Appealing PCN, to POPLA after ParkingEye (Corporation Street, Preston)

fisherjim

For POPLA you need to supply evidence and arguments based on contract law, signage, BPA COP breaches.

What happened on the day won't work, that should though it never is have been considered by Parking Eye even the 5min grace period argument will be thrown out as The BPA state a minimum of five minutes and POPLA won't apply any other leeway other than what's in the COP.

Signage seems to be the only other way to come from, if the site is as below it is abysmal and does not conform to BPA minimum standards at all but you will need to evidence that as PE  will use to their advantage their photos or office evidence.

Coupon-mad

But they are at Comments stage so they can't add anything new.

fisherjim

Oh dear thanks CM, sorry the thread is a bit hard to follow in some respects, but that's a bummer the horse has bolted, apart from pointing out that the signage as evidenced even by PE does not conform I think it's going nowhere.

dylatte

Ahh ok, so reaching out to the land owner wouldn't do me any favours either? Is there nothing worth keeping in the paragraph below? I used the following video to find any more factors that could be relevant: https://youtu.be/aFIH1Vwu1DM?si=whlWbPWEtcpGqVc2

The consequence of the brief overstay seems to be a penalty clause. Broadly, I understand a penalty clause to be a contractual provision which levies an excessive monetary sum unrelated to the actual harm against the defaulting party. The financial consequences of a breach of contract must not be simply designed to deter of a breach of contract. It must be in some sense, remedial. £100 of financial damage was not caused by a potential overstay of 4 minutes, especially as no one was effected, my presence was not to anybody's detriment whatsoever. This is excessive and in this case, there can't be any way the owners or operators of this car park could have expected to suffer up to £100 worth of loss if I overstayed the consideration period.

Coupon-mad

Absolutely ZERO legs to the 'no loss' argument re private parking. Killed by the Supreme Court in that case you linked.

This forum has all the info you need (we pre-date the Beavis case and have personal knowledge & experience of fighting these firms in the days before clamping was banned over a decade ago!) & you don't expect to win at POPLA anyway.  No-one here pays. 

And remove that sentence that I also copied about a mishap.

There was no mishap.  The main point is you LEFT & PARKED ELSEWHERE because the contract was impossible to fulfil after a few minutes trying to pay.

That's all I'd say. Then ignore if you lose.

Come back at court claim stage.

dylatte

Thank you all for your honesty and sharing your knowledge. I'm still hoping this doesn't need to go any further than POPLA but am aware that unfortunately may not be the case. I'm sending the adjusted comments below:

'In response to ParkingEye's document, I'd like to mention the following:

I do not consider a parking event to have taken place as although I'd entered and intended to use the car park, I couldn't due to the reasons explained in my appeal. This includes that I did not leave my vehicle unattended, obstruct/prevent anyone from using any space or leave the car park on foot. Therefore, this would not breach 13.1 of BPA Approved Operator Scheme, Code of Practice.

If ParkingEye would like to argue a parking event did take place (which I do not agree with and there's no evidence of such besides entering and exiting), the consideration period mentioned states a minimum of 5 minutes must be allowed. However, I am not able to find what the exact duration would've been for this car park, including within the document submitted by ParkingEye. I am unable to see where I have exceeded a consideration period, given that there isn't one clearly stated and there wasn't one stated before the event took place. 

'Version 8, 13.1 states that parking operators must provide motorists a ‘consideration period’ before entering into the parking contract to allow motorists to consider the terms of the parking contract and leave the car park should they not wish to be bound by the terms & conditions.' If ParkingEye state their consideration period is 5 minutes, I'd then like to argue this wouldn't be physically possible or It'd at least be extremely difficult/unrealistic to enter the car park, leave a vehicle, view the signage in unfamiliar surroundings, read the terms and conditions and leave again all in under 5 minutes. In my case, it was not possible to do anything other than leave as soon as I knew it wasn't possible to park and pay at the time. It was also not possible to view the signage or terms and conditions from outside of the car park, especially when driving. The first sign by the entrance (image provided by ParkingEye) says 'see signage in car park for terms and conditions'. As also seen in the images of the signs provided by ParkingEye, the terms and conditions are difficult to read due to the height of the signs and especially the size of the writing, even when walked up to.

If this exact situation had taken place within less than 5 minutes, I would like to believe this entire situation wouldn't have come about, however as mentioned above, a time frame of 5 minutes seems unattainable and I tried what I could at the time before leaving, hence the 9 minute total, before respectfully leaving and finding somewhere else. I do not consider it fair or reasonable for anyone to be penalised and charged over such a short period of time.

I was not able to pay or communicate this at the time to receive assistance, had no alternative payment or option to inform anyone, so my only choice was to leave. It was impossible to fulfil the imposed contract in under 5 minutes in these circumstances. I strongly believe £100 is excessive for a four minute overstay as a result of this.'

UncleThomasCobley

dylatte said:

I strongly believe £100 is excessive for a four minute overstay as a result of this.'

You and everyone else might "believe" this but it is nothing that will be considered by POPLA. Just remove that bit.

dylatte

SUCCESS! Thank you all for your help, I'm aware that next time I shouldn't mention who was driving and I feel lucky to have had this outcome. Below is s summary of the POPLA decision as quoted by the assessor.

'I can see from the appellant's version of events and the operator's photographic evidence that they entered the site, they tried to pay for parking with cash but that the parking machine was not working and then decided to leave the car park when they couldn’t pay. I do not consider the appellant has gained any utility by being on site for 9 minutes. Whilst I appreciate the operator's data sheet which proves other motorists were able to pay, it is not clear if these other motorists paid by cash or pay by phone. As such, I cannot conclude that the PCN has been issued correctly. Accordingly, I must allow this appeal.'

troublemaker22

Well done you.  Congratulations on marshalling your arguments well!

Coupon-mad

dylatte said:

SUCCESS! Thank you all for your help, I'm aware that next time I shouldn't mention who was driving and I feel lucky to have had this outcome. Below is s summary of the POPLA decision as quoted by the assessor.

'I can see from the appellant's version of events and the operator's photographic evidence that they entered the site, they tried to pay for parking with cash but that the parking machine was not working and then decided to leave the car park when they couldn’t pay. I do not consider the appellant has gained any utility by being on site for 9 minutes. Whilst I appreciate the operator's data sheet which proves other motorists were able to pay, it is not clear if these other motorists paid by cash or pay by phone. As such, I cannot conclude that the PCN has been issued correctly. Accordingly, I must allow this appeal.'

Great news!

Please add this info and the name of the PPC (and a link to this thread) to POPLA Decisions, if you haven't already.