!!!61623; Signage on site is clear, when parking on private land it is the drivers responsibility to read the signage displayed and parked accordance with the terms and conditions as stated
!!!61623; The signage clearly states the terms and conditions of parking, all drivers are required to purchcase a valid pay and display ticket for the duration of their stay. Signage is visble when entering and inside of the car park and when entering private land it would be **** responsibility to read the terms and conditions and adhere to them.
!!!61623; The above car park is pay and display!!!8211; a valid pay and display ticket must be purchased and placed in your vehicle to cover the duration of your stay on site.
!!!61623; Figure 3 is a payment transaction of £2.00 made on the day in question for the VRM MA15LKZ.
!!!61623; There are 2 pay and display machines on site as well as the option to Pay By Phone.
!!!61623; According to BPA Code of Practise 13.4 !!!8211; car park operators should allow the driver a reasonable period to leave the private car park after the parking contract has ended; before enforcement action is taken. If the location is one where parking is normally permitted; the grace period at the end of the parking period should be a minimum of 10 minutes. I can confirm that Euro Car Parks have given **** the suitable grace
period of 10 minutes and was issued a Parking Charge Notice.
!!!61623; Figure 4 is where I can confirm our PCN is POFA compliant.
!!!61623; Figure 5 shows Euro Car Parks Holdings authorises Euro Car Parks to carry out Parking
Enforcement
!!!61623; We have calculated this sum as a genuine pre-estimate of our losses as we incur significant costs in managing the parking location to ensure compliance to the stated terms & conditions and to follow up on any breaches of these that are identified. The parking charge in this instance was established after consideration of the following costs which we incur on each notice issued;
- Wages and salaries including Employers National Insurance Contributions
- IT systems, software, licences and peripherals
- DVLA fees and processing costs
- Costs in preparing and sending PCNs !!!8211; Stationary, Postage and Printing
- Legal, Accounting and other Professional Costs
- Human Resources
- Premises Costs
- Vehicle and Telephone Costs
- Loss of Pay and Display Ticket revenue generating from paying customers (where
applicable)
- Loss of purchase revenue to Retail Outlets within the car park
!!!61623; Any form of parking ticket or !!!8216;notice!!!8217; is issued under the law !!!8216;of trespass and Contract Law!!!8217;. A driver who is invited (or chooses) to park on private land and use the car parking facilities and pays a fee/s does so under a contract (signage) with the car park operator. The parking contract sets out the terms that apply to the parking service, including the price.
!!!61623; The contract (signage) clearly states the extra charges are that the driver will incur and have to pay if they decide to break the contract terms !!!8722; for example, by parking longer than the time paid for or exceeding the maximum time limit applicable.
!!!61623; With regards to the reference to !!!8220;Pre-Estimate of Loss/breach of consumer contracts 1999.!!!8221; Please be advised that the Supreme Court has made judgement (04/11/15) that clearly sets out the issue of parking charge notices on private land (law of contract applies) and in particular pre-estimate of loss. The parking charge notice is enforceable on the basis that it protected a legitimate interest when the driver failed to adhere to the terms and conditions and was not extravagant, exorbitant nor unconscionable. The parking charge is not an unenforceable penalty and does not breach the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.
- It!!!8217;s the driver!!!8217;s responsibility to check the signage prior to leaving the vehicle on site.
- Contract Law Applies
!!!61623; With regards reliability/misreads of the ANPR system at this site and many private and
council car parks who use this type of operation. The ANPR cameras are Police NAAS compliant, each individual camera is 93.1% accurate as specified by the supplier, it is well known (to include Police contraventions) that the information will not always be 100% correct, therefore there is always a possibility that there may be an error, however, if an issue is raised, following our complaints procedure a full investigation will be carried out by our Technical Department as quickly as possible with full information being supplied. Our Technical Teams visit the site/s regularly and monitor camera alignment and all on site equipment, back office systems are monitored 24/7. All equipment is fully tested before site installation, and fully tested for a number of weeks, information is processed and tested prior to any operation going live.
The signage clearly states the terms and conditions of parking, all drivers are required to purchase a valid pay and display ticket for the duration of their stay. Signage is visble when entering and inside of the car park and when entering private land it would be **** responsibility to read the terms and conditions displayed before parking.

Le_Kirk

If you are posting using a phone or Apple device, please turn off Smart punctuation - it makes your posts hard to read. Ta

Bentles

Is it worth mentioning that there is no image showing my vehicle within parking lines? I see that a court settlement happened on these grounds?

My concern is my initial stupid appeal specifically mentions that I did park.

Bentles

first draft of my response:
Unfortunately ECP has not responded to any of my points of appeal. When Discussing grace periods there is no evidence of when parking commenced or ceased, or to that point there is no evidence of parking at all. Whilst in my initial appeal I state that I had parked at the site, I request that ECP show CCTV of specifically how long I was parked for.

I'd ask POPLA to consider all points raised under my complaint that the signage was not clear.

