Permier Parking PCN

Fruitcake

Is the above text in bold what you actually put in your PoPLA appeal?

You were given a number of appeal points to use. Did you use those points or did you simply used mitigation in your appeal, which PoPLA will always reject. They only ever allow appeals on technical or legal grounds.

The only saving grace in the above is that he scammers have confirmed there is a grace period of 5 minutes before the parking event begins and ten minutes after it ends. Had you split your 11 minute overstay up as advised by C-m you would have been inside those timings and would probably win your appeal.

Since those periods have been mentioned you should use them to your advantage. Split the overstay up so they fall within the two periods they mention.

v1ks

The bit in bold was before i came on the forums. I replied to them as i my wife had a genuine reason for the delay and i wrote to them in all honesty, it was only when they refused what i sent them, i got given the popla option and i looked online and then drafted the letter with the points mentioned here on my popla appeal. If i had known that they dont care about mitigating circumstances i would have of course done more solid appeal in the first place.

I will reply with the grace period again to them as they have said i have to reply back to the email. Will see what it comes back with and as you say will have to ignore any letters unless i get a court case.

Fruitcake

I misunderstood your post so have edited mine accordingly.

It would help us to see what you put in your PoPLA appeal to see if there is anything else we can help with.

v1ks

This was my appeal to POPLA:

Dear POPLA Adjudicator,

Subject: Parking charge reference number: , Vehicle Registration: ,

I am the registered keeper of vehicle XXXXXXX and am appealing a parking charge from Premier Park Ltd on the following points:


1. Failure to comply with section 13 Grace Periods of BPA.

2. Poor and Inadequate Signage.

3.No evidence of Landowner Authority - the operator is put to strict proof of full compliance with the BPA Code of Practice.

1. Failure to adhere to the British Parking Associations (BPA) Code of Practice ‘Grace’ Periods

The BPA’s Code of Practice states (13) that there are two grace periods: one at the end and a separate 'observation period' at the start. For the avoidance of doubt this is NOT a single period with a ceiling of just ten minutes, and the authority for this view is in this BPA article by Kelvin Reynolds, BPA Director of Corporate Affairs where he states on behalf of the BPA that there is a difference between 'grace' periods and 'observation' periods in parking and that good practice allows for this:

News/good-car-parking-practice-includes-grace-periods (link removed due to new user)

“An observation period is the time when an enforcement officer should be able to determine what the motorist intends to do once in the car park. Our guidance specifically says that there must be sufficient time for the motorist to park their car, observe the signs, decide whether they want to comply with the operator’s conditions and either drive away or pay for a ticket,” he explains.

“No time limit is specified. This is because it might take one person five minutes, but another person 10 minutes depending on various factors, not limited to disability.”

BPA (18.5) states ''if a driver is parking with your permission they must have the chance to read the terms and conditions before they enter into the contract with you''.

(a) On arrival - the 'observation period':

This car park is located near a major 4 way junction (around 100 meters away), which is controlled via traffic lights. On the day of the PCN there was a lot of traffic on the main road leading up to the car park. Many cars were waiting to enter the car park and exit onto the main road towards the junction. When entering the car park there was a queue of cars waiting to find a parking spot as exiting cars were blocking the (entry) incoming road. There is also a fairly restricted width of the car park spaces, causing difficulties in waiting for cars to manoeuvre to park or leave spaces, then difficulties for the driver in then parking their own car.

I can assert that it took 4 minutes before I was able to park, and at no time did we read any term that told us that the 'observation' time had actually started when we were in the queue and not even past the entrance threshold.

Even if it had said that, observation and grace periods must still be factored in, given the facts relating to each site, and 4 minutes is a reasonable grace/observation period to enter this car park, then queue behind other cars ahead of me looking for parking and give way to exiting cars before reaching one of the small spaces, then carefully park, then finally seek out one of the ludicrously high new signs and read it, which is the only point at which any contractual parking licence may have started (only when the driver has had a fair opportunity to read the terms and decide whether to stay, as Kelvin Reynolds stated).

Notwithstanding the BPA rules, relevant contract law also dictates that consumers must be given an opportunity to consider terms and conditions before entering into a consumer contract, especially where one of the terms is unexpected (new terms for this site) and onerous. POPLA Assessors have stated in recent decisions that a reasonable time period for this would be up to about 10 minutes. In this case, therefore, the 4 minutes taken before being able to park and read the new signs at this particular site is a reasonable period.

(b) On leaving - the 'grace period'
BPA's Code of Practice (13.2) states: ''If the parking location is one where parking is normally permitted, you must allow the driver a reasonable grace period in addition to the parking event before enforcement action is taken. In such instances the grace period must be a minimum of 10 minutes.''

