POPLA appeal for MET Parking Services

tallac

Done, thank you. So any other changes or good to send off?

Coupon-mad

I'd be starting with an introduction about social distancing and COVID queues delaying parking and also delaying people who had to queue for twice as long as usual.  I'd also be adding my own photos of lack of signs in whole areas of the car park, to the signage section. 

You want POPLA to believe you that the signs were pants and that an insufficient grace period was in place considering the queues (go to town on that first section and write it yourself). 

Say you want evidence that a risk assessment was carried out and that the landowner was consulted before enforcement re-started, because you believe the grace period was increased or removed at the time, according to locals, and you believe it was increased to 45 minutes on top of the 90 minutes free, to allow for the social distancing delays. Put the PPC to strict proof otherwise.

tallac

Coupon-mad said:

I'd be starting with an introduction about social distancing and COVID queues delaying parking and also delaying people who had to queue for twice as long as usual.  I'd also be adding my own photos of lack of signs in whole areas of the car park, to the signage section. 

You want POPLA to believe you that the signs were pants and that an insufficient grace period was in place considering the queues (go to town on that first section and write it yourself). 

Say you want evidence that a risk assessment was carried out and that the landowner was consulted before enforcement re-started, because you believe the grace period was increased or removed at the time, according to locals, and you believe it was increased to 45 minutes on top of the 90 minutes free, to allow for the social distancing delays. Put the PPC to strict proof otherwise.

Thank you so much again. Someone mentioned that because the letter was POFA complaint, it doesn't make a different if the letter mentions the driver or not. So then should the POPLA appeal still be written from the perspective of the keeper, and also avoid using I, me, my, myself? Not that the appeal will name the driver, but then sentences can be written with I, me, my etc to sound more natural.

nosferatu1001

If there is Keeper liability anyway, then outing the driver, if you, is fine. 

tallac

So post the final draft up here for review or send off?

Umkomaas

Coupon-mad said:

I'd be starting with an introduction about social distancing and COVID queues delaying parking and also delaying people who had to queue for twice as long as usual.  I'd also be adding my own photos of lack of signs in whole areas of the car park, to the signage section. 

You want POPLA to believe you that the signs were pants and that an insufficient grace period was in place considering the queues (go to town on that first section and write it yourself). 

Say you want evidence that a risk assessment was carried out and that the landowner was consulted before enforcement re-started, because you believe the grace period was increased or removed at the time, according to locals, and you believe it was increased to 45 minutes on top of the 90 minutes free, to allow for the social distancing delays. Put the PPC to strict proof otherwise.

There are numerous cases where post-lockdown easing of restrictions saw massive queues at drive-thru food outlets, resulting in over-zealous (greedy) issuing of unjustified PCNs by many operators. Like seagulls around a dropped bag of chips!

Add this newspaper article as evidence with the pre-amble suggested by @Coupon-mad.  If you can find a MET/McD's example add that too (or instead). 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8429591/KFC-fans-queue-hour-Wirral-drive-parking-fines.html

tallac

MET have now responded to the POPLA appeal and provided their PPC evidence pack. I have looked the guidance from the newbie sticky thread. I looked at other people's examples of how to rebut the PPCs case points. However, it seems like MET have really tightened up their evidence pack template. Many of the comments people have raised in their example counter response have been addressed in their response.

They have provided many photos of the specific car park that is in question. A birds eye view showing all the locations of the signs and then a ground view from a distance and a closer up view of pretty much every sign. Showing day, night and poor weather conditions of the signs. They have shown full details of the agreement with the land owner (and redacted extremely little information: MET's postal address, signatures on the contract).

I'm really struggling to think of what I can write to counter their points. Any help or guidance here? What does one write when they can think of nothing to counter? 

Coupon-mad

The landowner agreement...

nosferatu1001

So they redacted the signatures?
Bzzzt, not allowed to do that
POPLA and yourself now cannot verify that the contract is valid. 

tallac

So just to be clear, even if the signatures were not redacted, I'd have no way of verifying the contract is valid. However, making a point about signatures being redacted is just to nitpick at anything and everything to drag things out?