As for no evidence of period parked, whilst I have already touched on this point the image supplied by ECP in figure1 shows my car outside of ECP's car park in question and this would be my main point of defence if ECP were to pursue this case. I challenge ECP to clearly prove what time I was parked from and to on the date in question, and put to ECP that Figure 2 simply shows my vehicle on a public road where I could have been legally stopped for any kind of reason such as traffic.

fisherjim

Bentles wrote: »

first draft of my response:
Unfortunately ECP has not responded to any of my points of appeal. When Discussing grace periods there is no evidence of when parking commenced or ceased, or to that point there is no evidence of parking at all. Whilst in my initial appeal I state that I had parked at the site, I request that ECP show CCTV of specifically how long I was parked for.

I'd ask POPLA to consider all points raised under my complaint that the signage was not clear.

As for no evidence of period parked, whilst I have already touched on this point the image supplied by ECP in figure1 shows my car outside of ECP's car park in question and this would be my main point of defence if ECP were to pursue this case. I challenge ECP to clearly prove what time I was parked from and to on the date in question, and put to ECP that Figure 2 simply shows my vehicle on a public road where I could have been legally stopped for any kind of reason such as traffic.

They don't use CCTV it's ANPR a completely different animal, it clocks your VRN in and out thus time on site.


Forget about parking POPLA will agree with the PPC that your VRN was recorded as on site for the agreed time, and it would be hard to justify driving around without parking for 2hrs 25mins anyway.


You can argue grace periods before and after parking but they will say 25 mins is outside of those limits.

Bentles

So stick to signage? I'm not sure they've done enough in their defence to completely rule out a successful appeal.

Redx

look for ANY issues that support your version of events and where they have shot themselves in the foot , you cannot add new evidence, but you can query their evidence where necessary

look for their evidence on

BPA CoP compliance (or failures)
LANDOWNER CONTRACT compliance (or failures)
SIGNAGE compliance (or failures)
NO evidence of cameras recording the actual parking event
GRACE PERIODS failures

start a short rebuttal based on other popla rebuttals from this year, including the above , bearing in mind the rebuttal portal only allows 2000 characters, so no waffle

you could easily have found this recent example with a simple quick search of the forum

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5834175&page=3

Bentles

My appeal has been upheald by popla!!! Thanks everyone!

Assessor supporting rational for decision
The appellant has indicated that he was the driver on the date of the parking incident, 12 April 2018. I will therefore be considering his liability as driver of the vehicle. As the driver has been identified, I do not need to consider the provisions laid out in the Protection of Freedoms Act (PoFA) 2012. When entering private land, motorists are expected to comply with the terms and conditions. The operator has provided images of the signage laid out at the site. The terms and conditions sign states: “Charges apply 24 hours a day Monday to Sunday including bank holidays. Monday to Saturday Day Tariff (06:00 hours to 17:59 hours) Up to 2 hour £2.00 Up to 4 hour £2.50” The appellant states that the signs in the car park are not prominent, clear or legible. I have reviewed Section 18 of The British Parking Association (BPA) Code of Practice for operators which states: “Specific parking-terms signage tells drivers what your terms and conditions are, including your parking charges. You must place signs containing the specific parking terms throughout the site, so that drivers are given the chance to read them at the time of parking or leaving their vehicle. Keep a record of where all the signs are. Signs must be conspicuous and legible, and written in intelligible language, so that they are easy to see, read and understand” I note the operator’s signs (on page 24 of the operator’s pack) detailing the terms and conditions of the car park are dated 23 April 2018. As this is after the parking incident, I am unable to accept these as evidence and cannot be satisfied that these signs were displayed at the site on the date of the parking incident, 12 April 2018. By issuing the appellant with a PCN, the operator has implied that the appellant had not complied with the terms and conditions of the car park in question. The burden of proof rests with the operator to show that the appellant has not complied with the terms and conditions. Without evidence that the terms and conditions signs were in place on the date of the PCN, I am not able to conclude that the appellant, has not complied with the terms and conditions. In this case, the operator has not provided any evidence to POPLA that the signage was in place on the date in question. I am therefore not satisfied that the operator has issued the PCN correctly. Accordingly, I must allow this appeal. I note the appellant has raised several other grounds of appeal. However, as I am allowing the appeal for the reason detailed above, I do not consider it necessary to comment on these.

Coupon-mad

I note the operator!!!8217;s signs (on page 24 of the operator!!!8217;s pack) detailing the terms and conditions of the car park are dated 23 April 2018. As this is after the parking incident, I am unable to accept these as evidence and cannot be satisfied that these signs were displayed at the site on the date of the parking incident, 12 April 2018.

In this case, the operator has not provided any evidence to POPLA that the signage was in place on the date in question.

Hahaha, well done!

Their evidence photos were dated 11 days after the event and the Assessor decided that's not good enough!

Please do add a short reply on the POPLA Decisions sticky thread, telling everyone who PPC you beat and pasting that decision there too (but broken up into several paragraphs please, for ease of reading there). Plus add a link to this thread.

:T