APCOA Railway Car Park - Penalty Notice

lily10

lily10 said:

Back again for some advice please.
As expected I lost the APCOA appeal and am due to submit the POPLA appeal this week.
Re the issue of signage. The station is Yeovil Junction which is about a 2 hour drive away so not possible to visit to look at the signage and take relevant photos (the driver and passenger say that they don't even remember seeing any signs).Google Streetview is showing images from 2017 so I am a bit limited in what I can send in. The Streetview images show very poor signage imo but of course that may have changed. Is it worth submitting these?
Thank you

Is anyone able to advise on this please? I have emailed APCOA requesting up to date images of signage in the car park but had no response. So all I am left with are out of date Google streetview images to support any argument I put forward in my forthcoming POPLA appeal.

lily10

Ok I have just received these images of the car park signage at yeovil junction - it is difficult to see the context of these in terms of their visibility but it does strike me that they are not particularly large! Will post below
1. This is at entrance

lily10

Trying to attach some more

lily10

I am not able to upload the other 2 images for some reason - but they are the same as the ones above just taken on different posts; no sign larger than the ones shown here. In my opinion they are not obvious or readable if you have not got out of your car and gone up to one to read it!

UncleThomasCobley

Those are very good pictures to use. Are these from APCOA or has someone else sent them to you?

Interestingly, it is the ToC name on those signs which begs the question, why is APCOA invoicing you rather than the ToC?

lily10

They have been sent to me this morning by APCOA after I requested them - I just can't upload 2 of them but they are equally poor imo. 

lily10

Here are 'photos' of the other 2 images taken on my computer - so that I can at least upload them here 

lily10

The only APCOA one

Le_Kirk

Brilliant you are supposed to stop on a pedestrian crossing to read the T&Cs!

lily10

I submitted my POPLA appeal on 8/10 and received my first ZZPS debt collection letter a few days later ( sent on 9/10) . APCOA have submitted their evidence to POPLA and I now have 7 days to respond.
They have submitted evidence of the signage at the station which in my opinion gives even more weight to my argument that the signage is poor. I am unable to copy their images here but not one image that they submitted clearly shows any penalty charge for failure to comply with payment of the fee.
The only place they mention the 20 minute free period is on the sign posted above and the penalty charge of £50 is in small writing on the right hand side of the same sign.

As it has been suggested in another thread that these PN's usually always lose at POPLA and it is just a case of them timing out after 6 months, my intention is not to spend too much more time 'arguing my case' but have taken this point from another thread with almost identical problem and intend to say this as advised by Coupon-Mad:

"From reviewing the signage, the PCN amount does not stand out on the signs, it is in small text and blends in with the rest of the sign. The PCN amount should be in a larger text, so it stands out and informs motorists clearly what the PCN amount is. Based on the evidence provided, I cannot conclude that the PCN has been issued correctly and due to this, I believe that POPLA must allow the appeal. "

Is there anything else you would advise please?