Let's not waste an opportunity. Updated now with the sweet taste of victory.

Umkomaas

I was only considering it in an attempt to perhaps coax them into court action.

If you're anxious to coax them into court action, simply send them a FRO/FOAD letter and encourage them to issue proceedings. Otherwise it's just time-wasting froth!

Coupon-mad

On asking several local business I was informed, that the department for Infrastructure had been and removed all of them that morning, 27/07/20 after complaints had been made to the council, the street was a public street and the signage had been illegally placed there they believe by the owner of a local multi story car park which exits onto the street.

The following day I contacted the council who confirmed what the businesses had told me and also detailed some past behaviour of the car park owner extending and modifying the double yellow lines on the street, resulting in them having to be burned off by the DfI.

The council had already instructed the car park owner to refund all paid fines, and cancel outstanding ones, I have asked the council to confirm in writing that it is a public road which will have to come from the DfI, I am still waiting. 

A week later entering the details of the fine into the notsosmartparking site and phone system the fine is still active and accepting payment.

I hope as well as emailing the DVLA (they can always pass it to the DVA) you will complain to Steve Clark at the BPA?

steve.c@britishparking.co.uk

He needs to know about this.  It is a serious one.

DVLA complaint email recommended, is to try both of these:

ccrt@dvla.gov.uk

and 

kadoeservice.support@dvla.gov.uk

Sue_Danim

I had been waiting for written confirmation of the roads public status, though today I found a post on the facebook of the local MLA, our MP equivalent in the NI Assembly confirming the charges to be illegitimate, DfI's removal of signage and request to cancel refund all fees. 

I have emailed SteveC :
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Hello,

I was given your address as a point of contact to complain about illegal activity by a parking company, Smart Parking. I received a charge from them in the post as the registered keeper of a vehicle parked on McKeown street in Lisburn. There are several points I intend to raise directly with them, however importantly in this case, the street is a public one, not private property as such they had no right to start issuing charges. Lisburn council and the department for Infrastructure (DfI) last Monday, 27/07/20 removed all the illegally placed signage and asked smart parking to repay all paid charges and cancel outstanding ones. Smart Parkings automated phone system is still accepting payment for my charge and lists an outstanding balance of £60 so I can only assume at this point it is still active and not cancelled as per the DfI's instruction. I have not yet got it in writing from the council or DfI it is a public road but I can refer you to the Facebook post of Paul Given the local MLA (MP equivalent in the NI Assembly)  [link removed not allowed to post links, facebook profile of paulgiven1 if anyone wishes to see] see the post from 28 July, wherein he confirms the fines to be illegitimate and DfI's instruction to smart parking to refund/cancel all charges.

While these actions may constitute a criminal act exactly where liability rests I am not sure. However I put it to you that smart parking have acted in breech of your code of practice (BPA Approved Operator Scheme, Code of Practice, Volume 8 Jan 2020)specifically:

Para 7.1, They did not have the written authorisation of the land owner as it is public land, at best they may have written authorisation from an individual claiming to be the land owner, which they failed to verify, at best.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Coupon-mad

OK now forward that same email to the two possible DVLA contacts, because it is so serious it is a major DVLA/KADOE breach.

Sue_Danim

update Appeal rejected.

what I sent:

/////////////////////////////////

I dispute this debt in its entirety. McKeown Street is a public road and as such you have no right to monitor, control or penalise drivers for its use or parking on it, furthermore, by doing so you may be committing a criminal act. The council is aware of this situation and as of 27/07/20 the Department for Infrastructure has removed all illegally placed signage from the street. The council have informed me they have contacted the owner of the local car-park who has displayed previous deviant behaviour in regards to this street and whose car park the ANPR cameras are affixed to, as they believe him to be responsible for contracting you. The DfI I am told have contacted you instructing yourselves to refund all paid fines and cancel outstanding ones. I have included a face book post from the local government representative confirming all the above.

Should you wish to pursue this,you will lose but I invite you to prove a debt exists by proving the following:

A)The vehicle was parked on McKeown street. 

   The street is a dead end and all three illegally places ANPR cameras face the same direction,see photo included as evidence, you have two photos of my car being driven along a dead end street in the same direction on two separate occasions.

If A is proven, then please show on that date there was adequate signage meeting BPA and AOS regulations at McKeown street.

     I have included a photo of the street as it is now post council action, I appreciate signage must have been present for them to remove it. Please show it to have been adequate in placement and design to meet all requirements.

C) If A and also B, then please show that I am liable for this debt as the registered keeper, or that I am obligated to identify the driver. 

