Preparing a Defence for UK Park management

Fruitcake

I agree. Para 6 tells the claimant and court who was driving, which completely negates all your points about the PoFA and hirer/lessee liability.

Daiapolon2021

thank you will look into it. Let me know if any other comments please.

Coupon-mad

Daiapolon2021 said:

[continued]

BAPF. The scheme met, so far as appears, BAPF’s aim of providing its retail park lessees with spaces in which their customers could park. All three

conditions imposed were directed to this aim, and all were on their face reasonable. (The only comment that one might make, is that, although the signs made clear that it was a “Customer only car park”, the Parking Charge of £85 did not apply to this limitation, which might be important in central Chelmsford. The explanation is, no doubt, that, unlike a barrier operated scheme where exit can be made conditional upon showing or using a ticket or bill obtained from a local shop, a camera operated scheme allows no such control.) The scheme gave BAPF through ParkingEye’s weekly

payments some income to cover the costs of providing and maintaining the car park. Judging by ParkingEye’s accounts, and unless the Chelmsford car park was out of the ordinary, the scheme also covered ParkingEye’s costs of operation and gave their shareholders a healthy annual profit.

 

 

198. The £85 charge for overstaying is certainly set at a level which no ordinary customer (as opposed to someone deliberately overstaying for days) would wish to incur. It has to have, and is intended to have, a deterrent element, as Judge Moloney QC recognised in his careful judgment (para 7.14). Otherwise, a significant number of customers could all too easily decide to overstay, limiting the shopping possibilities of other customers. Turnover of customers is obviously important for a retail park. A scheme which imposed a much smaller charge for short overstaying or operated with fine gradations according to the period of overstay would be likely to be unenforceable and ineffective. It would also not be worth taking customers to Page 88 court for a few pounds. But the scheme is transparent, and the risk which the customer accepts is clear. The fact that, human nature being what it is, some customers under-estimate or over- look the time required or taken for shopping, a break or whatever else they may do, does not make the scheme excessive or unconscionable. The charge has to be and is set at a level which enables the managers to recover the costs of operating the scheme. It is here also set at a level enabling ParkingEye to make a profit. Unless BAPF was itself prepared to pay ParkingEye, which would have meant, in effect, that it was subsidising customers to park on its own site, this was inevitable. If BAPF had attempted itself to operate such a scheme, one may speculate that the charge might even have had to be set at a higher level to cover its costs without profit, since ParkingEye is evidently a specialist in the area.

 

Exhibit – 10

 

In the County Court at xxxxxx

 Claim Number: xxxxxxxxx

Hearing Date: xx/xx/xxxx

 

DEFENDANT’S SCHEDULE OF COSTS

 

 

Ordinary Costs

 

 

Loss of earnings through attendance at court hearing DD/MM/YYYY: £90.00

 

 

Further costs for Claimant’s misconduct, pursuant to Civil Procedure Rule 44.11

 

 

Research, preparation and drafting documents (20 hours at lost earnings rate of £45 per hour):

£900.00

 

 

 

TOTAL COSTS CLAIMED £990.00

 

 

Signature

 

…………………….

 

 

 

Exhibit 11

Error! Filename not specified.

 

 

IN THE SOUTHAMPTON COUNTY COURT                                                               No. F0DP806M F0DP201T

 

 

Courts of Justice London Road, Southampton

 

Monday, 11 November 2019

 

 

Before: DISTRICT JUDGE GRAND

 

 

 

B E T W E E N :

 

 

BRITANNIA PARKING GROUP LTD                                         Claimant

 

 

- and -

 

 

(1)

 

Defendants

(2) CHRIS CROSBY

 

 

 

 

MR H. MAINWARING (instructed by Messrs BW Law) appeared on behalf of the Claimant.

 

The First Defendant appeared in person.

MRS REEVES appeared on behalf of the Second Defendant.

 

[Transcript produced from poor quality audio recording – one channel working out of two]

 

 

 

 

J U D G M E N T THE DISTRICT JUDGE:

 

 

1              I have two applications before me in two sets of proceedings although the applications are essentially the same. Both sets of proceedings were before District Judge Taylor in May of this year. They are both claims by Britannia Parking Group Ltd trading as Britannia Parking, one against Mr Chris Crosby and the other against Mr. Both relate to parking penalty charge notices issued against the respective defendants and both include in the claim a claim that is expressed in the claim form as a claim for £60 additional expenses pursuant to PCN terms and conditions.

 

2              In response to both matters a defence has been put in – the defences are not identical – and the matter came before District Judge Taylor in box work for consideration with directions questionnaires, the matters having been transferred out of the money claims centre. In both matters he struck out the claims as an abuse of process, the reasons given being that the claimant claims a substantial charge additional to the parking charge, which it is alleged the defendants failed to pay; and that the additional charge is not recoverable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4 nor with reference to the judgment in Parking Eye v Beavis ; and that it is an abuse of process for the claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover.

