2 mins 50 seconds over 1 hour free period

thelotuseater13

Hi All,

I parked at a Euro Car Parks managed car park in Headingley Leeds in early August. The car park has 1 hour free period. I received a Parking Charge Notice and £85 fee. It states cameras recorded i arrived at 12:34:18 and left at 13:37:08, 2 minutes 50 seconds over.  I have done the initial Euro Car Parks appeal which has been rejected today because i didn't buy a ticket. I am going to go to the car park tonight and get some photos of the signage to check them but 2min 50 seconds really isn't much if you get stuck at the pedestrian crossing lights (in Headingley there is a major crossroads that is busy and can take a while for the lights to change), get in the car, setup sat nav etc.... I thought there was some sort of grace period for a few minutes? 

Do i have a case if i go to POPLA? I've been reading some of the other posts and it seems a mixed bag related to over stays. 

D_P_Dance

Read this and complain to your MP.

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.com/2014/03/waiting-for-space-is-not-parking.html

Redx

Plan A is your best option here , get it done ASAP , no excuses

The BPA CoP version 8 dated January 2020 clause 13 tells you about grace periods

Popla is a lottery , expect to lose and hope to win

Le_Kirk

thelotuseater13 said:

Hi All,

I parked at a Euro Car Parks managed car park in Headingley Leeds in early August. The car park has 1 hour free period. I received a Parking Charge Notice and £85 fee. It states cameras recorded i arrived at 12:34:18 and left at 13:37:08, 2 minutes 50 seconds over.  I have done the initial Euro Car Parks appeal which has been rejected today because i didn't buy a ticket. I am going to go to the car park tonight and get some photos of the signage to check them but 2min 50 seconds really isn't much if you get stuck at the pedestrian crossing lights (in Headingley there is a major crossroads that is busy and can take a while for the lights to change), get in the car, setup sat nav etc.... I thought there was some sort of grace period for a few minutes? 

Do i have a case if i go to POPLA? I've been reading some of the other posts and it seems a mixed bag related to over stays. 

Is it one of those car parks that require you to take a ticket even if you plan to stay for up to the free parking period?

thelotuseater13

Redx said:

Plan A is your best option here , get it done ASAP , no excuses

The BPA CoP version 8 dated January 2020 clause 13 tells you about grace periods

Popla is a lottery , expect to lose and hope to win

Email sent to the pub (Mitchells and Butler) who i think own the land. thanks for the nudge there.

thelotuseater13

Le_Kirk said:

thelotuseater13 said:

Hi All,

I parked at a Euro Car Parks managed car park in Headingley Leeds in early August. The car park has 1 hour free period. I received a Parking Charge Notice and £85 fee. It states cameras recorded i arrived at 12:34:18 and left at 13:37:08, 2 minutes 50 seconds over.  I have done the initial Euro Car Parks appeal which has been rejected today because i didn't buy a ticket. I am going to go to the car park tonight and get some photos of the signage to check them but 2min 50 seconds really isn't much if you get stuck at the pedestrian crossing lights (in Headingley there is a major crossroads that is busy and can take a while for the lights to change), get in the car, setup sat nav etc.... I thought there was some sort of grace period for a few minutes? 

Do i have a case if i go to POPLA? I've been reading some of the other posts and it seems a mixed bag related to over stays. 

Is it one of those car parks that require you to take a ticket even if you plan to stay for up to the free parking period?

I have used it for years without a tickets so i don't believe so however when i go tonight i will check the signs,

Redx

Take pictures too

thelotuseater13

Morning! I took a photo of the sign and it confirms a ticket is not needed when parking up to 1 hour... its 50p per hour after that! pfft. Interestingly it says in the terms that i must display a valid ticket for the length of the stay but above it says i don't need a ticket... so could i argue that its not clear? 

Umkomaas

thelotuseater13 said:

Morning! I took a photo of the sign and it confirms a ticket is not needed when parking up to 1 hour... its 50p per hour after that! pfft. Interestingly it says in the terms that i must display a valid ticket for the length of the stay but above it says i don't need a ticket... so could i argue that its not clear? 

Check out the legal term 'Contra Proferentem'.

Redx

Used to be an Excel monitored car park ( now it's ECP )  at Ashton retail park with similar requirements , ambiguous signage favouring the consumer and the landowner contract differed from the sign too , giving one hour free parking with no requirements like displaying a ticket

Use signage and contract to your advantage in a similar manner , using the CRA 2015 etc

Coupon-mad

You will have to spell it out to POPLA whose assessors are not great and not legally trained.  They just have a selection of template paragraphs and often get it hopelessly wrong in law.

But show the sign embedded in your appeal document, after first embedding the date and time metadata into the images to show they are current signage photos.  Point out that you were parked less than an hour and the sign says no ticket was needed.

Then the BPA CoP allows a minimum grace period of 10 Minutes to leave, therefore there is no properly issued PCN in these circumstances.