Parkingeye overstay with breastfeeding

Steparius

D_P_Dance said:

Nine times out of ten these tickets are scams, so consider complaining to your MP., it can cause the scammer extra costs, and in some cases, cancellation. 

I send an email to my MP. I post here the body of my letter in hope it can be of help to others, even if the content needs to be adapted to the particulars of each case.

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Dear Ms. XXXXXX,

My name is XXXXX. I’ve been living in XXXXXX for the past 3 years with my husband, XXXXX, and our son. I am writing to you to complain about a problem caused by private parking companies which recurrently use abusive practices as their way of conducting business.

In XX/XX/ 20XX, me and the driver of my vehicle parked in the XXXXXXXX to shop at the department store. We purchased a ticket for two hours to cover our anticipated shopping time (we still have the original ticket). Upon returning to the car, I breastfed my baby, which caused us a brief delay in driving out of the parking lot. The driver tried to pay for the overtime onsite but there was no option available to pay retroactively. 

ParkingEye is taking us to Court for a delay of 19 minutes. There is a minimum grace period of 10 minutes, so at most we over-stayed by 9 minutes. ParkingEye claims a parking ticket of £100 to which they’ve added additional costs, bringing the total to £175. 

ParkingEye’s failure to recognise my right to breastfeed regardless of time or location is an act of discrimination against mothers using their facilities. Breastfeeding is protected under the Equality Act of 2010 and therefore is a reasonable justification of our 9-minute delay beyond the grace period. 

These parking companies use the argument of “breach of contract” to justify issuing parking fines rather than providing the option to customers to pay onsite for their actual time using the parking lot. ParkingEye’s practices are so widespread that I was compelled to write you to make you aware of their abuses. In case you are able to help us with our situation, our claim number in the County Court Business Centre is XXXXXX.

Parliament is well aware of the Modus Operandi of these private parking companies (many of whom are former clampers) and passed a Bill on 15 March 2019 to curb their abuses. Codes of Practice are being drawn up and an independent appeals service will be set up later this year.  Just as the clampers were finally closed down, so hopefully will many of these parking companies, with persistent offenders being denied access to the DVLA database and no longer being able to operate.

I hope that raising this concern might help ending this kind of abuse. I would be very interested in hearing your views on this matter and what you might be able to do about it.

Yours sincerely,

Coupon-mad

Very good.  I hope you have a proactive MP who will lean on ParkingEye and the retail park.

Steparius

I went a couple of weeks ago to take pictures on site. I realised that the sign looked new and not as I remembered them. Then went online and discovered a bit of the history of the parking site.
- Until 2017 The parking was managed by Britania having also a long history of complaints for abuse.
- Sometime around 2017/2018 the management of the parking changed to ParkingEye
- In November 2019 the ticket for the vehicle of which I am the keeper was issued
- March 2019 the previous department store went bankruptcy. ParkingEye cancelled the fees during a couple of months while negotiating a new deal with the new owner 
- Currently, the fees are active again. I believe the signs have been changed sometime between November 2019 and a June 2020

Below the pictures from Google Map (correspond to the signs that I remember)

KeithP

You might want to mention PE's PCN reference number in that letter to your MP. Will be useful if the MP writes to PE.

Steparius

Here are the new signs and PDM. (picture was taken on June 2020) These are not as the ones the driver remembers from November 2019, in fact you can appreciate that they look brand new.

Redx

those signs allow different time slots to be paid for, so what we really need to see is the actual signs from the popla evidence pack

Steparius

Redx said:

thoise signs allow different time slots to be paid for, so what we really need to see is the actual signs from the popla evidence pack

I checked and there are no signs in the POPLA evidence pack that I received with their decision. How do I obtain those signs pictures? Is it simply a matter of writing POPLA asking for them?

Coupon-mad

Yes you can email POPLA for the evidence pack that P/Eye supplied to them.

Redx

Steparius said:

Redx said:

thoise signs allow different time slots to be paid for, so what we really need to see is the actual signs from the popla evidence pack

I checked and there are no signs in the POPLA evidence pack that I received with their decision. How do I obtain those signs pictures? Is it simply a matter of writing POPLA asking for them?

they are not in the decision, they arrived say 7 days before any decision was made so that you could send in a rebuttal on their website, prior to the decision

yes email them and ask for the evidence pack for a court case, PE should have included the pictures in that evidence pack

Steparius

I'm adding this to my defence. I would appreciate any comments, thank you very much:

8. A quick online research (web link not allowed here but will be present in the defence) reveals that the car park site has a long history of complaints. It also revealed that there has been a recent change in management of the car park (in the first semester of 2019). The Defendant parking ticket is from November 2019. The signs that are on display in the car park as of July 2020 are different from the ones that were on display when the defendant parked its vehicle in November 2019; at that time, the signs in the car park were still from the previous management.

8.1 Given the recent change in car park management and how close that date is to the date that the Defendant parked their vehicle, the Claimant is put to strict proof of the date of when the carpark signage was updated.

8.2 The ability to enter into a contract depends on the clear communication of the terms and conditions of said contract. Given the inconsistency between the signage on site at the time and the actual company managing the car park, the defendant could not have entered into a contract without proper definition and understanding of its terms & conditions, therefore it can not be considered that there is a breach of contract.