BPA (13.4) reiterates this fact: ''You should allow the driver a reasonable period to leave the private car park after the parking contract has ended, before you take enforcement action. 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.''

Given the timings shown by the images (and subtracting the reasonable time explained above, on arrival) the operator is alleging that the driver exceeded the parking time after the end of the parking event, by 11 minutes. This is explained by the traffic in the area due to a busy junction causing backlog of cars which were trying to get out from the car park waiting to go towards the junction, meaning that even when a driver gets back to their car on time, they are prevented from leaving immediately due to the queues and restricted space in this site. I can attest that this was the case on the material date and that I did not actually park in a space for more than 2 hours, thus there was no parking contravention at all.

I have also uploaded an aerial map of this car park and drive-through, to illustrate my point.

The Operator has displayed on their PCN only the entry and exit times from the car park. These are not the 'period of parking' although the law requires this to be stated, and to any right-thinking person the only reason for this is to engineer an 'outrageous scam' (Hansard 2.2.18 - the views of MPs during the Parking CoP Bill reading) by misleading POPLA. Taking into account the travel time to a parking space and travelling back out of the car park the period of parking here falls comfortably within the mandatory observation and grace periods as outlined above.

As such, 7 minutes is a reasonable grace period to exit the car park after the parking contract has ended. The parking operator has issued the parking charge notice incorrectly. Accordingly, POPLA must allow this appeal.



3.The signs in this car park does not state what a person should do in the event of a delay leaving the car park.

18.3 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. Signs showing your detailed terms and conditions must be at least 450mm x 450mm.

18.4 If you intend to use the keeper liability provisions in Schedule 4 of POFA 2012, your signs must give ’adequate notice’. This includes: • specifying the sum payable for unauthorised parking • adequately bringing the charges to the attention of drivers, and • following any applicable government signage regulations.

The POPLA annual report 2016 states:

In an ANPR controlled car park where no statement on the signs indicates that the parking period begins on entry to the car park, as opposed to when a vehicle parks, we may discount the amount of time between entry and parking when calculating the grace period at the end
of the contract. This is because the average motorist would assume that a period of parking begins when they park the vehicle, and not when they enter the car park.! Upon entering Newbury Retail Park the sign is not even on the side of the road that the motorist drives in, the sign is in fact placed once you have entered the car park and been seen by the APNR on entering. It does not state that you are being charged upon entering.

The signage for the terms and conditions has very small font which is difficult to read and understand. They are unreadable due to the small font that has been used. The sign upon entering has a very small print that cannot be read even if zoomed in on let alone from the distance when driving a car. ANPR systems is a technical word that has no meaning to the average person who is not from a technical background so putting this on signs is not a clear explanation.

So, for this appeal, I put this operator to strict proof of where the car was parked and (from photos taken in the same lighting conditions) how their signs appeared on that date, at that time, from the angle of the driver's perspective. Equally, I require this operator to show how the entrance signs appear from a driver's seat, not stock examples of 'the sign' in isolation/close-up. I submit that full terms simply cannot be read from a car before parking and mere 'stock examples' of close-ups of the (alleged) signage terms will not be sufficient to disprove this.
The signs relating to 'Terms and Conditions' have to be read while travelling into the site so makes their placement completely unacceptable.

They are unremarkably not immediately obvious as parking terms and the wording is mostly illegible, being crowded and cluttered. It is indisputable that placing letters too close together in order to fit more information into a smaller space can drastically reduce the legibility.

I submit that the persuasive case law is in fact 'Vine v London Borough of Waltham Forest [2000] EWCA Civ 106' about a driver not seeing the terms and consequently, she was NOT deemed bound by them. The judgement was binding case law from the Appeal Court and supports my argument

This was a victory for the motorist and so where terms on a sign are not seen and the area not clearly marked/signed with prominent terms the driver has not consented to - and cannot have 'breached' - an unknown contract because there is no contract capable of being established. The driver in that case (who had not seen any signs/lines) had NOT entered into a contract. The recorder made a clear finding of fact that the plaintiff, Miss Vine, did not see a sign because the area was not clearly marked as 'private land' and the signs were obscured/not adjacent to the car and could not have been seen and read from a driver's seat before parking
The appeal rejection from Premier Park states that “however, we would advise that you could have made a telephone call to our office to inform us that you were unable to leave site before the expiration of the maximum stay period”; I would like to highlight as mentioned above that that your signage in this car park does not state this information or give accurate information relating to this statement.
The signs in this car park are not prominent, clear or legible from all parking spaces and there is insufficient notice of the sum of the parking charge itself.
3. No evidence of Landowner Authority - the operator is put to strict proof of full compliance with the BPA Code of Practice.
As this operator 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 this operator 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

In addition to the above points Premier Park have also failed provide me all the photos of my vehicle taken on this day and to take into consideration that on this day after returning to the car to leave the car park my daughter got very sick (as explained in my original appeal to PP). Hence, I was caught up in making sure she was clean, safe and calm before I could exit the car park. Despite this situation I had left the Car park well within the grace period discussed above.
I would request to POPLA to allow my appeal on the points above.

