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Midwife receieved County Court Claim Form for parking illegally at hospital car park -advice please.
Jamie_G85
Forumite 19 Posts
Good evening all,
Newbie here. I would like some advice as my wife has received a county court claim form with an issue date of 09 August 2022 for PCN's dating back to 29/01/2020 and also 22/03/2021. At the moment she has not completed the acknowledgement of service, as I would like some advice first whether she has a good enough defensive case and how to approach it.
She is a midwife and uses the hospital carpark for work and admittingly she hasn't parked in an allocated parking space on numerous occasions, due to the fact that the carpark has no allocated staff parking and no parking spaces available. She has had numerous PCN's since she started there in January 2019 and has just ignored them and this is the first time that it has got to this stage. There is a known problem for parking at the hospital which was reported on wales online. This was just after her first PCN.
The hospital has been and is still undergoing development/building work and the number of car parking spaces available are constantly changing since she started working there. They close certain areas of to store the plant machinery, place portacabins and materials etc. The car park is quite frankly too small to cope with the demand of the hospital and without allocated staff parking, it is a problem for staff. She does put a hand written note on the dashboard saying she is a midwife working in the hospital with her contact number if her car is causing an obstruction.
This is where I don't know where she stands as I remember seeing a photo in one of the PCN's of her car parked on double yellows so they do have evidence of her breaking the terms and conditions. Then on the other hand, if she doesn't park somewhere, she can't go to work which I see as unfair considering the circumstances.
I've spent some time reading the newbie thread and one thing I've been looking at is the signage. There is a small sign on entry to the hospital grounds which is straight from a round about. Reading the code of practice, the sign should be situated so the driver doesn't take their eyes of the road ahead. Yet where it is placed, the driver would have to look away from the road, as it is placed on a fence, immediately on the turning off a round about on the opposite side of the road. If there is traffic waiting to go onto the roundabout from the hospital, then the sign could be obscured.
I'm not sure what the text height is but reading the code of practice, turning into a carpark off a 30mph road the text height should be at least 60mm high which by looking at a photo of the sign, this is questionable. My wife is back in work on Monday so she is going to measure the 'contractual agreement' text so this will confirm if the sign is to standards or not. She is also going to look if there are repeating signs on site but she can't say she's ever noticed them. If the repeating signs are there inside the grounds, this doesn't mean to say that they were there on the PCN dates so this is something to consider so I will ask for SAR's to confirm this.
Also, the sign states 24 hour car parking restrictions in operation on this land. Although there is no parking attendant through the nights, with it stating 24 hours, shouldn't the sign be lit up? Looking on google maps, the closest lights in front of the sign is the streetlight in the centre of the round about.
I've read on another forum that someone had their charge thrown out by the judge straight away due to the signage being non compliant.
The entrance sign is below taking from google images and looking on the dates of google images, it would have been there on the date of the PCN's.
I would be interested in peoples opinions on this matter. My wife is ready to cave and just pay it which we could do without to be honest but it looks like she has nothing to lose reading the newbies thread other than a small court fee on top of the charge on the claim form. What is this likely to be as the fine is over £300.
To make matters worse, we are going to Florida on family holidays 17/08/2022 and arrive home on the 09/09/2022. Date of issue is 09/08/2022 so I work out she needs to submit her defence no later than 10/09/2022 which is the day after we arrive home. Have I got that correct? Is there any way to get a few days extra grace?
If she did decide to defend it (if she has reasonable case), could she then pay the costs if she later decides she doesn't want to go to court, before she needs to submit the defence?
If she goes onto defend, reading the newbie thread, am I right in thinking it is best to request SAR's asap from parking solutions 24 and gladstones, although they might not turn up before the defence submission date?
She would obviously need to get her defence statement sorted asap so any advice is welcomed in what to include/not include in the defence statement. I can see there is a template in the newbies thread which I will have a better look at if she has a case.
Thank you in advance.
Newbie here. I would like some advice as my wife has received a county court claim form with an issue date of 09 August 2022 for PCN's dating back to 29/01/2020 and also 22/03/2021. At the moment she has not completed the acknowledgement of service, as I would like some advice first whether she has a good enough defensive case and how to approach it.
She is a midwife and uses the hospital carpark for work and admittingly she hasn't parked in an allocated parking space on numerous occasions, due to the fact that the carpark has no allocated staff parking and no parking spaces available. She has had numerous PCN's since she started there in January 2019 and has just ignored them and this is the first time that it has got to this stage. There is a known problem for parking at the hospital which was reported on wales online. This was just after her first PCN.
