ParkingEye/POPLA Appeal

MistyZ

I know it is often said that landowner complaints are more likely to succeed if submitted before the POPLA process commences.

However I have a suspicion that you have not given PALS chapter & verse.

I would compose a very clear and detailed letter to them. It would begin like this:

"on xx/xx/xxxx I visited my mother in the hospital after she had suffered a massive heart attack.

My mother is now terminally ill and I have continued to visit her regularly. On each of these subsequent occasions I have fully complied with the terms and conditions for parking at the hospital. However on that first visit it would seem that the level of distress I was experiencing combined with the tortuous parking 'system' rendered me genuinely unable to comply fully. As a result I have now, x months later, received a Letter Before Claim (add details of claim).

(Carefully and clearly describe the steps you made to attempt correct payment on the day)

(Clearly summarise the appeals you have made and the outcomes and assert that they reflect the utter indifference of both the PPC and POPLA to even the most compelling mitigating circumstances)

(Clearly summarise any previous complaints you have made to PALS and the outcomes which, incredibly as it seems to you, reflect the utter indifference of an organisation that is intended to support to patients and relatives)

Continue with something like: You may surmise that I currently have more important matters to attend to than a 'mere' parking charge. And that would be correct (briefly summarise your mother's current condition). However this parking charge has made a very difficult and distressing situation worse. Not only is the original charge disproportionately high and likely to rise considerably should I lose the forthcoming court case (ignore good chances of winning in this letter please!), but it is also essentially unjust. Fighting to get it overturned has been, and continues to be, extremely stressful. Both the stress and the sense of injustice have been compounded by the level of indifference, bordering on contempt, which I have so far encountered at every turn.

Please do not assume that I am ignorant of or indifferent to the difficulties hospitals face in providing adequate levels of parking for all. I am very aware of these challenges. For my part, I always attempt to park considerately and to comply with terms and conditions. Sometimes however, errors happen. In (x) months, one error has been made, just one. And in the subsequent months I have found that (parking bodies involved), the appeals body POPLA and indeed PALS itself pay no heed whatsoever to the extreme challenges that occasionally result in patients and visitors making mistakes such as that which I have described.

Yours faithfully ...."

Well I'd sock it to them like that anyway. Depends if anything I've written strikes a chord with you and matches your feelings on the matter.

I would also send it to the hospital board, I'd definitely do that.