Is it worth submitting a POPLA appeal against LPS? What to do....?

moneymark

Hi there,
I received a parking fine from LPS for parking in the Church St Car Park in Ashford whilst visiting Tescos with my partner, I remained in the vehicle.

Unbeknown to me the Tesco Car Park which allows 30 minutes free parking merges into a second private Car Park run by LPS, it's purposely sign posted very subtlety and is very difficult for anyone unfamiliar with the area to distinguish the 2 and that you are crossing into a private car park. Complete entrapment! 

I submitted the appeal template letter from the forum to them which they have rejected with the email response below.

Is it worth submitting a POPLA appeal or is it likely to be rejected? If I pay now it's £60, if I appeal further and loose it jumps to £100

Any help and advice as to which way to go would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks in advance

Thank you for your email dated XXXXXXX

We advise that the Ashford car park operates as a pay system for all car park users including blue badge holders. This is clearly stated on the signs located throughout the car park.

We advise that upon entering the car park a ticket should be purchased from the machines, entering your vehicle registration. This is will then communicate with our camera operated ANPR system.

As the car park is ANPR controlled the camera has picked up the vehicle entering and exiting the car park and captured images accordingly calculating the stay duration within the car park. 

As no payment was made for parking the Parking Charge Notice was issued correctly.

We advise that the registered keeper is liable for payment of the unpaid Parking Charge Notice if they are unable to provide us with the driver’s details at the time the Parking Charge Notice was issued. 

Please refer to Protections of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule four, for further details on this.

If you are able to provide us with the drivers details at the time the Parking Charge Notice was issued we will contact them directly. If you cannot provide us with these details we will have no option but to pursue the claim against you as the registered keeper.

The legal basis of the Parking Charge Notice is based on the contract entered by drivers who park on private land. The terms and conditions upon which the contract is based is clearly stated on all signage located throughout the car park. When parking on private land the motorist freely enters into an agreement to abide by the conditions for parking in return for permission to park, it is the motorists responsibility to ensure they abide by any clearly displayed conditions for parking.

Thank you for your appeal against the parking charge notice issued by us to you on the XXXXXXXX for the contravention which took place on the XXXXXXXX.  Having carefully considered the evidence provided by you we regret your appeal has been unsuccessful for the following reasons:

•            Failure to Pay for the Duration of Stay

You now have a number of options:

1.         Pay the Parking Charge Notice at the reduced amount of £60.00 within 14 days, this payment can be made by:

I.            Payment can be made using our online payment system, please use link https://lpspay.iview.co.uk/  and follow the instructions.

II.           Alternately you can make a payment on our automated phone line by calling 0844 474 0904.

Please note that after the 14 days the Parking Charge Notice will increase to £100.00.

2.         Make an appeal to POPLA – The independent Appeals Service by visiting www.popla.co.uk and submitting your appeal online.  Please note that if you wish to appeal to POPLA, you will lose the right to pay the charge at the discounted rate of £60.00, and should POPLA’s decision not go in your favour you will be required to pay the full amount of £100.00. If you opt to pay the Parking Charge you will be unable to appeal to POPLA.

3.            If you choose to do nothing we will seek to recover the monies owed to us via our debt recovery procedures and may proceed with Court action against you.

You have now reached the end of our internal appeals procedure. 

If you wish to appeal to POPLA, please submit your appeal online by visiting www.popla.co.uk.

When submitting your appeal to POPLA, please use verification code XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Please note that you have 28 days from the date of this email to submit your appeal to POPLA.

By law we are also required to inform you that Ombudsman Services www.ombudsman-services.org/ 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.

Yours sincerely,

Appeals Department

Local Parking Security Ltd.

PO Box 6321

Warwick

Warwickshire

CV34 9QB

D_P_Dance

It is not a fine.  Have you complained to your MP'.  IMO, from what you have told us, you stand a good chance with PoPLA, and an even better one iif they are daft enough to take you to  court.  

deighton2002

Get pictures of the poor signage, maybe of Tesco's signs too so that you can contrast the two in an argument.  Argue what you know is true, that you could not reasonably know you were going onto a different carpark.  Any failings on signs that are in the BPA rules are good AOS_Code_of_Practice_January_2020_v8(2).pdf (britishparking.co.uk)
Explain why the boundary is vague, with pics illustrating that.
Poor signage seems to be able to win at POPLA, and may well simply scare them off.  You almost always lose the first appeal (as you did) and they just press a button to give you spiel about the signs being good enough.  The debt recovery procedure is just letters, no visitors, they can progress to small claims or county court however.

Don't name the driver and appeal as registered keeper, then there seems a decent chance that they will have failed to comply with Preservations of Freedoms Act (POFA) - people here seem to know about that and how to word it on your POPLA appeal (you can appeal on multiple issues)

blackdog2220

take your time gathering photos and if nessessary vids of entering there land , and YES do a popla appeal 
all appeals to popla are on hold at the moment and your aplication will serve as a marker , to which you can add more details later 

it will cost LPS £25 + vat to challenge you , by the time your appeal comes around (2050 by way its looking) they may have gone bancrupt , all died of the lurgy or simply not bother to challenge 

do NOT pay them £60 , that money will be used for new film in there brownie box camera (anpr) lunch and 1.5 popla invoices 

as the young ones say 

SAY NO 

Umkomaas

You should use the opportunity to appeal to POPLA, but also during that time you need to contact the landowner and ask for them to intervene and get this cancelled. The NEWBIES FAQ sticky takes you through the stages. Don't miss your POPLA deadline in chasing the landowner. 

Do some forum searches as we've had a few cases about a car park in Ashford, quite possibly the same one as in your case. Check out how they progressed. 

I remained in the vehicle.

I'm not sure what that implies?

Le_Kirk

deighton2002 said:

Don't name the driver and appeal as registered keeper, then there seems a decent chance that they will have failed to comply with Preservations of Freedoms Act (POFA) - people here seem to know about that and how to word it on your POPLA appeal (you can appeal on multiple issues)

POFA = Protection of Freedoms Act!