 

3              Of course it also contained a notice pursuant to rule 3.3 that either party has the right to apply and that is exactly what the claimant has done in both cases. They have applied for District Judge Taylor’s order to be set aside and for directions to be given. In support of that, I have the statement of Colin Brown and a second statement from Colin Brown and I have had skeleton arguments today from Mr Mainwaring, counsel who appears on behalf of the claimant, and Mrs Reeves who is the lay representative for Mr Crosby.

 

4              I have heard submissions from Mr Mainwaring, Mrs Reeves, and also very briefly from Mr. who takes a very different position from Mr Crosby. I think it is probably fair to describe him today as almost a spectator in that he raised a defence under the Bills of Exchange Act but does not contest the parking charge and does not really resist the claimant’s application.

 

5              What I should also mention is that when the claimant submitted its application, it requested that it be placed in front of a circuit judge. His Honour Judge Hughes QC is the designated civil judge for this area. He directed that the matter be listed with a time estimate of 30 minutes before a full time district judge which is what it has been, although it has overrun its time estimate. The skeleton arguments, with which I have been provided, can only be described as very full.

 

All these parking cases now operate under the shadow of the Supreme Court decision of Parking Eye v Beavis. Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Parking Eye v Beavis there was litigation going on up and down the country around all sorts of issues which were raised by defendants but resisted by parking companies. The bringing of the case before the Supreme Court --- maybe I should not say it was intended to provide a definitive answer to the issues being raised, but certainly it was the hope that the decisions which were being made by the courts up and down the country would become very much simpler as a result of the matter going to the highest court in the land and that court giving a judgment. The charge in that case (Beavis) was £85. One may say it was disproportionate for such a case to go to the Supreme Court but the volume of cases and the amounts of money involved overall, led to that happening. Those challenging parking charges were to be disappointed by the decision of the Supreme Court which essentially decided that the parking charges were not a penalty. They did that after careful consideration, and a lengthy case report of the judgments given was released.

 

1              So it is against that background that we have this case before us. What the Supreme Court decided was that the charge of £85 as a parking charge was reasonable and acceptable, lawful, legitimate and entirely defensible and appropriate within the scheme of the regime of parking charges.

 

2              The reason District Judge Taylor gave for striking out the claim in this case is that there is an additional substantial charge which the claimant in this case is seeking to make. He is criticised for giving very brief reasons for the strike out but in fact his reasons are substantially longer than the original particulars of claim which set out the additional parking charge of £60.

 

3              It seems to me that there are two issues here; first of all, whether it is appropriate for the additional charge to be struck out and then, secondly, whether the striking out should take with it the whole of the claim or whether the court should strike out the £60 charge and leave outstanding the £100 charge which is within the bounds of what the Supreme Court considered reasonable in Parking Eye v Beavis.

 

4              Mr Mainwaring on behalf of the claimant says that this is more a matter for evidence or substantial consideration at trial whereas Mrs Reeves on behalf of Mr Crosby cites a number of paragraphs from the Beavis judgment, suggesting that the Supreme Court decided that the charge of £85 for overstaying in a car park was reasonable but higher charges were not to be.

 

5              It is difficult to do justice to absolutely everything which has been put before me in the skeleton arguments and the submissions today but I will deal with them, I hope, as clearly and as briefly as I can.

 

6              Reference is made by the Claimant to the guidance provided by the British Parking Association (and the British Parking Association code of practice was referred to in the Supreme Court decision of Parking Eye v Beavis). That judgment also refers to the statutory instrument which sets out what local authorities may charge by way of parking charges. It does seem to me that the Supreme Court gives a somewhat uncritical consideration of the BPA Code of Practice, in that the BPA is an association of parking companies. The guidance is produced by parking companies for parking companies largely for their own benefit. They refer to the fact that there is only one such association. So when the claimant asks me to look at the BPA Code of Practice, which says that a £60 charge is a reasonable charge to make, I treat it with massive scepticism because it seems to me that it is entirely self-serving for the British Parking Association to give guidance to parking companies of what are appropriate additional charges. I have much greater respect as I should to the Supreme Court decision about what is reasonable.

 

7              I was taken by Mrs Reeves in her submissions to para.98 of Beavis where it is explained why the £85 charge is reasonable. It says that it has two main objectives; one is to manage the efficient use of parking spaces and this was to be achieved by deterring commuters or other long-stay motorists from occupying parking spaces for long periods. The other purpose was to provide an income stream to enable Parking Eye to meet the costs of operating the scheme and make a profit from its services. The judgment goes on at para.193 to say that the scheme also covered Parking Eye’s costs of operation and gave their shareholders a health annual profit.  

 

8              And again at para.198:

 

“The charge has to be and is set at a level which enables the managers to recover the costs of operating the scheme. It is here also set at a level enabling Parking Eye to make a profit.

