Park Watch POPLA/Appeal Help

Theunknownusername

Hi,

I have redacted the original post because of worries about it being used against me, however if you require more detail I will be happy to provide!

Theunknownusername

This was the reply I received from the Appeals Assessor on the 12/03/19

"Thank you for your appeal letter regarding the issue of the above parking charge notice.
After reviewing the information provided within your appeal letter and the photographic evidence that was taken in support of the issued PCN, and although we have taken into consideration the mitigation that you have provided we have decided that the parking charge was correctly issued for failing to comply with the parking conditions at this location. This area has clear signs in place to indicate no parking without an authorised permit and were situated close to where your vehicle was actually positioned. This vehicle was not displaying a valid permit on the date of inspection. We are following instructions by the landowner to manage this car parking area.
You now have a number of options;
1. Pay the Parking Charge Notice at the prevailing price of £60.00 within 14 days. Please note that after this time the Parking Charge Notice will rise to £100.00
2. You have now reached the end of our internal appeals procedure; however, you have the right to make an appeal to POPLA – The Independent Appeals Service at popla.co.uk. Please be advised that if you opt for independent arbitration of your case, the Parking Charge Notice will increase to £100.00 should the case be decided in our favour. Please quote verification number 331XXXXXXX. Note: you have 28 days in which to appeal to POPLA from the date of this letter. By law we are also required to inform you that Ombudsman Services an alternative dispute resolution service that would be competent to deal with your appeal. However, we have not chosen to participate in their alternative dispute resolution service. As such should you wish to appeal then you must do so to POPLA, as explained above. Please note, appeals submitted to POPLA are not accepted for review if the parking charge notice has been paid.
3. If you choose to ignore this letter we will seek to recover the monies owed to us via our debt recovery procedures and may proceed with Court action against you.
Yours Sincerely Appeals Coordinator"

Umkomaas

Please read the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #3 about how to appeal to POPLA. It's the only way to try to get this cancelled.

with double yellow lines and no stopping zones dominating every street

You do know that you are perfectly entitled to stop on double yellow lines to pick up a passenger, or load the car, provided there are no 'blips' showing on the kerbing stones? Even if you incurred a penalty charge, it would be significantly lower than the Di-ck Turpin rates of the private parking highwaymen. It would have cost you £70 (reduced to £35 if paid in 14 days) in Birmingham. Many places (other than London) are the same or lower.

BIRMINGHAM CITY PARKING PENALTY CHARGES

You should never fear double yellows - just know your rights.

Theunknownusername

Umkomaas wrote: »

Please read the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #3 about how to appeal to POPLA. It's the only way to try to get this cancelled.


You do know that you are perfectly entitled to stop on double yellow lines to pick up a passenger, or load the car, provided there are no 'blips' showing on the kerbing stones? Even if you incurred a penalty charge, it would be significantly lower than the Di-ck Turpin rates of the private parking highwaymen. It would have cost you £70 (reduced to £35 if paid in 14 days) in Birmingham. Many places (other than London) are the same or lower.

You should never fear double yellows - just know your rights.

Thank You for bringing this to my attention and I can assure you that in the future, I would rather the take the risk with the council than a private company.

Do you still think I can appeal? I haven't identified the driver in my original appeal letter? And have I given away too much information that could be used in my POPLA case against the driver?

Umkomaas

Do you still think I can appeal?

Of course you can appeal - it is your right.

If you were not the driver then categorically say so. You don't have to identify the driver (and doing so will help no one). If you were not the driver, and they don't know who the driver was, they can still pursue the registered keeper - you - under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Schedule 4). So you need to check that PW have complied completely with the requirements placed on them to invoke keeper liability. Here is your link:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/9/schedule/4/enacted

I'm not suggesting this is going to be an easy read but you do need to study it and look especially at the Notice to Keeper to determine any flaws in the processes that PW have undertaken in issuing the NtK.

Your POPLA appeal must concentrate only on the technical issues surrounding this case, not the wholly wasted effort you've expended in detailing all your story on the day. No one is interested in it (sorry!) and it really does clog this entire case up. At best it's virtually all immaterial, at worst it's handing them the game.

Study the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #3 carefully and look at the ready to use template appeal points which may need slight tweaking to reflect your case (but remember - the circumstances don't help you!).

Also, do a forum search on keywords Park Watch POPLA and read any recent successes and learn from those. Plagiarise from successful appeals, where relevant.

HOW TO USE THE FORUM SEARCH FUNCTION:

Hit your 'Back' button to get back to the forum thread list. On the bar just above the threads you'll see the 'Search' function. Click on the 'Advanced Search' button and on the following page place your keyword(s) in the 'Search By Keyword(s)' and make sure the 'Show Results As' button (at the foot of the window) is changed from 'Threads' to 'Posts'.

Turning to some of the points in your initial appeal above:

You issued me with a parking ticket on 22/02/2019 but I believe it was unfairly and illegally issued.

Illegal? Which law did they break? Be very careful of the words you use; wrong ones only expose your lack of knowledge and understanding - and encourage PPCs to pursue harder.

There was insufficient signage regarding Automatic Number Plate Recognition

Do you have your own photos to back up your assertion? If not, how do you come to that conclusion?

all tickets are issued illegally.

Here we go again.

The charge is disproportionate and not commercially justifiable

You will have to argue against and prove wrong the decision of the Law Lords of the Supreme Court (ParkingEye v Barry Beavis) to have any hope on that one!

The parking situation that arose was to prevent an unsafe situation on the road

Mitigation - won't fly. These outfits even ticket ambulances attending emergencies!

While you might not find my responses entirely what you might have wished for, they are given honestly and with the hope we can divert you away from continuing along the unsuitable path you have taken so far.

This might be recoverable via a POPLA appeal (especially if the PW paperwork does not satisfy PoFA requirements) - but it has to be won on technicalities, not what happened. But unfortunately we cannot provide any immediate silver bullet and POPLA decisions seem to have become much more bizarre of late. But let's see your POPLA draft - after you've done plenty of research before copying and pasting any old stuff, leaving us to pick through the pieces - it won't happen!

Apologies for the formatting, this forum doesnt like copy pasting from a pdf

Formatting isn't too bad - it's readable. Much better than some of the walls of text chucked at us from smartphones!

I'm not sure about C&P from a pdf, but the powers that be of MSE do not like it to come direct from Word. Posters have had their posting privileges suspended as a result. Have a read of this:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5706338/please-dont-copy-and-paste-from-word-outlook

Theunknownusername

No you're absolutely spot on, I was trying to appeal to the empathetic side of the private parking world but I guess that doesn't work in this situation.

Thanks for all the advice @umkomaas, extremely appreciated and I will get to drafting that POPLA appeal letter this weekend after looking at all the threads.

Also dont apologise for pointing out my naivety regarding my sob story, It's worked in other situations in the past, I just thought I'd give it a go!