Paid for parking at wrong carpark

imforeverblowingbubbles

As registered keeper my daughter has received 3 separate parking charge notices from Britannia Parking for failure to make valid payment at Wickford Station Carpark. She was sure that payment had been made for these sessions, checked the ‘pay by phone app’ and the payment receipts are confirmed on the app as paid.

Background is, driver arrived at the station and parked in the first car park on arrival which was several feet from the station building entrance. It was early in the morning and only just starting to get light, the driver parked up and searched the car park on their phone, ‘Wickford Station Carpark’.

GAP (Greater Anglia Parking) Wickford Station came up via a Google search and it was noted that parking could be paid for up to 4am the following morning for the parking session, so as the driver didn’t want to miss their train they decided to pay once on the train, as is permitted within the timeframe allowed, but they had trouble getting a signal so waited until in work to do so. They did so on the pay by phone app inputting Wickford Station Car Park. And they repeated this on two other occasions a week later. All was well, or so they thought!!

Subsequently the PCNs arrived.

On further investigation it has been established that there are two car parks at Wickford Station, both very close to each other, but only one is the official Greater Anglia Parking station car park. The official one is managed by NCP which is the one they made payment for, but the one that the driver parked at is privately owned and run by Britannia so it became apparent that they had paid for the wrong car park. This was a genuine mistake and was not helped by the fact that the car parks are both known as wickford station car park when you search them on Google maps or Google search! 

Do you think she has grounds for appeal as it’s not clear that this car park is not the actual station car park even though it is known as Wickford Station car park, even the PCN states the location as Wickford Station! 

The PCN is POFA compliant from what we can see as it has the full paragraph wording so should she appeal as keeper or name the driver? 

Just wondering if the photos are clear enough to be compliant? Can’t make out the number plate only on separate zoomed images supplied.

She is hoping to appeal and be offered the £20 keying error as the wrong location code was input on the pay by phone app. Do you think this is the right approach for appeal. £20 keying error fee is better than the £60 or £100 they are asking for.

Any help much appreciated, thank you. 

Gr1pr

No, paying for the wrong car park is no defence, station car parks are typically NCP for GAA, APCOA for others and Saba for TfL

I understand the confusion but it is what it is, Britannia received no payment but did provide a parking space that was used each and every time, a service 

I think that the keying error approach is certainly a good option in this case

imforeverblowingbubbles

Ok great, thank you. I’ll get her to try the keying error approach.

Gr1pr

The keeper can name the driver at anytime up until a court claim is issued, so its worth keeping back for now 

The issues around signage etc are less of a slam dunk win, as would be no landowner authority, plus its difficult to deny that the vehicle was there, hence damage limitation via the major keying error route ( others may say play hardball but IMHO Britannia do have a valid point. )

imforeverblowingbubbles

Gr1pr said:

The keeper can name the driver at anytime up until a court claim is issued, so its worth keeping back for now 

The issues around signage etc are less of a slam dunk win, as would be no landowner authority, plus its difficult to deny that the vehicle was there, hence damage limitation via the major keying error route ( others may say play hardball but IMHO Britannia do have a valid point. )

Thanks, she acknowledges driver fault , albeit unintentional, so will go with major keying error as Keeper for now. Thanks again 

imforeverblowingbubbles

First PCN for attention 

Coupon-mad

The keeper can be held liable but you know that from the NTK pictures thread (linked in NEWBIES PLEASE READ THESE FAQS FIRST) .