The hospital has been and is still undergoing development/building work and the number of car parking spaces available are constantly changing since she started working there. They close certain areas of to store the plant machinery, place portacabins and materials etc. The car park is quite frankly too small to cope with the demand of the hospital and without allocated staff parking, it is a problem for staff. She does put a hand written note on the dashboard saying she is a midwife working in the hospital with her contact number if her car is causing an obstruction.
This is where I don't know where she stands as I remember seeing a photo in one of the PCN's of her car parked on double yellows so they do have evidence of her breaking the terms and conditions. Then on the other hand, if she doesn't park somewhere, she can't go to work which I see as unfair considering the circumstances.
I've spent some time reading the newbie thread and one thing I've been looking at is the signage. There is a small sign on entry to the hospital grounds which is straight from a round about. Reading the code of practice, the sign should be situated so the driver doesn't take their eyes of the road ahead. Yet where it is placed, the driver would have to look away from the road, as it is placed on a fence, immediately on the turning off a round about on the opposite side of the road. If there is traffic waiting to go onto the roundabout from the hospital, then the sign could be obscured.
I'm not sure what the text height is but reading the code of practice, turning into a carpark off a 30mph road the text height should be at least 60mm high which by looking at a photo of the sign, this is questionable. My wife is back in work on Monday so she is going to measure the 'contractual agreement' text so this will confirm if the sign is to standards or not. She is also going to look if there are repeating signs on site but she can't say she's ever noticed them. If the repeating signs are there inside the grounds, this doesn't mean to say that they were there on the PCN dates so this is something to consider so I will ask for SAR's to confirm this.
Also, the sign states 24 hour car parking restrictions in operation on this land. Although there is no parking attendant through the nights, with it stating 24 hours, shouldn't the sign be lit up? Looking on google maps, the closest lights in front of the sign is the streetlight in the centre of the round about.
I've read on another forum that someone had their charge thrown out by the judge straight away due to the signage being non compliant.
The entrance sign is below taking from google images and looking on the dates of google images, it would have been there on the date of the PCN's.
I would be interested in peoples opinions on this matter. My wife is ready to cave and just pay it which we could do without to be honest but it looks like she has nothing to lose reading the newbies thread other than a small court fee on top of the charge on the claim form. What is this likely to be as the fine is over £300.
To make matters worse, we are going to Florida on family holidays 17/08/2022 and arrive home on the 09/09/2022. Date of issue is 09/08/2022 so I work out she needs to submit her defence no later than 10/09/2022 which is the day after we arrive home. Have I got that correct? Is there any way to get a few days extra grace?
If she did decide to defend it (if she has reasonable case), could she then pay the costs if she later decides she doesn't want to go to court, before she needs to submit the defence?
If she goes onto defend, reading the newbie thread, am I right in thinking it is best to request SAR's asap from parking solutions 24 and gladstones, although they might not turn up before the defence submission date?
She would obviously need to get her defence statement sorted asap so any advice is welcomed in what to include/not include in the defence statement. I can see there is a template in the newbies thread which I will have a better look at if she has a case.
Thank you in advance.
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CLICK at the top of this/any page where it says:
Forum Home»Motoring»Parking Tickets Fines & Parking - read the NEWBIES THREAD
That's good to know that she has a case. Should she go in with all what I have mentioned or certain parts? Do you think the entrance sign is non compliant with the code of practice and should she focus on this? I guess she should leave out the bit admitting she has broke the terms and conditions?
The (very slightly) good news is that you wife has a couple more days to prepare a Defence than you think.
Nothing is ever due to be filed on a Saturday, Sunday or Bank Holiday.
Do not try and file a Defence via the MoneyClaimOnline website. Once an Acknowledgment of Service has been filed, the MCOL website should be treated as 'read only'.
Remember, everything must be done in the name of the named Defendant.
Added to the template defence, of course.
CLICK at the top of this/any page where it says:
Forum Home»Motoring»Parking Tickets Fines & Parking - read the NEWBIES THREAD
Why not just send an email to the 'contact us' email address on their website - [email protected] - and mark it for the attention of their Data Protection Officer?
I couldn't find that on their website, but Companies House states...
Anyone can set up a company with really no questions asked
They may need a Memorandum of Articles and that's where google comes in
It is once again just another method to scam people