Breaking News: Government has announced the statutory Code of Practice, and Enforcement Framework

Umkomaas

On the basis of your response, what is the most a motorist can expect to pay for a lower level breach outside of London? 

I'd say - £50 NoPC, £35 court filing fee, £50 fixed solicitor costs, (possibly) £25 court hearing fee = £160.

No add on charges, but no doubt the winner of the BPA's 'People in Parking Long Service Award' will already be trying to hatch a plan!

https://twitter.com/BritishParking/status/1491055564637540366

But, let's see what eventually boils down. 

fisherjim

patient_dream said:

** Significant job losses throughout the sector
WHY? and does it matter, Supermarkets are crying out for shelf stackers etc. Anyway, this is not an industry that supports the economy ... NO VAT, and who knows how they account their incomes ... big fast cars, boats, big houses here and abroad.  If anything, HMRC sould be investigating these companies and thanks BPA for bringing this up

Surely the proliferation of ANPR has been the major source of job losses in their scummy sector what a total croc!

The_Slithy_Tove

Fruitcake said

I believe ParkingEye recently posted a profit of £12 million, without adding the fake debt collection charges. All parking companies need to do is use the same business model as ParkingEye, suitably adjusted to meet the new CoP, and hey presto, jam tomorrow for the parking industry.

*Fruity takes tongue out of cheek*

Seriously though, parking companies can still make a profit by following the rules, just like they expect motorists to do.

ParkingEye, like it or not, are one of the better run PPCs, and even though they don't hold back on court claims, they tend to pursue only the ones they think they'll win, and even do cancel when challenged suitably to make them think it's too much of a headache for them.

They'll survive, maybe with reduced profits. But even they will need to address things like
- ANPR that is not fit for purpose (double dips in particular)
- Signage written in small font 8 feet up a pole, and therefore impossible to read
- Time "on site" is not time parked, and ANPR cannot distinguish between the two

On the flip side, it's likely that lower charges, especially an early payment discounted charge of £25, will have many more people just paying up rather than enduring the hassle of appeals, further appeals, possible court, ...


BTW, it's good to see the hand of the likes of C-M and, no doubt, others from these forums at play. It means that topics which could otherwise be overlooked have been addressed, such as ANPR "double dipping" (they even used that exact term!), doctoring of photos, those fake debt collector charges, the intimidatory language.

Shame that the "consideration period" is only 5 minutes. Not nearly long enough, even when the clock only starts ticking when you've parked up and turned off the engine. Things like downloading and registering on a new app have been mentioned. But even paying at a machine can take more than 5 minutes, e.g. there's a queue to pay, and the machines are so user-unfriendly it takes 2-3 minutes for each person to work out what they're meant to do.

Umkomaas

fisherjim said:

patient_dream said:

** Significant job losses throughout the sector
WHY? and does it matter, Supermarkets are crying out for shelf stackers etc. Anyway, this is not an industry that supports the economy ... NO VAT, and who knows how they account their incomes ... big fast cars, boats, big houses here and abroad.  If anything, HMRC sould be investigating these companies and thanks BPA for bringing this up

Surely the proliferation of ANPR has been the major source of job losses in their scummy sector what a total croc!

I agree. But it was questions like that that were never put to the 4 wise monkeys by the Select Committee when they were throwing around all their statistical crap at the meeting. I thought at the time the Committee members were just bamboozled and were like rabbits caught in the headlights, just asking rather benign questions. 

I'm not sure how influential the Committee were in the final throes and shaping of the overall decision making process, but the Chairman did seem to rumble them on the proportionality of the debt collection charge level, although didn't call them out on the day.  Perhaps his views were the tipping point in getting them banned outright. We probably will never know, but the outcome is the same. Bye bye debt collection charges. 

Sareck

I agree with those observations , but it's been a long time coming so good to see some progress finally !!

ihatetrump

patient_dream said:

** Significant job losses throughout the sector
WHY? and does it matter, Supermarkets are crying out for shelf stackers etc. Anyway, this is not an industry that supports the economy ... NO VAT, and who knows how they account their incomes ... big fast cars, boats, big houses here and abroad.  If anything, HMRC sould be investigating these companies and thanks BPA for bringing this up

And with the 700,000 unmanaged parking spaces being freed up, supermarkets will be able to offer free parking to their shelf stackers!

Couldn't agree more with HMRC investigating. I posted earlier in the thread (sadly didn't get much traction) that the likes of Debt Recovery Plus are a classic - follow the thread and they are owned offshore (Jersey) by Bristow & Sutor (Bailiffs & Enforcement Agents) - who in turn are owned by vulture venture capitalists - & we all know the lengths they will go to offshore to avoid paying tax (aka Panama Papers)

Castle

Here are some average number of employees for the major PPC's for 2020

1. Parking Eye-341
2. Excel & VCS-208
3. Britannia-150
4. CEL-88
5. Euro Car Parks-326 
6. CP Plus-378
7. Smart Parking-98
8. UKCPM-95

NCP-who mainly have "boots on the ground" has an average of 1,011.

patient_dream

Umkomaas said:

On the basis of your response, what is the most a motorist can expect to pay for a lower level breach outside of London? 

I'd say - £50 NoPC, £35 court filing fee, £50 fixed solicitor costs, (possibly) £25 court hearing fee = £160.

No add on charges, but no doubt the winner of the BPA's 'People in Parking Long Service Award' will already be trying to hatch a plan!

https://twitter.com/BritishParking/status/1491055564637540366

But, let's see what eventually boils down. 

Amazing rubbish ...... and the coment 

"Did he win for inventing the £70 "add on" charge now outlawed by the new statutory Code of Practice?"

The BPA is is now a poor version of Childrens Hour, don't they realse they are a laughing stock ??

Snakes_Belly

If the discount applies until after the Single Tier Appeals Service I doubt that many would go to court. 

I think that the pipeline of cases reaching court stage will be greatly reduced. 

ihatetrump

Snakes_Belly said:

If the discount applies until after the Single Tier Appeals Service I doubt that many would go to court. 

I think that the pipeline of cases reaching court stage will be greatly reduced. 

And with that the Justice Department will no doubt breath a huge sigh of relief - they can then get down to the real business of bringing criminals to justice - tax dodging PPC's may be a good place to start - a real double whammy.