UKPC offered to reduce charge to £20

Enrico_Fermi

A member of my family was given a parking charge NTK stating an overstay at a Leisure Park parking lot that contains Cinewrold and eating places. The allowed parking time is 4 hours and the car was parked for 4 hrs 18 min. The original parking charge was £100 but it has now been reduced to £20 after I appealed to UKPC. 
The fee of £20 is not much but my feeling is that they are trying it on to get something out of me. 
I would like to know if I should appeal to POPLA and if you think I'll get the charge waived. This is a matter of principal (up to a point) more than the fee but don't want this to drag on. 
The contents of my appeal (using the newbie template here was):

"You issued me with a parking ticket on __/__/2024 but I believe it was unfairly and unlawfully issued. I decline your invitation to name the driver, which is not required of me as the keeper of the vehicle. I will not be paying your demand for payment for the following reasons:

•

The alleged contravention did not occur

There is a requirement of entering the car registration into the registration systems within Cineworld for parking. The driver at the time complied with this requirement of entering the car registration into the system, with on-onscreen success confirmation, provided within Cineworld (the location). If there was an error in this system which means the registration wasn’t recorded correctly, or wasn’t reported correctly that is neither the fault of the registered keeper or the driver.

•

Mitigating circumstances

There are also mitigating circumstances to explain why the vehicle was parked where it was and the charge should be waived for this reason. The driver was accompanying a disabled person with learning difficulties and challenging behavior. Unfortunately, the behavior of disabled person proved particularly challenging on this occasion and everything took much longer to achieve than normal; this included delays in getting the disabled person to enter and leave the onsite KFC and the same problem with leaving the cinema and getting to the car after the Cineworld movie.

If you choose to pursue me please be aware that I will not enter into any correspondence and this will be the only letter you will receive from me until you answer the specific points raised in my letter.

Yours faithfully,
"

UKPC replied as follows:

We have carefully considered your appeal based on the information you have provided and the evidence supporting the parking charge. In this instance

having completed our assessment, we consider the parking charge to have been correctly issued. However, based on the evidence you have provided, we

have decided to reduce the charge to £20, if payment is received within thirty-five days of this letter.

Our appeals process is now concluded, you may now choose one of the following options:

1) Pay the parking charge detailed above at the reduced rate of £20 to UK Parking Control Ltd. PLEASE REFER OVERLEAF FOR PAYMENT OPTIONS AND

ADDRESS DETAILS.

2) Make an appeal to the independent adjudicator POPLA (Parking on Private Land Appeals) using the verification code provided above. Please note that if

you wish to appeal to POPLA, you will lose the right to pay the discounted rate of £20, and should POPLA reject your appeal you will be required to pay

the full amount of £100.00. If you opt to pay the parking charge you will be unable to appeal with POPLA. Appeals to POPLA must be made within

twenty-eight days from the date of this letter. To appeal with POPLA, please visit www.popla.co.uk. If you are unable to access the internet, you may

appeal by post – this must be done using a POPLA postal form which may be obtained by contacting POPLA by phone (0330 159 6126) or post (PO Box

1270, Warrington, WA4 9RL).

By law we are also required to inform you that Ombudsman Services (www.ombudsman-services.org/) provides an alternative dispute resolution service

that would be competent to deal with your appeal. However, we have not chosen to participate in their alternative dispute resolution service. As such

should you wish to appeal then you must do so to POPLA, as explained above.

3) If you choose to do nothing the parking charge will automatically increase after thirty-five days from the date of this letter to £100.00 and the matter

will be passed to our debt recovery agent, at which point you will be liable to pay an additional charge of £70, in accordance with the terms and conditions

of parking, and further charges will be claimed if court action is taken against you. Any unpaid court judgement may adversely affect your credit rating.

Umkomaas

Get the landowner to cancel this. If not (can't/won't), pay the £20, otherwise this will be hanging over you for many months (even up to 6 years), with hassle from (powerless) debt collectors, then a County Court claim, with DCB Legal orchestrating that and will have to be defended. 

If you have the resilience to fight this over the coming month/years, then dig yourself in and start the necessary search to equip you in entering the litigation arena. 

See what others say. Have you complained to your MP?

Grizebeck

For £20 I'd pay unless landowner cancels.

KeithP

Enrico_Fermi said:

A member of my family was given a parking charge NTK stating an overstay at a Leisure Park parking lot...

Which leisure park? Where exactly?

Coupon-mad

Grizebeck said:

For £20 I'd pay unless landowner cancels.

Same. Sadly.

Enrico_Fermi

KeithP said:

Enrico_Fermi said:

A member of my family was given a parking charge NTK stating an overstay at a Leisure Park parking lot...

Which leisure park? Where exactly?

Cineworld Llandudno, North Wales.

Car1980

They've hamstrung themselves court-wise with the £20 offer in my opinion. 
They should have labelled it without prejudice.

They can't self-impose £70 worth of "contractual damages" and attempt to recover it later.

I wouldn't pay personally. 

Enrico_Fermi

Umkomaas said:

Get the landowner to cancel this. If not (can't/won't), pay the £20, otherwise this will be hanging over you for many months (even up to 6 years), with hassle from (powerless) debt collectors, then a County Court claim, with DCB Legal orchestrating that and will have to be defended. 

If you have the resilience to fight this over the coming month/years, then dig yourself in and start the necessary search to equip you in entering the litigation arena. 

See what others say. Have you complained to your MP?

I haven't complained to my MP. If this could be hanging over me for months then I will pay the £20.

Enrico_Fermi

Car1980 said:

They've hamstrung themselves court-wise with the £20 offer in my opinion. 
They should have labelled it without prejudice.

They can't self-impose £70 worth of "contractual damages" and attempt to recover it later.

I wouldn't pay personally. 

I agree and they were also my sentiments. I was thinking along the lines of what someone else on this forum did back in 2017 for a similar cineworld PNC:
"Essentially the driver at the time complied with the requirements. THere was an error in their system whic means the registration wasnt recorded correctly, or wasnt reported correctly. At POPLA you will put them to STRICT PROOF that all terminals were in full working order, that all log file transactions were operating correctly, all to evidential standard. You will state that a simple undocumented list of suppsoed registrations will prove nothing. They have to prove, beyond balance of prob, that the fault was not theirs."

Coupon-mad

Unlikely to work. POPLA will just look at the fact the operator offered the £20 as per the CoP.

Enrico_Fermi

Decided to pay the £20. Too much hassle for such a short amount. Thanks for all your advice.