Smart parking PCN

redbeanbb · 15 February 2024 at 1:19PM

Hi everyone,

My parents received a PCN yesterday with the date of contravention 29/01/24 and issued on 08/02/2024 from Smart Parking. From reading the newbies thread, I am planning to appeal online with the template but I have a few questions.

To provide some context first, some relatives came to visit us recently and booked in a hotel nearby for 5 nights. My parents had picked them up in the morning and dropped them off at night for each of the five days. The longest they waited in the car park was around 23 mins. What they didn’t realise was the fact that the car park at the hotel was not free, even for hotel customers and was an ANPR parking. They’re understandably very distressed especially as many more PCNs will be rolling in through the post after this one (we calculated it and it will all total up to £1000 😭). We had tried asking the hotel to cancel the charge but they said that it was a ‘public car park now’ and they ‘can’t do anything’.

Should I include the hotel booking in the evidence/documention section or would it not support the appeal? Does the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 section 9 (4) apply here as the letter arrived 16 days after the contravention? What are the chances that they will drop the PCN? And will this work for all the ones that we’ll receive later?

Thank you!

Anto_28 · 15 February 2024 at 1:45PM

PoFA 2012 allows for 14 days for the PCN/NTK to be issued.

(5) The relevant period for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4) is the period of 14 days beginning with the day after that on which the specified period of parking ended.

It will be hard to prove the PPC didn't put the letter in the post on the 8th (10 days) and it then took RM a further 6 days to deliver it. My PCN/NTK took 3 days to come after "issue".

Please post a photo of your PCN/NTK with all personal details redacted, that will help the more qualified on here to advise.

Fruitcake · 15 February 2024 at 1:49PM

Smart Parking NTKs are generally not PoFA compliant, but regular poster @Grizebeck has produced a Smart specific initial appeal. Make sure the driver's identity is not revealed. An appeal however is Plan B. Plan A, a complaint from the keeper to the landowner and the keeper's MP should always be done first.

Smart parking ticket — MoneySavingExpert Forum

Coupon-mad · 15 February 2024 at 3:52PM

Anto_28 said:

PoFA 2012 allows for 14 days for the PCN/NTK to be issued.
(5) The relevant period for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4) is the period of 14 days beginning with the day after that on which the specified period of parking ended.
It will be hard to prove the PPC didn't put the letter in the post on the 8th (10 days) and it then took RM a further 6 days to deliver it. My PCN/NTK took 3 days to come after "issue".

But thd OP doesn't need to prove that, because Smart Parking don't use POFA worded NTKs, regardless of date.

We don't need to see a copy as Smart Parking's NTK is already in my thread of NTK images.

Easy peasy to win on appeal as long as the OP doesn't say who was driving.

@redbeanbb is this Scotland or not?

redbeanbb · 15 February 2024 at 4:39PM

@redbeanbb is this Scotland or not?

No, this was in England.

I think I won't include the hotel booking as I don't think it would add much to my appeal. Like you said, hopefully as long as I don't mention who was driving, we will win.

Coupon-mad · 15 February 2024 at 4:52PM

Appeal like this:

I appeal as keeper. I am not obliged to identify the driver and I decline to do so. Even if (which is not the case) the driver is liable, the operator can only transfer the driver’s liability to the keeper by complying with the strict requirements set out in Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (‘POFA’).

As recognised in the BPA Code of Practice, strict compliance with POFA is required in order to pursue a keeper. Assumption, or partial or even substantial compliance is not sufficient even for the BPA, as the CoP states:

"21.2 As long as the strict conditions of Schedule 4 are met, you may claim payment from the keeper or the hirer of the vehicle rather than from the driver. To do this you need to follow the procedures set out in the Schedule…"

POFA paragraph 9.(2) (f) states that a notice to keeper "must ...: warn the keeper that if, at the end of the period of 28 days beginning with the day after that on which the notice to keeper is given—

(i) the amount of the unpaid parking charges … has not been paid in full, and

(ii) the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver,

...the creditor will (if all the applicable conditions under this Schedule are met) have the right to recover from the keeper so much of that amount as remains unpaid."

The PCN does not comply with POFA. Give up and go away. Or cough up a POPLA Code if you want to put yourselves to that time & expense.