APCOA Railway PCN

Charmz91

Hi all

Recently appealed an APCOA PCN the registered keeper received in relation to railway land. Used the standard wording in the newbies thread about there being no keeper liability, didn’t identify the driver and also added some wording from another APCOA railway thread about there being no keeper liability on railway land.

Appeal was rejected so I assume I now need to do a standard POPLA no keeper liability appeal but before I do so the response to the appeal stated a load of things that seem contrary to what I had understood from reading this forum so I just wanted to check if I had misunderstood anything or whether APCOA are being misleading in their response to try scare us into paying the PCN rather than appealing to POPLA. I’m also confused as I was under the impression the keeper had received a PCN and the subject of the appeal response email was ‘Outcome of challenge to Parking Charge Notice’ however the appeal response repeatedly refers to PN rather than PCN

 Response received to the appeal was as follows:

At the time the ANPR cameras observed the vehicle they noted that it had used the car park without a valid payment, therefore it was parked in breach of the terms and conditions of the car park and a Penalty Notice was issued. It is the motorist’s responsibility to ensure that they read the terms and conditions on the signage in the car park and that they have a valid payment for the entire time that they use the car park.

In response to your comments, we can confirm that this Penalty Notice was not issued under the conditions laid out in the Protection of Freedoms Act (POFA) 2012.

Please note, this is a Penalty Notice issued on Railway land as a breach of the terms and conditions of parking has occurred, and you have confirmed to us that you are the registered keeper of the vehicle in question and therefore you are liable for this Notice.

The Railways byelaws state:

In England and Wales

(i) The owner of any motor vehicle, bicycle or other conveyance used, left or placed in breach of Byelaw 14(1) to 14(3) may be liable to pay a penalty as displayed in that area.

For further clarification, the owner, in relation to a vehicle, means the person by whom the vehicle is kept, which in the case of a vehicle registered under the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 (c. 22) is presumed to be the person in whose name the vehicle is registered. If the Penalty Notice remains unpaid, APCOA Parking is entitled to pursue you as the keeper through the Magistrates Court by way of a private criminal prosecution for payment of the Penalty Notice.

  

This penalty notice was given for 'Use of Private Car Park without making a valid payment'. There is adequate signage upon entry and throughout this car park. All payment options are advertised on site and multiple signs within the car park inform drivers that they will be issued with a Penalty Notice if they fail to make a valid payment for the duration of their stay.

Regarding the timeframe you have referred to, this only relates to a PN that has been issued under the Protection of Freedoms Act (POFA) 2012. This PN has not been issued under this Act, and therefore the timeframe you have referred to is not applicable in this instance.

Please note that the PN has been issued in line with the guidelines set out by the British Parking Association (BPA) for issuing a Non-POFA PN, and the timeframes differ to those set out in POFA 2012.

As your vehicle was parked in contravention of the terms and conditions of the site we are satisfied that the notice was correctly issued in accordance with the BPA code of practice, and therefore not able to waiver the charge on this occasion.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Gr1pr

If its a parking charge notice and not a penalty notice, there is no keeper liability on railway land controlled by bylaws 

So appeal to Popla as keeper, using any typical Popla appeal based on railway land issues, especially stations, be they NCP ones or APCOA ones, anything within the last few years 

Ditto with penalty notices, but they time out after 6 months , so string it out 

Its either one or the other, not the same, but both words are being used, so its important to check what the NTK PCN letter says, Parking Charge Notice, or Penalty Notice 

Coupon-mad

Same as any other APCOA Penalty thread!

Unlikely to win at POPLA but try if you like to string it out.  Don't rush. Take the full month.

Or ignore them entirely.

Times out anyway. Read other threads!

KeithP

Charmz91 said:

Please note, this is a Penalty Notice issued on Railway land as a breach of the terms and conditions of parking has occurred, and you have confirmed to us that you are the registered keeper of the vehicle in question and therefore you are liable for this Notice.

The Railways byelaws state:

In England and Wales

(i) The owner of any motor vehicle, bicycle or other conveyance used, left or placed in breach of Byelaw 14(1) to 14(3) may be liable to pay a penalty as displayed in that area.

For further clarification, the owner, in relation to a vehicle, means the person by whom the vehicle is kept, which in the case of a vehicle registered under the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 (c. 22) is presumed to be the person in whose name the vehicle is registered. If the Penalty Notice remains unpaid, APCOA Parking is entitled to pursue you as the keeper through the Magistrates Court by way of a private criminal prosecution for payment of the Penalty Notice.