D) Irrespective of A, B and C. Please show that the road is private property and you had the landowners permission to enforce parking on this street as per BPA code of practice para 7.1.  

As such I expect confirmation of the cancellation of the above charge, and all others as per the councils instruction to yourselves, you have 14 days, the same 14 days you gave me. After which any  escalations in price or continued pursuit of this charge will be fought and I will seek to reclaim all expenses incurred and compensation for time in dealing with this fraudulent charge, this is a fight you will lose.

Eagerly awaiting your apology

Sue Danim
/////////////////////////////////////////////
INcluded pics of the now signless street, picture of facebok post from local representative stating charges illigetimate.

their Reply:
Dear Sue Danim

Parking Charge Notice Number : 3.1415926535887
Thank you for your recent communication.

We note the comments made in your appeal, however we can not rescind the PCN on this basis. Please be advised that when using the car park in question you must adhere to the advertised Terms and Conditions and it is the responsibility of the driver to ensure they acknowledge the signage upon entering the site. We can confirm that there is signage on entrance to, and around the car park grounds. All signage is BPA approved.

Please note, the BPA Code of Practice January 2020, paragraph 27.2, states as well as the signs you must have telling drivers about the terms and conditions for parking, you must also have a standard form of entrance sign at the entrance to the parking area. It also states in paragraph 27.3, 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. There are several signs situated around the car park that advise of the terms and conditions and we can confirm all signage on site is BPA approved. Please be aware all signs are set to a standardised height, regulations and written in clearly and intelligible language; as per the BPA requirements.  There is no ambiguous language or jargon on any of the Smart Parking signs at this site.

Furthermore we would like to confirm that Mckeown Street is part of the private car parking site.

The PCN's are enforceable under Contract Law; upon entering the car park you agree to the terms and conditions which are clearly stated on the signs. Your vehicle was parked in breach of these terms and conditions therefore we must advise the PCN was correctly issued and remains outstanding.

Please be advised that the site in question has a process in place in order to provide any vehicle registrations details to us that are required to be exempt from the parking restrictions. Having thoroughly checked our records we can confirm that we have not received any correspondence from the site regarding your vehicle details being exempt from the parking restrictions, and therefore the Terms and Conditions must be adhered to.

The contravention in question is in regards to unauthorised parking. As your vehicle remained on site for 37 minutes we can confirm that this PCN has been issued correctly and we have made the decision to uphold the charge.  The Terms and Conditions of the car park are clearly advertised around the site

We wish to inform that the car park in question is operated by ANPR cameras which capture images of your vehicle entering and exiting the site, which subsequently calculates your total stay duration. This information is then compared to the terms and conditions of the site, of which we can confirm appears on signage around the site.

Smart Parking keep any ANPR equipment used in our car parks in good working order. The data we collect is accurate, securely held and cannot be tampered with. The processes used to manage the ANPR system are audited by BPA compliance teams. It is also a condition of the BPA Code of practice that, if we receive and process vehicle or registered keeper data, we 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


We wish to inform that we have extended the initial discount period to xxxxx ,if you wish to make a formal appeal please do so the aforementioned date.


Yours sincerely,

Smart Parking Ltd

Sue_Danim

the last paragraph is as I recieved it, no date just xxxxxxx  and I presume they mean please do so BEFORE the date.  I thought they were also to issue some number for appeals if rejecting.

KeithP

Sue_Danim said:

I thought they were also to issue some number for appeals if rejecting.

Yes, if this were in England or Wales, as members of the BPA's Approved Operator Scheme, upon rejecting your appeal Smart should've sent you a PoPLA Verification Code allowing an appeal to PoPLA.

You are in Northern Ireland and quite rightly appealed as the Keeper. As said earlier, PoPLA only accept appeals from Drivers in NI, so I am not sure whether they should've supplied the keeper with a PoPLA code.

Castle

KeithP said:

Sue_Danim said:

I thought they were also to issue some number for appeals if rejecting.

Yes, if this were in England or Wales, as members of the BPA's Approved Operator Scheme, upon rejecting your appeal Smart should've sent you a PoPLA Verification Code allowing an appeal to PoPLA.

You are in Northern Ireland and quite rightly appealed as the Keeper. As said earlier, PoPLA only accept appeals from Drivers in NI, so I am not sure whether they should've supplied the keeper with a PoPLA code.

They still have to provide a POPLA code even if it relates to Scotland/Northern Ireland-(31.12 of the BPA Code).

KeithP

Castle said:

They still have to provide a POPLA code even if it relates to Scotland/Northern Ireland-(31.12 of the BPA Code).

