PCN for overstay at free county oak retail park car park

Ladybird_123

Hi everyone. Hoping some kind soul can help me appeal to poplar. As the RK I received a PCN from nexus group for the car being parked for 40 minutes over the 3 hours free.
It was received within a week of the "infringement"
I have tried complaining to retail park management via FB and got this response. 

Hi "name" I have passed on your message to the wider management team and they have advised, 'Our parking restrictions are clearly noted on our website and on signage across the park. The best way to challenge/appeal the parking fine is contacting the parking company Group Nexus via their website (website link)

Many thanks, County Oak Retail Park Team.

I then, followed the appeal process with the following:-

"I dispute your 'parking charge', as the keeper of the vehicle. I deny any liability or contractual agreement and I will be making a complaint about your predatory conduct to your client landowner. There will be no admissions as to who was driving and no assumptions can be drawn. Since your PCN is a vague template, I require an explanation of the allegation and your evidence. You must include a close up actual photograph of the sign you contend was at the location on the material date as well as your images of the vehicle. If the allegation concerns a PDT machine, the data supplied in response to this appeal must include the record of payments made - showing partial VRNs - and an explanation of the reason for the PCN, because your Notice does not explain it. If the allegation involves an alleged overstay of minutes, your evidence must include the actual grace period agreed by the landowner. In order to resolve the dispute I will attach copies of the driver's bank transactions that day as 'they' were a genuine customer. Please note the order of the transactions is not the actual order the transactions took place." Including 2 screenshots of bank statements showing that multiple stores were purchased from over the duration. 

This was rejected with the following response 
"Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your correspondence relating to your Parking Charge.

The Charge was issued and the signage is displayed in compliance with The British Parking Association’s Approved Operator Scheme Code of Practice and all relevant laws and regulations.

Clear signs at the entrance of this site and throughout inform drivers of the 3 hours maximum stay, and it is not possible to access any part of the premises without passing multiple signs. Your representations are not considered a mitigating circumstance for appeal.

We confirm the Charge was issued under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. As no driver details have been provided, we are holding the registered keeper of the vehicle liable.

In light of this, on this occasion, your representations have been carefully considered and rejected.

We can confirm that we will hold the Charge at the current rate of £60 for a further 14 days from the date of this correspondence. If no payment is received within this period, and no further appeal to POPLA is made, the Charge will escalate and further costs may be added.

Please find below the payment options:

Online: (website link)

By Telephone: Credit/Debit cards via our automated payment line: 0844 371 8784

By Post: Cheques or Postal Orders to: PO Box 1750, Northampton, NN1 9PN

----------

You have now reached the end of our internal appeals procedure. This correspondence represents our final stance on the matter and we will therefore not enter into any further correspondence.

CORRESPONDENCE RECEIVED FOLLOWING THE REJECTION OF AN APPEAL WILL NOT CHANGE THE OUTCOME OR EXTEND THE DATE IN WHICH PAYMENT SHOULD BE MADE.

Although we have now rejected your appeal, you may still have recourse to appeal to Parking On Private Land Appeals (POPLA), an independent appeals service. An appeal to POPLA must be made within 28 days of the date of this correspondence. POPLA will only consider cases on the grounds that the Parking Charge exceeded the appropriate amount, that the vehicle was not improperly parked or had been stolen, or that you were otherwise not liable for the Parking Charge. To appeal to POPLA, please go to their website (website link) and follow the instructions. If you would rather deal with this matter by post, please contact our Appeals Office and we will send you the necessary paperwork.

Your POPLA reference number is:*****

Please note that if your appeal does not relate to the above criteria or is rejected by POPLA for any reason, you will no longer qualify for payment at the reduced rate. POPLA will not consider any cases where payment has been made. You must pay the charge or appeal to POPLA, you cannot do both.

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.

Yours faithfully,

The Appeals Team.

Any advise on how to proceed and appeal through poplar would be appreciated or should I just pay the reduced fee and chalk it up to a lesson learned and don't shop there anymore?? 
Thank you for taking the time to read all of that! 

