CCBC Claim form received today for One Parking Solutions Vantage Point Brighton - defence advice pls

bastos

I have been browsing this fantastic forum for many months and following advice regarding ignoring all the letters to date until I receive the court notice which I have finally received today.

I've been trying to prepare my defence statement from the template and would now be extremely grateful for any advice that your members can offer me on how to improve this.

Basically I paid the full amount to park in the Vantage point car park in Brighton on 12th Dec 2021 but as I had purchased a new vehicle recently the app still had the old registration number. I appealed to One Parking Solution but this was unsuccesful and they only reduced the fine on condition I didn't appeal to POPLA. I felt this was unfair and preventing me from having an appeals process so I decided to appeal to POPLA. This was also unsuccessful and despite sending One Parking Solutions a payment of the reduced amount they returned it to me quoting that I'd withdrawn my rights to paying this amount. 

So I'm now going to be heading to court and would very much appreciate your experts guidance and support with the process.

My initially proposed statement is below. I know I need to hang on until Day 5 to send this. The issue date of the letter was 29th September. Should I send screen shots of the app payments and returned cheque and communication with OPS etc in the body of this defence statement?

2. It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle in question.

 

3. On 12th December the Defendant entered the Vantage Point car park in Brighton at 1:58:56 pm driving her silver VW Golf registration EO*****. This vehicle had been purchased by the Defendant 2 months previously to this date. It was underground and very dark and the Defendant went up to the ticket machine to determine how to pay for the parking. The Defendant could see the mention of the Just Park parking app on the sign but the lighting was too poor to read any detailed T&Cs. The parking payment machine is located right at the back of the car park where there is no natural lighting at all. The Defendant returned to the vehicle to process the parking app payment on her mobile phone. The area was poorly lit whilst the Defendant was processing her payment for the initial parking period of 14:06 until 17:07 but managed to complete the transaction and the parking period was confirmed with Booking reference 30408797. This parking period cost the Defendant £5.17. Whilst the Defendant was shopping a reminder appeared on the app that the parking period was about to expire and she then processed an extension to the parking period of a further 2 hours until 19:16 which cost her £3.47 and was Booking reference 30413886. The total amount that the Defendant paid to park in the Vantage Point car park on 12th December was £8.64. The Defendant exited the carpark at 19:15, this was 1 minute before the paid parking period on the app ended.

 

On 21st December the Defendant received a ‘notice to keeper parking charge notice’ stating that there was a fine of £100 (reduced to £60 on quick payment) owed for the vehicle (Removed by Forum Team). The Defendant looked at the app to confirm the payment from that date and saw that the app still had her previous vehicle GU***** registered as she had not used the app since purchasing the new vehicle EO*****. The Defendant had not noticed this administrative error when making the payment in the car park on the 12th December. The Defendant felt confident that any reasonable parking provider would realise that full parking payment had been made and that this was an admin error and would cancel the parking charge notice. The Defendant submitted an appeal on 21st December to One Parking Solutions, but this appeal was unsuccessful and the Parking Company only offered to reduce the fine to £20 from £60 but only if the Defendant agreed not to appeal to POPLA and immediately pay the fine. The Defendant felt this was unfair and attempting to prevent the public from pursuing a fair and independent appeals process. Therefore the Defendant decided that she wished to appeal to POPLA as this was a genuine administration error where she had paid for a vehicle to be parked for the entire length of time that it was parked. Any checks of CCTV would have demonstrated that the old vehicle was not parked in the car park.

 

The Defendant appealed to POPLA and submitted evidence from the JustPark app demonstrating the payments and times they were made. The appeals process by POPLA was not successful and the fine was hence reverted back to £60. The Defendant did not feel that it was fair to penalise an individual purely for wishing evidence to be independently reviewed and agreed to pay the reduced £20 fine for her original admin error. However One Parking Solutions returned the cheque and quoted the statement that ‘should you chose to use the POPLA service will no longer be entitled to pay the lower rate of charge’. This decision by One Parking Solution to refuse the payment of the £20 fine therefore forced the Defendant to have to proceed with court action to have a fair process for this situation to be heard in.

KeithP

bastos said:

I have been browsing this fantastic forum for many months and following advice regarding ignoring all the letters to date until I receive the court notice which I have finally received today.

My initially proposed statement is below. I know I need to hang on until Day 5 to send this. The issue date of the letter was 29th September.

I am going to assume that the Issue Date on your County Court Claim Form is 29th September. Please confirm.

With a Claim Issue Date of 29th September, you have until Tuesday 18th October to file an Acknowledgment of Service but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. 

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

Having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 1st November 2022 to file your Defence.

That's over four weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence and it is good to see you are not leaving 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.