Then a complaint to the BPA is in order.

Sue_Danim

got bored replied with:

I received your semi-generic rejection of my appeal. I will let you reconsider. Let me first reiterate I dispute this debt in it's entirety, I asked you prove it with 4 points, you failed to even prove one, I will return to this shortly. First Let us consider the abomination of a reply You produced, you are to be congratulated I suppose for your continued belief that the charge is legitimate despite the evidence against it. In fact your complete disregard for all evidence presented is impressive, I would suggest you could go far in the Flat-Earth or Anti-Vax movements if you are not already associated with them.

As for your reply to my appeal, lets break it down.

"We note the comments made in your appeal, however we can not rescind the PCN on this basis. Please be advised that when using the car park in question you must adhere to the advertised Terms and Conditions and it is the responsibility of the driver to ensure they acknowledge the signage upon entering the site. We can confirm that there is signage on entrance to, and around the car park grounds. All signage is BPA approved"

Failure to rescind the PCN is noted, the DfI and MLA will be informed tomorrow that you continue to pursue the charges against their explicit instruction. You can confirm there is signage??  My photographic evidence clearly showed there was none. The second point I invited you to prove was there WAS(past tense) adequate signage. I have clearly demonstrated there presently is none, I stated when it was removed and included the photos of the street post removal, your assertion that there is signage is wrong, or purposefully misleading.

The following paragraph of your reply stated some codes from the BPA. Again I asked you to prove at the time of the supposed infraction signage was adequate, stating that it was or quoting the BPA codes of practice fails to do this.

"Furthermore we would like to confirm that Mckeown Street is part of the private car parking site."

Stating it is so does not make it so. I provided proof it was a public road, that of the council and DfI's involvement in removing your signage and photographic proof of a statement from the local government representative.

"The PCN's are enforceable under Contract Law; upon entering the car park you agree to the terms and conditions which are clearly stated on the signs. Your vehicle was parked in breach of these terms and conditions therefore we must advise the PCN was correctly issued and remains outstanding"

I appreciate the signs constitute an offer that is accepted by a driver parking, however without the permission of the  landowner(actual landowner) you do not have the authority to make any offer and a driver parking there cannot therefore be considered to have accepted those terms.  

the next paragraphs again mentioned terms and conditions and signage at the site, stating they are clearly displayed. Did you not view the pictures I attached there is no signage despite your confirmations or assertions to the contrary, I provided photographic proof in my defence you have ignored.

"We wish to inform that we have extended the initial discount period to xxxxx ,if you wish to make a formal appeal please do so the aforementioned date"

May I take it that you have indefinetly extended the initial discount period, how very nice of you.

I invited you to prove the debt by showing:

A) My car was parked on the street no just driving down it on two occasions.  Your proof is to state the cameras are working correctly and that I was. You have failed to prove this just stated it is so.  The Entrance and exit photos have my car travelling in the same direction on a dead end street. Unless you are claiming it was reversed down the street then driven forward 37 minutes later.

There was adequate signage on the day of the supposed infraction. you in-spite of the evidence to the contrary continue to assert that the signage is presently adequate. My provided photos show a complete absence of signage. It is not presently adequate by no means, I invited you to prove it WAS(past tense) You have failed in this regard, stating it complies with BPA standards is not proof or evidence in any regard.

C) That as keeper I was liable for the debt or obligated to identify the driver, we both know I am not to both of the above. Cleverly you side stepped and ignored this one.

D) that the street was private, again you stated it was.  I provided evidence against that claim that of the Councils and DfIs actions in removing the signage and the MLA's post on facebook detailing the situation, your statement that it is private you have provided no evidence in support of.  

I invited you to prove a debt existed and raised four points, you ignored 1, the other 3 you stated you were right,wether signage parking or status of the road, without regard to the photographic evidence provided by myself.  If you consider simply stating signage is adequate or the road is private makes it so then It is now my stance that the car I am the registered keeper of was never on the street at all. You have distracted me long enough I have to return to coaching the Swedish ladies Olympic beach volleyball team, I can confirm to you I am their coach, and also the new drummer for Aerosmith. Actually I can confirm I don't have  a car, just a flying egg.

As per stated conditions in my appeal, failure to cancel the charge as per Dfi/Council/MLA instruction and continued pursuit of a disputed and demonstrably illegitimate debt against me upon my inevitable victory I will seek to reclaim all expense and compensation for my wasted time from you. 

Ps I once arm wrestled a Gorilla and won.

Your defeat is certain.

Nano nano

Sue Danim