VCS Court Claim - Southend Airport No Stopping Zone 4 February 2021 at 8:30PM in Parking tickets, fines & parking 19 replies 675 views

prime20201010

Hi everyone,

I just received in January 2021 a court claim from ELMS Legal (who act on behalf of VCS) for an event that happened in January 2020: stopping in a No Stopping Zone at Southend Airport.
As advised, I initially sent VCS the template appeal online as RK.
Then I ignored debt collectors letters until the Letter Before Claim arrived, then I sent a SAR which they responded to.
Mr SHOREMAN-LAWSON from ELMS Legal served this Claim in January 2021 - I will find out the exact date.
I have acknowledged the service and now I have to prepare my Defence in the next 2 weeks.

I will be using the suggested template defence from Coupon-mad.
I am thinking of going with these points:

• 1. No locus standi: VCS has no capacity to bring a Claim. There is no signed agreement between the landowner and Excel to transfer duties to VCS.
• 2. No contract can exist between VCS and the defendant as the land is governed by its own byelaws and these have supremacy. This also means no keeper liability can ever exist. I am unsure why VCS do not find this clear.
• 3. No keeper liability as this is not "relevant land" under the POFA 2012 and the defendant puts it to strict proof that VCS show as to who the driver was at the time.
• 4. The signage is prohibitive in nature and not a genuine offer of terms for parking for the motorist to consider.

I will post my defence here later but your advice is much appreciated. Maybe there are more points I am not aware of that I could use?

Thank you for your help!

Redx

I am not sure why you have mentioned EXCEL in this , its VCS who patrol these airports, Excel is a sister company, but I assume that VCS brought the claim ?

read other Southend and Bristol airport threads on here over the las 13 months , see what was in those defences etc

post the issue date and AOS date below

KeithP

What is the Issue Date on the County Court Claim Form?

Upon what date did you file an Acknowledgment of Service?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

D_P_Dance

Have you complained to your MP?

prime20201010

Redx said:

I am not sure why you have mentioned EXCEL in this , its VCS who patrol these airports, Excel is a sister company, but I assume that VCS brought the claim ?

read other Southend and Bristol airport threads on here over the las 13 months , see what was in those defences etc

post the issue date and AOS date below

Will post the dates tonight, when I get home. I'm sure I will not miss the deadline to submit a Defence.
VCS brought the claim indeed. I read other (old and new) airport threads before posting the initial message. I remember a recent one mentioning that at Southend there is no contract with VCS, but there is one with the sister company, Excel. 
Thank you for your help, I was wondering whether there would be more points than the four I was planning to write.
Thank you again!

Redx

Post your paragraphs 2 and 3 below , then people can compare that to your previous posts , until then you won't get any feedback because you are expecting us to analyse your case and make suppositions !! The process doesn't work that way !

prime20201010

D_P_Dance said:

Have you complained to your MP?

I did, as advised by this forum. I got a good reply, with plenty of information, including mentions about ATA and The Parking (Code of Practice) Bill which became law in March 2019 and basically advising me to challenge this PCN.

prime20201010

KeithP said:

What is the Issue Date on the County Court Claim Form?

Upon what date did you file an Acknowledgment of Service?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

Issue Date 14/01 and AoS date 25/01

KeithP

prime20201010 said:

KeithP said:

What is the Issue Date on the County Court Claim Form?

Upon what date did you file an Acknowledgment of Service?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

Issue Date 14/01 and AoS date 25/01

With a Claim Issue Date of 14th January, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 16th February 2021 to file your Defence.

That's less than a week away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave it to the last minute.

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look at the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Don't miss the deadline for filing a Defence.

prime20201010

Redx said:

Post your paragraphs 2 and 3 below , then people can compare that to your previous posts , until then you won't get any feedback because you are expecting us to analyse your case and make suppositions !! The process doesn't work that way !

Here are my paragraphs #2 and #3. Sorry I left it so late, but very busy at home and work. Any feedback today would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for everything you do for the newbies like us.

2. It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle in question but liability is denied. The Defendant is unable to say for sure who was driving.

 

3. The Defendant first heard about this parking charge in January 2020 by post and was feeling harassed by the flurry of "debt recovery" letters sent throughout 2020. It also feels their personal data have been unlawfully collected using a spycar and breaching GDPR 2018.

No keeper liability

(a) The Defendant asserts that it will be common ground that this claim relates not to any agreed parking licence under contract, but instead to an assertion of 'stopping' at a site where byelaws apply to the roadways. If the Claimant is of the view that byelaws do not apply to these publicly accessible roadways, then they are by definition, part of the public highway and the usual rules of the Traffic Management Act 2004 must apply.

(b) In either case, this is not 'private land' under the definition intended by Parliament in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 ('the POFA'). The Defendant puts it to strict proof that VCS show as to who the driver was at the time. It is worth noting that multiple cases involving Southend Airport have reportedly been struck out in the past year, when a parking firm attempted to twist the facts to suggest that a contract had somehow been 'agreed' by a driver who did not actually park, but was just involved in the minor vicissitudes that can interrupt the action of driving around a sparsely-signed airport site.

No contract with Defendant

(c) If a contract is to be formed, upon entering the site a driver must be able to read, understand and agree to the terms and conditions and the conduct must be a deliberate act of parking and accepting clear signs, and this was not. This Claimant will no doubt adduce two appeal cases that their legal representatives managed to win some years ago, with convoluted arguments where the Consumer Rights Act 2015 was not even considered, namely VCS v Ward and VCS v Crutchley. Both are fully distinguished from this situation and both involved business parks/private land, not Airport roads which always remain under statutory control.

(d) In case the Claimant tries to point to VCS v Ward and suggest that the driver should have stopped earlier, got out and walked in on foot to read the signs, that is ludicrous and would have resulted in a parking charge or a penalty charge, in any case. As there was nothing to suggest it was private land, the Defendant was reasonably entitled to rely upon the normal regulations that relate to public highways such as this, and/or the Airport byelaws which cover the entire location.

No locus standi

(e) The Claimant is not the land owner so they have no standing to sue under the tort of trespass, where only a landowner could pursue damages, or the rules of the byelaws would take precedence. The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient interest in the land or that there are specific terms in its contract to bring an action on its own behalf. As a third party agent, the Claimant may not pursue any charge, unless specifically authorised by the principal and this is not a parking event on private land. Accordingly, it is denied that the Defendant breached any of the Claimant's purported contractual terms, whether express, implied, or by conduct.

nosferatu1001

Why are you using letter bullet points? No such numbering scheme is to be used. Use SIMPLE numbering to make it easy for all. 
Pretty sure locus standii is covered elsewhere in the template defence.