They keep on reeling out this rubbish. We've seen it before.

On Tuesday of this week I wrote on another thread...

That appeal rejection letter from APCOA states...

They then make a major leap by stating that...

For further clarification, the owner, in relation to a vehicle, means the person by whom the vehicle is kept, which in the case of a vehicle registered under the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 (c. 22) is presumed to be the person in whose name the vehicle is registered.

That simply is not true.

Presumed??
I may have missed it, but I cannot see that 'presumption' anywhere in  https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/22/section/22.

Furthermore, the front page of a vehicle's Registration Document has this clear statement across the top...

Charmz91

Thanks all. About to submit my POPLA appeal using the very helpful (and very long) appeal used by ObserverOfLife in this thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6464301/apcoa-station-anpr-penalty-notice-surrey/p3. Might not do the trick for me but hopefully will help keep the clock ticking to that 6 month point.

One thing I was hoping to get a second opinion on is whether it would be worth adding the following argument to the appeal:

• signage was insufficient which is the reason parking wasn’t paid for by the driver initially.

• Only when the driver returned that evening did they come across the signage and this point they attempted to pay the relevant amount for parking.

• However, at this point the app only allowed the driver to pay for the lower rate parking, so despite their best efforts they couldn’t pay the correct amount for when the car arrived as the system didn’t allow them (have a receipt for the ‘off peak’ lower rate of parking which was purchased).

• attached image of terms and conditions specifies no requirement to pay within a certain time and therefore it was the operator, and not the drivers fault that they could not pay for the ‘peak’ parking. 

If anyone has any thoughts on whether this line of argument has any chance of being successful or whether I am best to stick to the arguments in ObserverOfLife’s appeal it would be greatly appreciated.

Coupon-mad

Yep. Add it.

And you could add that the sign identifies the principal as South Western Railway (massive logo on the bottom of each sign) so APCOA are only agents and cannot comply with the BPA CoP clause 7 about landowner authority because they cannot legally pursue a penalty "through the courts if necessary".  SWR could but this operator are not the creditor and cannot.

Charmz91

Unsurprisingly POPLA rejected my appeal.

I was trying to do some research on the 6 month old expiry of Penalty Notices and came across a recent court case (I’m not able to post links but google In R (on the application of Michli) v Westminster Magistrates' Court [2024] EWHC 599 (Admin))

Admittedly the case doesn’t relate to parking penalty notices, but it got me wondering whether the same logic applies to them. In summary (if I’ve understood the case correctly) the court ruled that the 6 month expiration of the penalty notice only began once the initial 28 days the person had to pay the penalty expired. Does anyone know whether the same logic would apply here? It also got me wondering whether the clock effectively stops when an appeal is going as presumably a landowner couldn’t launch legal proceedings whilst an appeal is in progress?

Has anyone considered this before and is someone able to confirm when they think the 6 months expiry period starts/finish?

Overall, I’m not too worried as I know I will now get the ZZPS DCA letters and that I just need to ignore these (I’ve already had two whilst the appeal was with POPLA and despite me making POPLA aware of this breach of the BPA code and me providing them with an email from APCOA admitting this shouldn’t have happened my appeal was still rejected!). I know it’s unlikely the landowner will launch a private criminal prosecution but it would be nice to know I’ve only got 3 weeks to go once the latest 28 days to pay following appeal rejection expire.

LDast

APCOA will not do anything. You already know about ignoring DRA comms. SWR are not going to do anything. Just sit back and wait it out.

lily10

I have been through the exact same situation you are in - mine was a Penalty notice issued by APCOA at Yeovil Railway station. Followed all the advice in this forum.
My POPLA appeal was rejected as well. I received a few intimidating debt collector letters and an email from a solicitor ( which I couldn't access). I ignored the lot as I knew that there is nowhere to go with all the threats.
Everyone here is correct - it all times out after 6 months. I'm now 13 months on and for the last 7 months or so I've had nothing further.
No need to analyse it any further......just stick it out!

Etccarmageddon

How did the solicitors get your email address , and if you don't mind me asking what was the content?  I would say they need to be very careful they don't attempt to pervert the legal system with the same lies the debt collection letters have 

And I have one such letter that's arrived today which is skating very close to fraudulently attempting to extort money via impossible legal threats.  Eg quoting railway bye laws as something they recommend apocla should use via a solicitor to start court action which is a blatant attempt to extract money via deception.