Response from parking company

nobody90

Hi all,

I followed the guidance given in the FAQ thread relating to a PCN which I was notified of through the post.

I’ve received the below in response and am at a loss as to how I should proceed. Any advice / direction would be most appreciated.

**********

Thank you for getting in touch with [company].

This car park is private land and [company] has been engaged by the landowner to ensure that motorists pay the correct parking tariff.

Your details were provided to us by the DVLA as the registered keeper of the vehicle on the date of the event. Parking on private land is governed by the Protection of Freedoms Act (2012), which introduced keeper liability for parking charges incurred on private land. If you are the keeper of a vehicle that has breached the terms and conditions of a site that we manage, and the driver of the vehicle is unidentified, we are entitled to recover any unpaid PCN amount from you.

Our Notice to Keeper is fully compliant with the Protection of Freedoms Act (2012).

[Information on signage at the site]

When a vehicle enters the car park our cameras take a timestamped photo of your vehicle. The system does the same on exit. The system then calculates the stay time based on these reads. Our cameras and computing equipment are regularly checked. The British Parking Association audits the ANPR systems in use by parking operators in order to ensure the systems are in good working order and the data collected is accurate. We have records of cars entering and exiting the car park between the times you entered and exited which confirms the system was working correctly at the time. Our system has correctly calculated that you stayed at [location] for [time period]. Please find attached all images we have of this vehicle from [date] as requested.

The British Parking Association Code of Practice 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.”

We do not disclose our grace period, but we can confirm that the driver has exceeded our grace period and the minimum 10 minute grace period suggested by the BPA.

As requested we have checked our records and can only find one payment for this VRN, or any VRN resembling it on the [Date]. We can see that a payment of £2 was made for VRN [VRN] at [time], allowing the vehicle to remain in the car park for up to an hour. However, this vehicle stayed for [time], and as a sufficient tariff was not paid for parking, we have no option but to reject this appeal. We understand your frustration but the parking tariffs are clearly displayed at the site and are in operation 24 / 7.

By entering and parking on this privately owned land, the driver entered into a contract with [company] and agreed to be bound by the terms and conditions, which are clearly displayed on the signs at the entrance and throughout the site. The full parking tariff must be paid prior to leaving the car park and the correct Vehicle Registration Number (VRN) entered. As a sufficient tariff was not paid for parking, we have no option but to reject your appeal. We understand your frustration but the parking tariffs are clearly displayed at the site and are in operation 24 / 7.

You have now reached the end of our internal appeals procedure and you now have two options; you can either pay or appeal to POPLA. You cannot do both. If you feel you have not been given a fair decision from Carflow you have the right to appeal to POPLA, the independent appeals service (see attached form). Your POPLA appeal code can be found at the beginning of this correspondence. You must appeal to POPLA within 28 days of this rejection notice. The quickest and easiest way to submit your appeal to POPLA is online at. If you appeal to POPLA within the discounted payment period, you will lose the opportunity to pay at the discounted rate.

As a gesture of goodwill we are willing to extend the discounted payment period by 14 days from the date of this correspondence. Therefore, payment can still be made at the discounted rate of £60 until [date]. Payment must be made within 28 days. If payment is delayed beyond [date], an administrative charge may be added for late payment and debt recovery or court action may be taken. Additional costs may also be incurred as a result of debt recovery or court action.

By law we are also required to inform you that Ombudsman Services provides an alternative dispute resolution service that would be competent to deal with your appeal. However, we have not chosen to participate in their alternative dispute resolution service. As such should you wish to appeal then you must do so to POPLA, as explained above.

Umkomaas

This car park is private land and [company] 

Why......?  The most important information hidden from those you are asking for help!

nobody90

Umkomaas said:

This car park is private land and [company] 

Why......?  The most important information hidden from those you are asking for help!

Carflow. I tried to exclude any information that wasn’t needed.

KeithP

The British Parking Association audits the ANPR systems in use by parking operators in order to ensure the systems are in good working order and the data collected is accurate.

The BPA does not do that.

Fruitcake

Please tell us the location and type of the car park. What happened when you complained to the landowner?

Since you have presumably read the NEWBIES where you found the appeal template, further reading of said NEWBIES will tell you what to do next, which is to construct a draft PoPLA appeal and post it here for checking before submitting it.

Get pics of the site and signage, and use all the template appeal points available to you from the third post of the NEWBIES.

Also complain to the BPA that Carflow are telling lies by saying the BPA audit ANPR scameras.

nobody90

I will raise a complain regarding Carflows claim of audit.

The location is a private BPA parking place close to a hospital.

I did not contact the owner of the land as it’s unrelated to the hospital although I appreciate this may have been a better option.

KeithP

To expand on my earlier post, read this post by @beccih1892 from March2018, where Steve Clark of the BPA has already stated:

Our auditors check operators compliance with this Code clause and not the cameras themselves.

Steve Clarke needs to be told about Carflow Limited's misinterpretation of the BPA's Code of Practice.

Fruitcake

nobody90 said:

I will raise a complain regarding Carflows claim of audit.

The location is a private BPA parking place close to a hospital.

I did not contact the owner of the land as it’s unrelated to the hospital although I appreciate this may have been a better option.

The BPA have no involvement with the car parks themselves. Again, what was the location and type of car park?

You have (possibly) eliminated a hospital car park which leaves us with, residential, retail park, railway, supermarket, pub or restaurant or ??? in an as yet undefined location in one of the four nations within the UK. That's an awful lot of car parks.
Bear in mind the regulars may already have knowledge of the car park in question, or it may have cropped up before on this forum over the years, but we are not mind-readers.

Coupon-mad

What do you need to know about POPLA stage that's not already in the POPLA template section of post #3 of the NEWBIES thread?

nobody90

Fruitcake said:

nobody90 said:

I will raise a complain regarding Carflows claim of audit.

The location is a private BPA parking place close to a hospital.

I did not contact the owner of the land as it’s unrelated to the hospital although I appreciate this may have been a better option.

The BPA have no involvement with the car parks themselves. Again, what was the location and type of car park?

You have (possibly) eliminated a hospital car park which leaves us with, residential, retail park, railway, supermarket, pub or restaurant or ??? in an as yet undefined location in one of the four nations within the UK. That's an awful lot of car parks.
Bear in mind the regulars may already have knowledge of the car park in question, or it may have cropped up before on this forum over the years, but we are not mind-readers.

Leicester - Havelock Street. It’s just a relatively small stand alone private car park across the road from the hospital. I’ve had a look for other cases on these boards but couldn’t find anything.

KeithP

@nobody90, in the response you received from Carflow we read: 

The British Parking Association audits the ANPR systems in use by parking operators in order to ensure the systems are in good working order and the data collected is accurate.

In that March 2018 post I mentioned earlier we see these words attributed to a PoPLA assessor:

"...the British Parking Association audits the camera systems in use by parking operators in order to ensure that they are in good working order and that the data collected is accurate"

Aren't those statements amazingly similar?