Barnet hospital wrong staff carpark

SharingIsCaring62

Hi I was wondering if I could get any advice.
In brief I work in the NHS for a trust that has Barnet in its name. I pay for a staff parking permit. I had to go to Barnet hospital for the first time for work purposes and it seems I parked in the wrong staff car park. What's also frustrating is that because of receiving incorrect information from a member of staff I stayed on site well over the hospital parking 20 minute grace period. (A point I also stupidly told Parkingeye). I received a PCN. My appeal was rejected by Parkingeye. I also contacted the hospital parking team who told me I should have been informed by the issuer of my permit which car park I can park in and to appeal with Parkingeye. Looking on the Newbies section I realised I made the mistake of informing Parkingeye I was the driver and that I had parked in a space. I am going to write my Poppla appeal with some of the points on the forum about landownership and signage. However I feel like there is some kind of entrapment here? Or should I not put anything like that in my appeal.

Coupon-mad

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.com/2016/03/parkingeye-lose-in-court-accuse-drivers.html

Read that carefully, a case about ParkingEye at Barnet relying on ANPR photos not taken from the same section of the car park.

They may well have used misleading photos in your case, can you tell from the background markings? One photo from one section and one from a drop off point, maybe? Remember you drove round a sprawling site to get there and passed a dozen or more cameras.

Although the OP never came back to update us, so I assume their complaint to the Hospital worked, I wrote a Barnet-specific POPLA point here in post #8:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5720162/popla-appeal-barnet-hospital-parkingeye

Start with that, then add the other POPLA templates from the 3rd post of the NEWBIES sticky thread, and show us what you cobble together. It needs to be long, so don't worry.

But ONLY try POPLA once you have exhausted the complaint and escalated it, telling the Hospital parking/complaints 'team' that ParkingEye have turned the appeal down and will sue you for working at the Hospital, so you are planning on putting this in the national papers...

I can't stress enough = COMPLAIN AGAIN FIRST.

NEVER POPLA first, or you burn your boats for complaint later and if P/Eye sue you will have to defend a court claim. Much easier to rattle cages a lot more, instead.

Oh, and use P/Eye's PRIVACY and DATA concerns contact form, first, and ask for the ANPR sightings and VRN capture of your car at all times that day at that location, in a list. Like in the blog, get that NOW - contact P/Eye's DPO on Friday. See their privacy page for that, it's right there on P/Eye's website, waiting for you to ask.

Could be very revealing. Show proof that you are the data subject to avoid any delay.

fisherjim

I also contacted the hospital parking team who told me I should have been informed by the issuer of my permit which car park I can park in

Which is their fault not yours, I would be going straight back to them in that case to tell them to sort it out, which they can of course but are too bone idle or full of BS to do!

Fruitcake

Bear in mind that the "hospital parking team" may actually be parking lie.

Complain to the hospital CEO, your head of department, and your MP about this unregulated scam.
Use social media, local, and national press to highlight this scam.

Get your union rep involved if you have one.

D_P_Dance

All the PE signs that I have come across fail imo to be able to form a contract. They are either too high, the font is too small, or they are too wordy, or all of the above, read this thread and complain to your MP.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5972164/parking-eye-signs-oxford-road-reading&highlight=

Coupon-mad

All the PE signs that I have come across fail imo to be able to form a contract

I disagree, and so did the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court in the Beavis case.

But the good thing about a Hospital car park is:

- the signs are all different for each area, with maybe half a dozen different ones

- at Barnet, P/Eye have form for showing misleading ANPR snaps from two areas

- the above can be argued at POPLA pretty well, but FIRST (ALWAYS BEFORE POPLA):

The OP needs to escalate the complaint to the NHS Trust, citing the NHS Car Parking Principles which has been Government policy for a few years now:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-patient-visitor-and-staff-car-parking-principles

Staff are not meant to be penalised.

There is no legitimate interest here, in this case, so the Beavis case is distinguished.

