Private land disguised as public highway

neilsims

I parked on what appeared to be a public highway 5 years ago. The lane had been used for car parking without complaint from the landowner for at least 10 years. The highways is maintained at public expense. I finally got a claim this week. The land is owned by the canal and river trust. Their bylaws say the maximum fine is £5. C&RT confirm the bylaws are still in force via a FOI request. I intend to use this as part of my defence. They also put signs up (without planning permission) after they issued the notice on my car in front of witnesses and their uniformed officer told me and others to 'ignore the notice as it is unenforceable and they are just trying to get money by scaring people'. I hope my defence will work. Thoughts. Also, any idea what the fee is to make a counter claim for my time? 

KeithP

neilsims said:

I finally got a claim this week.

Are you saying you have received a County Court Claim Form?
If so, what is the Issue Date on it?

Is this about the same parking incident discussed here -
forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5638085/common-sense/p1

OK, that thread is now closed, but there is a lot of good information on it.
Just looking at the last post on that thread, there were plenty of suggestions made about how you might progress the issue, and further questions asked, but sadly no response from you.
Did you progress any of those ideas? If so, what was the outcome?

It might be a good idea to get that thread reopened and continue this discussion there.
One way of doing that would be to hit the report button -   - at the bottom right of the opening post on that thread and ask MSE Forum Team to open that thread and merge this thread with it.

Half_way

any reason as to why the thread was closed?

KeithP

Half_way said:

any reason as to why the thread was closed?

I guess it's just MSE 'tidying up'. They have a habit of just closing older threads.

neilsims

I have asked for the thread to be reopened.
I have recieved a county court claim date 16/8/2021 for an alleged offence on 18/10/2016.
I followed the advice and wrote to them and heard nothing for at least the last 2 years until a debt collectors letter about a month ago and then this.

KeithP

neilsims said:

I have asked for the thread to be reopened.

Don't hold your breath. I don't think they work weekends.  

neilsims said:

I have recieved a county court claim date 16/8/2021...

With a Claim Issue Date of 16th August, you have until Monday 6th September to file an Acknowledgment of Service but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. 

To file an AoS, follow the guidance in the Dropbox file linked from the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Having filed an AoS in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 20th September 2021 to file your Defence.

That's over four weeks 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 again at the second post on the NEWBIES thread - immediately following where you found the Acknowledgment of Service instructions.

Don't miss the deadline for filing an Acknowledgment of Service, nor that for filing a Defence.

neilsims said:

I followed the advice and wrote to them and heard nothing for at least the last 2 years until a debt collectors letter about a month ago and then this.

There are at least six questions asked of you by @Coupon-mad back in April 2019 in the last post on that thread
To this day, they all remain unanswered.

Umkomaas

@neilsims, your track record seems to suggest that you will ignore the questions of regulars giving of their free time to help you. How optimistic are you that they might continue to put in their effort if you don't play your part in exchange?

neilsims

Canal and river trust and the council are seperate.
I have a copy of C&RT bylaws that state you can park if you have business near the canal - I worked in a nearby office - unless the board say otherwise and the maximum fine is £5. C&RT confirm that the bylaws are still in force. LCC told VCS to remove the signs from lamposts. They then put their own signs up without planning permission. This was after they issued tickets. The road looks like any other road apart from the signs on the grass verge. No signs on the approach at the time of the alleged offence. I think they are on dodgy ground to say the least and the bylaw is the one they will struggle with.

neilsims

Like many on this forum, I appreciate and take on board the free advice offered I have answered the questions of regulars. This case died a death for at least 2 years until a debt collector letter out of the blue and then a claim form.  Apologies if umkomaas feels differently. If there is anything I haven't answered, let me know. The whole area of parking tickets is a mess and I am just trying to navigate my way through it as a layman.

Coupon-mad

Sounds like you have a good defence case to add to the usual template defence, top of the forum.  No evidence goes yet, that comes later, but you must summarise your reasons for denying liability in para 2 and 3 of our template defence, then email it.

We hope you have done the Government Consultation as we are asking everyone to do.

neilsims

Thanks to coupon-mad for comments, which I will follow today.
What is the Government Consultation? Is that the link to www.moneyclaim.gov.uk they sent on the claim form, where you admit or deny the claim?
Do you have a link for the Group Action against the DVLA? Sounds interesting and I would like to join.
Once I have emailed the evidence to the Court, is there then a hearing or does a judge read it and make a judgement based on what evidence I provide? All this is alien to me as you can probably tell!