Gr1pr

So does the NTK PCN letter comply with POFA or not. ?  Check it and tell us 

Any Popla appeal would have to be mainly based on no landowner authority and poor signage, unless POFA enters into it ?

Post 3 in the newbies sticky thread in announcements deals with Popla appeals

KeithP

Who exactly did you complain to as 'the retail park management'?
Edgerley Simpson Howe or someone else?

KeithP

County Oak Retail Park's website is a bit of a mess.

For a start, at the foot of every page on that website is the line...

© 2024 County Oak Retail Park • Registered in England • Reg no: 123456789 • VAT Reg 123456789 • Reg Office: Lower Parliament St, Nottingham NG1 3QN

That's an unusual company registration number isn't it?
Can you get bespoke company numbers... in the same way that you can get a personalised car registration mark?

But wait, what do you make of their matching VAT number?

OK, so let's look at their Privacy Policy...
the first few words of that Privacy Policy state...

This is the Privacy Policy for the website hosted at www.lutonretailpark.co.uk (our “site”).

Luton?? County Oak Retail Park is in Crawley. What are these amateurs playing at?

fisherjim

KeithP said:

Luton?? County Oak Retail Park is in Crawley. What are these amateurs playing at?

These "amateurs" also talk about ....the parking fine....

The site was put up for sale in October, I really don't think they care and are hiding behind a mass of different company names and addresses.

If you follow links around the various websites within the County Oak website the number of blind alleys and companies you go around is mind boggling, and they point you to your local data protection authority, which takes you to a site not found with The European Commission.

Coupon-mad

Ladybird_123 said:

Any advise on how to proceed and appeal through poplar would be appreciated or should I just pay the reduced fee and chalk it up to a lesson learned and don't shop there anymore?? 

Obviously you don't pay it!  Why do people think that, when the NEWBIES thread categorically does not say that?

You'll never be paying this.

Ladybird_123

 rThank you all for your responses. 

Your information is much appreciated and taking the time to look into the retail site is much appreciated, but what do I do with this information in the first instance? 

I have returned to the retail park today to speak with the managers of all the stores visited and requested that they have the charge cancelled. 
Next- refused and said they have tried before and been declined.
Boots- said they have only managed to have staff charges cancelled, not customers, but gave me an email address that they complain to.
Hobby craft- agreed to email a request to cancel, but said she wasn't hopeful.
Furniture village- no manager, but employee said he could get the manager to call me. But thought because I didn't purchase, just browsed, they probably wouldn't be a able to help.
B&M- gave me his email address, said to send proof of purchases and he will email them, requesting they cancel.

My initial complaint was via Facebook as I couldn't figure out who the landowner was. 

I took the attached photos today, I noticed that there were no clearly visible signs (one high up on the left as you turn off the first mini roundabout stating view signage in the car park for details, never noticed it before) on the way in or near to where I parked (basically on the mini roundabout next to B&M). And no signs at all along the shop fronts where I walked. 

Is there a thread with a complaint letter template to send to shop head office/land owner/ management company etc?

I apologise if this seems like a simple answer, I'm new to this (previously just paid) and completely overwhelmed by everything I've read! 

Grizebeck

Notice so many people coming on this forum and asking if they should pay.

KeithP

These words on that first sign you have shown us got me interested...

           

Three points about those words...

1. We have seen that Savills have often been helpful with resolving parking issues.
   
   
2. Whose phone number is 0208 736 4040?
   
   
3. I recall the words 'Managed on behalf of' have some useful significance, but i can't remember the detail about why that is useful. 
   Perhaps someone else can help with that point.

Edited to add...

Looking at the small sign about data protection, it is clear that the 0208 phone number is for contacting their Data Protection Office...

         

Coupon-mad

Examples of complaints are of course where you'd expect, in SUCCESSFUL COMPLAINTS ABOUT PPCs, the dedicated thread that you saw as the first hyperlink when you read the NEWBIES FAQS announcement thread.

Ladybird_123

Thank you to all who gave me advise. 
After a failed initial appeal I went into all the stores to speak to the managers and complained to savills via email. So happy to receive this today!! 
The email address for savills that I complained to was smrcarparking@savills.com

Merry Christmas Everyone! 🥳🥳🥳