SharingIsCaring62

Thanks for the replies. I'm annoyed at myself for leaving it so late in the day. Really wish I had got to this forum sooner. I have till 8th April to submit my POPLA appeal which I am working on. It was just that I felt disheartened after contacting both my trust parking team who issued me with my parking permit and Barnet Hospital parking team and they both fobbed me off.

SharingIsCaring62

So below is my POPLA appeal. I have already contacted the hospital parking management team and told them my Parkingeye appeal failed. I admitted to Parkingeye in the original appeal that I was the driver. The PCN arrived through the post in 12 days with POFA 2012 information on the back. The images look to be of the same car park.
I have just altered the template from the website slightly where needed.


I write to you as the registered keeper of the vehicle ........., I wish to appeal the £100 Parking Charge Notice (PCN) issued by ParkingEye Ltd.

As a requirement for my employment in the NHS I had to attend Barnet hospital to hand in documentation for my DBS criminal background check. I pay for a staff parking permit out of my wages monthly and have a valid parking permit(see pictures provided). I parked in the staff parking area and my trust parking permit was on display in my car. My stay at the hospital took longer than expected as the person on receptionist wrongly stated that the DBS team were on lunch and told me to wait for 30-40 minutes, which I did. I walked through the hospital and when I asked at reception again another receptionist stated the DBS team were in another room which they were. Once I handed in my DBS documentation I left. This was the first time I went to Barnet Hospital and it was for work purposes. Parkingeye has no legitimate interest in my case as I should not be penalised for doing my job. This case therefore differentiates from the Bevis Case.


The signs indicating that there were parking restrictions were at the car park entrance, but with no useful detail about what alleged agreement you may be entering into. It is also worth noting that more detailed signs about terms and conditions were not visible until you were well into the hospital car park – and so ANPR captured and allegedly bound into a so-called contract before having a chance to read any Ts&Cs (see pictures provided). Those signs once in there were small with a lot of tiny small print. Plus, some signs were very high up making it nigh-on impossible to read the small print.

Based on the circumstances I submit the reasons below to show that I am not liable for the parking charge:

1. ParkingEye Ltd has no contractual authority
3. ANPR Accuracy and Compliance
4. No Contract was entered into between the Parking Eye and the Driver or Registered keeper
5. The car park had unclear, non-obvious, non-BPA-compliant signage leading to the driver not being aware that a parking contract was being offered at the time .
6. No evidence of Landowner Authority

1. ParkingEye Ltd has no contractual authority
In the notices they have sent me ParkingEye Ltd have not shown any evidence that they have any proprietary interest in the car park/land in question. Also, they have not provided me with any evidence that they are lawfully entitled to demand money from either the driver or keeper. It would seem that they do not own or have any interest or assignment of title in the land. I can only assume instead they are agents for the owner/legal occupier instead. I submit therefore that they do not have the necessary legal right to make the charge for a vehicle using the car park. I require ParkingEye Ltd to provide a full, up-to date and signed/dated contract with the landowner (a statement saying someone has seen the contract is not enough). The contract needs to state that ParkingEye Ltd are entitled to pursue matters such as these through the issue of Parking Charge Notices and in the courts in their own name. I clarify that this should be an actual unredacted copy and not just a document that claims a contract/agreement exists.



3. ANPR Accuracy and Compliance
I require ParkingEye Ltd to present records as to the dates and times of when the cameras at this car park were checked, adjusted, calibrated, synchronised with the timer which stamps the photos and generally maintained to ensure the accuracy of the dates and times of any ANPR images. This is important because the entirety of the charge is founded on two images purporting to show my vehicle entering and exiting at specific times. It is vital that ParkingEye Ltd must produce evidence in response to these points and explain to POPLA how their system differs (if at all) from the flawed ANPR system which was wholly responsible for the court loss by the Operator in ParkingEye v Fox-Jones on 8 Nov 2013. That case was dismissed when the judge said the evidence from the Operator was “fundamentally flawed” as the synchronisation of the camera pictures with the timer had been called into question and the operator could not rebut the point.

