CEL PCN - Ticket Machine payment failure - non-payment in accordance to signage

recp1603

Dear all,

Firstly thank-you for all the feedback, contributions and Newbie information that’s been put together by many of you on these PCNs over the years, truly outstanding work which helps many of us out. I've previously got a supermarket to cancel a ParkingEye ticket for overstaying a free car park by complaining to them on twitter, so plan A really can work!

I’m disappointed to say this is another CEL related post, which I’m helping out on behalf of the Keeper. The incident occurred early last month within the car park of Swanley Park (private land), which I understand is owned by Swanley Town Council. The PCN was issued 9 days after the incident, with the PCN received a further 4 days later. Reminder before further action was received a few days ago. I was trying to post this last week for feedback, however had to wait for my account to be approved.

This is the PCN issued:

Firstly, I have submitted a complaint to Swanley Town Council on behalf of the Keeper (no response yet), and due the deadline for appealing to CEL I've had to submit by online appeal using the standard wording as per the Newbie thread. I suspect it will be rejected and then revert to POPLA, but wanted to understand the chance of success further down the line, as the Keeper is conscious of what might happen. Also rather than the standard template, would there have been any value in adding additional information based on the below, or is this best to save for POPLA stage? I note their reference to PoFA on the back PCN as well.

• An attempt was made to pay for parking for over 2 hours (£3.00) via contactless card within 10 minutes of arrival, with the subsequent ticket displayed in the car. After 2+ hours the vehicle left the car park.
• However, it transpires that the ticket machine did not complete the transaction and having seen it, it mentions 'cancelled' on it. The ticket itself is remains available to show the intention to pay.
• Another member of the party that also had issues trying to pay by machine, and was also on the phone for 45 minutes without success (they received a PCN too), so clearly those options were not working effectively. I've been advised that when they had spoken to others, that the ticket machine also failed for them. So it'd be interesting to know how many failed transactions occurred that day.
• Without seeing myself, I’ve been told that given the height of the sign, its not very clear what the app is actually called, and there are generally poor reviews (1.3/5) of the app itself on Google Play Store. I managed to find the below an image found on the internet of one of the signs from last year, I don't believe its changed: 
• Once it was noticed the next week that payment wasn’t showing on the bank account, and then cross-checked against the parking ticket, a payment of £3.00 was made in good faith via the app (it worked!) to avoid any loss to the council, which was the day before the PCN was received.

Should I have included this information to CEL, or it was ok to use the standard template, given they have provided an image of the car on entry/exit but nothing on signage etc. I will also add that the ANPRs are in place since last year, and whilst this is land owned by Swanley Town Council, I did not find any planning permission to add ANPRs, is this legal, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Thank you for taking the time to read my babbling, but would be good to understand if you think we have a case when it reaches POPLA stage, as the Keeper is worried about the stages that follow on. They have a young family so time for these things are very limited, so anything I can do, or you can advise on is most welcome!

Fruitcake

If the keeper has received a reminder then the appeal deadline has passed.

Was an initial appeal made to the initial NTK within the appeal timeframe, usually 28 days for BPA members?

What was the date of the alleged event and the date of the NTK? Redacting that information does not help us to help you.

It's either private land or it is council owned land. You need to determine which it is. The PoFA only applies on relevant (private) land.

Coupon-mad

As it is Council owned land, it is not 'relevant land' and the keeper cannot be held liable in law as the site is outside of the land covered by the POFA.  That's what the POPLA appeal should focus on when the keeper gets the rejection letter or email.  Same for the other person with the PCN at the  same place, as long as they haven't gone and appealed and blabbed about who was driving. 

You can copy the wording of any APCOA Airport or railway POPLA appeal, as they all have  the 'not relevant land' section and that's the style of POPLA appeal needed.

recp1603

Thank you both for your inputs at these hours. The incident took place on 2nd May, NKT letter issue date 11th May (received on 15th May). I appealed on behalf of Keeper on 6th May which is within 28 days if I calculated it correctly.

My understanding is that the Council own the land, however as by this image from Google maps you can just about see a sign up that says Private Land on the left, but not sure if the Council is trying to pull a fast one:


I'll hold off for a short period, pending the appeal to CEL, but will take a look at the Not relevant land wording further and use this as a basis for POPLA appeal, this is helpful information so thank you.