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'.

bastos said:

Should I send screen shots of the app payments and returned cheque and communication with OPS etc in the body of this defence statement?

Nothing gets send with a Defence. Evidence comes later, at Witness Statement time.

Coupon-mad

Change the word 'fine' throughout to 'charge' because none of the sums were a fine.

Give every paragraph a number.

Never park at Vantage Point!  Absolutely horrific local 'scam' car park in Brighton, according to many accounts here.

Avoid.  Park on street as I do when in Brighton. There is always somewhere you can park on street.

bastos

KeithP said:

bastos said:

I have been browsing this fantastic forum for many months and following advice regarding ignoring all the letters to date until I receive the court notice which I have finally received today.

My initially proposed statement is below. I know I need to hang on until Day 5 to send this. The issue date of the letter was 29th September.

I am going to assume that the Issue Date on your County Court Claim Form is 29th September. Please confirm.

With a Claim Issue Date of 29th September, you have until Tuesday 18th October to file an Acknowledgment of Service but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. 

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

Having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 1st November 2022 to file your Defence.

That's over four weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence and it is good to see you are not leaving 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.

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'.

Thanks so much that’s helpful and appreciate the advice regarding the dates. 

Yes that is correct that the date of issue is the 29th September and yes thanks, I will get on and complete the acknowledgment form. 

Any advice regarding my defence statement would also be hugely appreciated as I have no experience in this area at all.

Thankyou so much

bastos

Coupon-mad said:

Change the word 'fine' throughout to 'charge' because none of the sums were a fine.

Give every paragraph a number.

Never park at Vantage Point!  Absolutely horrific local scam car park in Brighton.  Avoid.  Park on street as I do when in Brighton.

Thanks and yes I would never park there again and tell everyone I know this too!

Grateful for the comments on the wording and paragraphs. I’ll make those changes. 

KeithP

bastos said:

KeithP said:

bastos said:

I have been browsing this fantastic forum for many months and following advice regarding ignoring all the letters to date until I receive the court notice which I have finally received today.

My initially proposed statement is below. I know I need to hang on until Day 5 to send this. The issue date of the letter was 29th September.

I am going to assume that the Issue Date on your County Court Claim Form is 29th September. Please confirm.

With a Claim Issue Date of 29th September, you have until Tuesday 18th October to file an Acknowledgment of Service but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. 

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

Having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 1st November 2022 to file your Defence.

That's over four weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence and it is good to see you are not leaving 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.

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'.

Any advice regarding my defence statement would also be hugely appreciated as I have no experience in this area at all.

That's why I wrote...

KeithP said:

bastos said:

I have been browsing this fantastic forum for many months and following advice regarding ignoring all the letters to date until I receive the court notice which I have finally received today.

My initially proposed statement is below. I know I need to hang on until Day 5 to send this. The issue date of the letter was 29th September.

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.

bastos

KeithP said:

bastos said:

KeithP said:

bastos said:

I have been browsing this fantastic forum for many months and following advice regarding ignoring all the letters to date until I receive the court notice which I have finally received today.

My initially proposed statement is below. I know I need to hang on until Day 5 to send this. The issue date of the letter was 29th September.

I am going to assume that the Issue Date on your County Court Claim Form is 29th September. Please confirm.

With a Claim Issue Date of 29th September, you have until Tuesday 18th October to file an Acknowledgment of Service but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. 

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

Having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 1st November 2022 to file your Defence.

That's over four weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence and it is good to see you are not leaving 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.

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'.

Any advice regarding my defence statement would also be hugely appreciated as I have no experience in this area at all.

That's why I wrote...

KeithP said:

bastos said:

I have been browsing this fantastic forum for many months and following advice regarding ignoring all the letters to date until I receive the court notice which I have finally received today.

My initially proposed statement is below. I know I need to hang on until Day 5 to send this. The issue date of the letter was 29th September.

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.

Ah I see. Apologies. Thankyou

bastos

Does anyone have an up to date email address for the landowner of Vantage Point car park please to send the complaint to landowner over? The one listed in a previous thread: carter.pod@hotmail.com has bounced back.

Many thanks

Coupon-mad

Sorry no, that's the only one I had.

bastos

Coupon-mad said:

Sorry no, that's the only one I had.

OK thankyou very much for coming back to me anyway. Maybe I'll try and post a written letter then?

bastos

So I've not had anything back from the SARS request to the operator OPS which I sent on the 4th October and nothing back from DCB Legal email notifying them of the SARS request which I sent on 5th October.

I've completed the Acknowledgment of Service so I don't need to do anything now other than prepare my defence ready to submit on 1st November? 

Is that correct? 

Thanks in anticipation