So, in addition to showing their maintenance records, I require ParkingEye Ltd in this case to show evidence to rebut this point: I suggest that in the case of my vehicle being in this car park, a local camera took the image but a remote server added the time stamp. As the two are disconnected by the internet and do not have a common “time synchronisation system”, there is no proof that the time stamp added is actually the exact time of the image. The operator appears to use WIFI which introduces a delay through buffering, so “live” is not really “live”. Hence without a synchronised time stamp there is no evidence that the image is ever time stamped with an accurate time. Therefore I contend that this ANPR “evidence” from this Operator in this car park is just as unreliable as the ParkingEye system in the Fox-Jones case and I put this Operator to strict proof to the contrary.

In addition, the unreliable/unsynchronised ANPR system used, and lack of information about the use of data, is not compliant with the BPA Code of Practice, which contains the following:

21. Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR)
21.1. You may use ANPR camera technology to manage, control and enforce parking in private car parks, as long as you do this in a reasonable, consistent and transparent manner. Your signs at the car park must tell drivers that you are using this technology and what you will use the data captured by ANPR cameras for.
21.2. Quality checks: before you issue a parking charge notice you must carry out a manual quality check of the ANPR images to reduce errors and make sure that it is appropriate to take action. Full details of the items you should check are listed in the Operators’ Handbook.
21.3. You must keep any ANPR equipment you use in your car parks in good working order. You need to make sure the data you are collecting is accurate, securely held and cannot be tampered with.
21.4. It is also a condition of the Code that, if you receive and process vehicle or registered keeper data, you must:
 - be registered with the Information Commissioner
 - keep to the Data Protection Act
 - follow the DVLA requirements concerning the data
 - follow the guidelines from the Information Commissioner’s Office on the use of CCTV and ANPR cameras, and on keeping and sharing personal data such as vehicle registration marks.

At this location, there are merely a couple of secret small cameras up high on a pole. No signs at the car park clearly tell drivers about this technology nor how the data captured by ANPR cameras will be used. This means the system does not operate in a reasonable, consistent and transparent manner, and I have reason to believe that, potentially, every section of paragraph 21 is breached here. Unless the Operator can show documentary evidence otherwise, then this BPA Cop breach would also point to a failure to comply with the POFA 2012 (keeper liability requires strict compliance), a failure to comply with the ICO terms of registration and a breach of the CPUTR 2008 (claiming to comply with the BPA Code of Practice when I believe it is not the case). This Operator is put to strict proof to the contrary.

4. No Contract was entered into between the Parking Eye and the Driver or Registered keeper
I would like to point out that the signs at the car park in question are unsuitable to inform drivers of the full terms and conditions of what they are entering into by physically entering the car park. ParkingEye clearly relies on contract law, but does not do enough to make clear what the terms and conditions of the contract are, making it far too easy for people to unwittingly fall outside the terms of contract. It is not appropriate for a car park such as this to have such a limited amount of signs and rely on drivers to look carefully for where and how the terms are displayed. It is surely the responsibility of ParkingEye Ltd to make the terms of their contract far clearer so that drivers have no doubt whatsoever of any supposed contract they may be entering into. I require ParkingEye Ltd to provide evidence as to how clear the terms and conditions are and consider if the methods used are clear enough for this type of car park. I would specifically like them to look into how clear the signs are that inform drivers that ANPR cameras are in use on this site.

Furthermore a contract can only be considered to be entered into if enough evidence exists that it actually happened. For a contract to have been entered into the driver would have had to get out of the car, read the signs, fully interpret and understand them and then agree to them. None of which ever actually happened.

I request that ParkingEye Ltd provide concrete evidence that a contract existed between themselves and the driver on the day in question, which meets all the legal requirements of forming a contract. They should include specific things including, agreement from both parties, clarity and certainty of terms etc. If they are not met then the contract would be deemed “unfair” under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999.

5. The car park had unclear, non-obvious, non-BPA-compliant signage leading to the driver not being aware that a parking contract was being offered at the time (dusk on a gloomy evening).
As a POPLA assessor has said previously in an adjudication “Once an Appellant submits that the terms of parking were not displayed clearly enough, the onus is then on the Operator to demonstrate that the signs at the time and location in question were sufficiently clear”.