 

9              It seems to me absolutely clear from the Supreme Court judgment that what they were determining was what a reasonable charge was in the context of running these parking schemes. Some people will stay within the rules and will pay nothing or pay a small charge. Others will overstay and will pay much larger charges which the Supreme Court has found to be a proportionate and reasonable penalty. The Supreme Court considered a charge of

£85 and determined that that is not an unacceptable charge.

 

10           What we have here is essentially a charge of £160 for parking although the advertised figure for the charge on the signage is £100. The £60 is based on the vague additional sentence on the sign saying that there may be other charges. The particulars of claim then refer to this almost as an afterthought in that it comes as the last line after reference to the claim for interest. The claim form says it is £60 for contractual costs pursuant to the PCN and the terms and conditions. It seems to me that that the £60 charge is quite transparently an attempt to gild the lily, to garnish the margin of what is provided in the Supreme Court decision of Beavis as to what is a reasonable charge in the circumstances and, to use District Judge Taylor’s words, it is an inflated charge. 

I'm the Mrs Reeves who won that Crosby case in front of DJ Grand. But it is out of date because a similar case/same facts was appealed and won.  We don't use that case at all any more as it is too easy to shoot down.  We use Excel v Wilkinson instead and the DLUHC words about the added fake 'costs' being 'designed to extort money from motorists'.

The most recent example WS is this week, by @aphex007 albeit you do have to edit to suit your case and I can't tell even by looking at your earliest posts, if your Claimant is UKPC (BPA code of practice applies) or UKCPM (IPC code of practice applies).

Daiapolon2021

thanks will look at it @Coupon-mad ! Claimant is UKCPM 

Coupon-mad

OK I think look at the WS by aphex007 but also the one by @wobs2k (it's just a question of referring to the right Code of Practice).

The one by aphex007 has an extra paragraph explaining that the new statutory Govt code has been temporarily suspended by the DLUHC for one more Consultation, but it explains why a Judge should still have regard for it because it's not been removed altogether and there's no reason to think that what was described as 'extortion' suddenly won't be.

Daiapolon2021

Coupon-mad said:

OK I think look at the WS by aphex007 but also the one by @wobs2k (it's just a question of referring to the right Code of Practice).

The one by aphex007 has an extra paragraph explaining that the new statutory Govt code has been temporarily suspended by the DLUHC for one more Consultation, but it explains why a Judge should still have regard for it because it's not been removed altogether and there's no reason to think that what was described as 'extortion' suddenly won't be.

thanks I already started working on aphex007 one and looking to share later today.

Daiapolon2021

ok so had to redo it based on IPC but here it is now https://www.dropbox.com/s/cj4my4ly1oab9jr/WS IPC.pdf?dl=0. Let me know your thoughts please! I guess I should also call the court to see if the fee was paid? @Coupon-mad I tried to add the DLUHC paragraph you mentioned but did not find a differing one in the aphex007 one. If I did not add it can you point me in the right direction please? Thanks to all! 

Coupon-mad

It's in aphex's thread just the other day. I replied and told them to add it.  Have another look.

Daiapolon2021

Coupon-mad said:

It's in aphex's thread just the other day. I replied and told them to add it.  Have another look.

thanks @Coupon-mad I think this is it:

Whilst it is known that the rogue parking industry have just filed Judicial Reviews and have delayed the new Code of Practice (as per paragraph 27), the Government is pressing ahead and has conceded to undertake a final Public Consultation and Impact Assessment, as the latter was missing from their rationale.  Going by the damning words of the Minister, and the fact that two consultations and an industry and consumer represented Steering Group have already informed the DLUHC's decision over the past two years, I believe there is no reason to think the Government's view will significantly change about adding unconscionable costs that were not incurred and which merely exist as a mechanism to enhance already-doubled parking charges, to fuel the roboclaim race to court and to side-step the £50 legal fees cap set in the Small Clams Track.

I added it now on paragraph 20 in my WS v2 https://www.dropbox.com/s/a6qhy6mbo0poi7c/WS IPC v2.pdf?dl=0.

Any comments for me?

The hearing is on the 14th of July so I take it all the info needs to be sent on 30th of June.

This said, I still haven’t heard back so I am not even sure there will be a hearing. But Claimant might pay for the trial fee last minute so better safe than sorry. I will call court ASAP.

Finally, I would like some advice on the costing I introduced. I want to ask what is fair and plausible but truth be told, I have spent many hours on this. 

Thanks!!!

Coupon-mad

Obviously '(as per paragraph 27)' makes no sense so remove that!

I wouldn't include Exhibit 7.  That's readable.  Don't help them!

The one above it is great, as it shows the sign placed so ridiculously high that no-one could possibly read it; and the ANPR sign doesn't say how the data will be used, so you've no idea of any contract.

I am Mr XXX ofxxxxxxxxxxx[question: not sure what this means or if it’s necessary?], 

It's your address and it is necessary.