Fruitcake

In that case refer to the PPC's comments where they conveniently state the parking period begins five minutes after entry and the grace period after ending is ten minutes.
Then refer to your appeal where you have split up the overstay and thus proves that the scammers have proved your case for you.

Specifically point out your paragraph a) where you claim four minutes after arrival and the scammers allow 5, and paragraph b) where you claim seven minutes and the BPA CoP states a minimum of ten.

Since both the periods you claim are within the scammer's two stated grace periods, PoPLA should allow your appeal.

v1ks

Thanks for the help once again, i will reply back to them and see what they come back with, i have a feeling they will come back with some more BS but hey im not paying!

Coupon-mad

But PP don't get to see your comments to POPLA. You have the final word.

Show us what you intend to put as comments, and remember it's max 2000 characters.

This was a mistake in your POPLA appeal this should have read seven minutes. At no time should you have added them together:

Given the timings shown by the images (and subtracting the reasonable time explained above, on arrival) the operator is alleging that the driver exceeded the parking time after the end of the parking event, by 11 minutes.

v1ks

Would it be worth re-citing the grace periods back to POPLA in my response or would it be just better to reference them back to my original appeal.

they want me to reply to their email rather than upload this, so i should be ok for the character limit to be greater than 2000, hence im thinking to keep the grace periods in my reply so that they can read it again. clearly they have decide to ignore them in the first place.

I will correct the 11min error i made should i keep the grace periods in my reply.

please let me know...i will post my comments here later on today, im just finishing it off.

v1ks

My response to Popla...any suggestion will be very helpful....happy to add/remove anything suggested by the helpful members here


Dear Popla

Thank you for sending me the appeal response. Having gone through your response I would request that you go back to my original appeal and re-read the Grace Periods. I would really appreciate if you can read through this thoroughly and not cherry pick your response when replying as you appear to have done.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court case quoted in your response is irrelevant because by your own guidelines I have NOT overstayed in the Newbury Park Retail car park.

All retail park customers have a free 2 hour maximum stay period. The parking
period commences 5 minutes after entry. This 5-minute period is more than a
reasonable grace period for the motorist to read the signs and leave within the 2 hour
period.

As per the BPA grace period, we do allow motorists 10 minutes to exit the car park
after the free period.

As per your comments in bold (on the response) I am allowed 5min of grace at the commencement of my visit, therefore my actual stay did NOT commence until 9.56. My 2 Hour period therefore expired at 11.56 and I exited the car park at 12.02. this therefore is clearly within the 10 min grace period YOU allow for exit. I had already explained this in my earlier response where I confirmed that it took me 4 min to enter the car park and 7 min to exit, but clearly you have chosen to ignore your own guidelines when calculating the alleged overstay.

I am yet to receive a response from Premier Parking in relation to all images taken of my vehicle entering the car park on the day of alleged overstay. As clearly explained in my appeal (On arrival - the 'observation period') that it’s imperative for me to have a copy of these images, as on this day there was many cars waiting to enter the car park and I was waiting in a queue to enter. Therefore, you have cherry picked the very first image of my vehicle approaching the car park but the actual time I entered the car park was a later than what has been reordered in the image. Hence, I requested Premier Park to send me all images taken on this day for my vehicle but I’m still waiting for a response. I have attached a copy of the email sent as a proof.

Alternatively, the Appellant could have contacted Premier Park to advise of the
circumstances. The contact number is clearly shown on the signage.
We can confirm that we did not receive any calls from the Appellant regarding this
vehicle.

In view of the mitigating circumstances already outlined I don’t think it was necessary to call Premier Park as the parking did not exceed the 2 hour limit had the grace periods been correctly taken into account. As mentioned above because of the queuing traffic to enter the car park and look for parking it took 4 Minutes to park the car and 7 minutes to exit.

MistyZ

Pruning required. You have 2,000 characters to play with. At the moment it is over 2,200 without spaces, over 2,700 with. (I believe spaces are counted).

You can easily get it down to 2000 by dispensing with some of the niceties.