The parking company needs to prove that the driver actually saw, read and accepted the terms, which means that I and the POPLA adjudicator would be led to believe that a conscious decision was made by the driver to park in exchange for paying the extortionate fixed amount that Parking Eye is now demanding, rather than simply the nominal amount presumably due in a machine on site.

The alleged breach occurred in a staff parking area and the signs were not readily readable or illuminated to be seen by a driver entering the car park and does not adequately differentiate between the different staff car parks.
These are not mitigating circumstances but failure by ParkingEye plus to ensure that their signs were to be seen accordingly. The BPA Code of Practice section 18, state that clear signage must be erected at each entrance and additional signage installed throughout the area. The signs must be visible at all times of the day; these requirements were not met and I demand strict proof that those signs are readily visible at the time of darkness.

The BPA Code of Practice, Appendix B, under Contrast and illumination:
Signs should be readable and understandable at all times, including during the hours of darkness or at dusk if and when parking enforcement activity takes place at those times. This can be achieved in a variety of ways such as by direct lighting or by using the lighting for the parking area. If the sign itself is not directly or indirectly lit, we suggest that it should be made of a retro-reflective material similar to that used on public roads and described in the Traffic Signs Manual. Dark-coloured areas do not need to be reflective.

Clearly none of these conditions were met (see pictures provided).

Furthermore, the landmark case of ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 establishes that a parking charge will only be valid where signage is clear and the driver therefore able to be fully aware of any charges. ParkingEye did not provide me with evidence that such signs, if present, were available throughout the car park and visible, from the area where the car was parked at the time of the event.

6. No evidence of Landowner Authority
As ParkingEye Ltd does not have proprietary interest in the land then I require that they produce an unredacted copy of the contract with the landowner. The contract and any “site agreement” or “User Manual” setting out details including exemptions - such as any “genuine customer” or “genuine resident” exemptions or any site occupier’s “right of veto” charge cancellation rights - is key evidence to define what ParkingEye is authorised to do and any circumstances where the landowner/firms on site in fact have a right to cancellation of a charge. It cannot be assumed, just because an agent is contracted to merely put some signs up and issue Parking Charge Notices, that the agent is also authorised to make contracts with all or any category of visiting drivers and/or to enforce the charge in court in their own name (legal action regarding land use disputes generally being a matter for a landowner only).

Witness statements are not sound evidence of the above, often being pre-signed, generic documents not even identifying the case in hand or even the site rules. A witness statement might in some cases be accepted by POPLA but in this case I suggest it is unlikely to sufficiently evidence the definition of the services provided by each party to the agreement.

Nor would it define vital information such as charging days/times, any exemption clauses, grace periods (which I believe may be longer than the bare minimum times set out in the BPA CoP) and basic information such as the land boundary and bays where enforcement applies/does not apply. Not forgetting evidence of the various restrictions which the landowner has authorised can give rise to a charge and of course, how much the landowner authorises this agent to charge (which cannot be assumed to be the sum in small print on a sign because template private parking terms and sums have been known not to match the actual landowner agreement).

Paragraph 7 of the BPA CoP defines the mandatory requirements and I put this operator to strict proof of full compliance:

7.2 If the operator wishes to take legal action on any outstanding parking charges, they must ensure that they have the written authority of the landowner (or their appointed agent) prior to legal action being taken.
7.3 The written authorisation must also set out:
a) the definition of the land on which you may operate, so that the boundaries of the land can be clearly defined
b) any conditions or restrictions on parking control and enforcement operations, including any restrictions on hours of operation
c) any conditions or restrictions on the types of vehicles that may, or may not, be subject to parking control and enforcement
d) who has the responsibility for putting up and maintaining signs
e) the definition of the services provided by each party to the agreement


Therefore, it is respectfully requested that this parking charge notice appeal be allowed, and the appeal upheld on every point.