Regarding use of ANPRs, is this something they are allowed to do??

fisherjim

This land is owned by Swanley Town Council the clues are all here:

https://www.swanleypark.co.uk/?fbclid=IwAR32vz65eLIbbfF04-TqV8zXRtkHp_DLy4U53QO-zAYhOFIKkBRj5ojTSUw

https://www.swanleypark.co.uk/swanley-park-tripadvisor-award/

https://cds.sevenoaks.gov.uk/mgParishCouncilDetails.aspx?ID=225&LS=1&J=1&fbclid=IwAR3jubOZfoSQ5fyhoosXvXM1LCWLVzlwSpb7JI2IFsZxCRJDCR-DuLMt0Yw

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157419170327024&set=p.10157419170327024&type=3

Notice the Park director Ryan Hayman is also the contact for Swanley Town Council.

I would be contacting him on that email point out that their ANPR is not authorised by the government for use in council owned car parks and that you will be reporting it to the relevant government department.

It cost High Wycombe thousands when they fell fowl of the law, and had to reinstate their car parks back to approved schemes.

fisherjim

Another disgruntled customer:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157219820012024&set=p.10157219820012024&type=3

D_P_Dance

Have you complained to your MP?

recp1603

Hi all, apologies for the delay in coming back, life gets in the way...

Thank you for your comments and sharing your research and suggestions, interesting to see the confirmation of authority fisherjim.
I've not contact my MP yet, not contacted the council about their use of ANPR's, but this is something to follow up on.

So where am I with this PCN? This was my email to the council's main email address last week:
I'm disappointed to inform you that as the Keeper of the vehicle I have been issued a Parking Charge Notice (PCN xxxxxxxxx, received on 15th May 2021) by Civil Enforcement Ltd, despite understanding there was an attempt to pay after arrival, however the faulty equipment on the site prevented the transaction being completed, as well as another number of issues. This relates to the vehicle (xxxx xxx) using Swanley Park car park on 2nd May 2021.

Whilst I understand that Civil Enforcement Ltd may be acting on your behalf as landowners, I understand that the parking ticket machine in question was rejecting payments, and no signage was present to indicate that the machine was not fully operational.

As per the attached ticket, you can see an attempt was made to pay £3.00 for the parking over 2 hours, however it was only noted a number of days later that no record of this transaction was present on the bank account, and that the transaction had not completed; afterwhich I understand a payment of £3.00 was made on the 14th May 2021 in good faith to ensure no material loss of income to yourselves, see attached screenshot.

Furthermore, there is a clear issue with the signage present, it is high up and the logo/name of the app is very poor, dark blue name on a black background, making it hard to know what the app itself is called to download. You will also note that the app itself (link) has a rating of 1.3/5 from nearly 2500 reviews on Google Play, which speaks volumes about its reliability and user-friendliness. 

Another party present on the same day has also received PCN, this is despite them trying to pay on the machine and then spending 45 minutes on a phone call trying to pay (unsuccessfully), so clearly Civil Enforcement acting on your behalf are making it very difficult for visitors to the park pay correctly, and one could argue they are using this as a money making scheme from genuine patrons. I understand many others that day have had issues whilst trying to pay, whichever method that was used.

Therefore I have two asks in relation to this, firstly, I kindly request for this PCN to the registered keeper to be cancelled given the above, and secondly please can you ensure that Civil Enforcement Ltd ensure their machines, and electronic payment methods are fit for purpose, because they are tainting the reputation of Swanley Park and Swanley Town Council.

Hopefully, this can be resolved and any future visits will not have the same issues. I look forward to hearing from you.

This was the response I got today from the Park and Open Spaces Manager at the council:

The PCN xxxxxx has been cancelled and you will receive a letter in the post within the next few days.

With regards to the issues with  payment. We are aware some users have had issues and we are pressing and working with Creative Parking & Phone and pay to rectify this.

We are in the process of having a parking meter added to our other car park up at the Birches and the phone and pay apps have been heavily invested in to fix the issues users have been having.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us and I apologies that this particular visit wasn’t a pleasant one. I can assure you that all of these issues/concerns will be flagged up and solutions will be actioned.   

So PLAN A has yet again given a successful outcome for the the Keeper. 

Le_Kirk

Well done, Plan A, as you say, strikes again.

Coupon-mad

You need to reply and point out that Council car parks cannot be run by ANPR as this was banned under the Deregulation Act 2015. Tell them to look what happened to Wycombe Council when they tried the same unlawful scheme as if the car park was private land, which public car parks are not. 

D_P_Dance

• https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6242993/court-report-brentford-telephone-ukpc-roasted#latest