Parking Code of Practice Consultation - now EXTENDED - closes Friday 26th September

Protest

Norris moving on.

Lesson to others - if you do nothing apart from procrastinate successfully,  the poisoned chalice will be taken away and you can add another ministerial post to your CV.

We can be as passionate and precisely informed as we like but, if we can't shift the Minister/Ministry and generate momentum and actual commitment to sorting out this unholy mess, the ATAs will win. At no personal cost to Minister/Ministry officials, just to the motorists. 

Time for some hard-ball? Whip up a tractor-type protest of cars and vans? 

Coupon-mad

Protest said:

Norris moving on.

Hmm... Alex Norris has been made a minister in the Home Department.

I think that's good news.

I think whoever takes over the parking portfolio will be shocked by the Public Consultation answers.

IT IS UP TO US TO ENSURE THE NEW MINISTER IS SHOCKED ...BUT PLEASE STAY POLITE AND NOT RANTY.

If people (and I mean ALL of our driver friends and family) can be persuaded to just answer three questions in the Consultation NOW IS THE TIME because your points will be heard by fresh ears!

Without putting words into anyone's mouth, the 3 most important questions are:

1 - the one suggesting retaining the £100 cap, regardless of breach. That's an error: in the first iteration of the Code we need proportionality. The levels are a matter of personal opinion but we mustn't see a blurring of the lines between these invoices and actual penalties. MY OPINION: Similar-ish levels yes. But mirroring the LA PCNs regime, no. And not copying the Mayor's excessive London penalties. This isn't about enforcement, road infrastructure or security. These are contract law invoices not fines, so tests of proportionality and fairness apply.

2. - the one about the rip-off £70 add-on, which the industry share between DRA & PPC,  'meaning that the PCN is increased to more than face value. PPCs MAKE MORE MONEY WHEN THEY FAIL TO HEAR DISPUTES. This is surely a matter of public policy to stop it completely.

3. - the question about the IAS and POPLA which - this is a no-brainer - must be replaced by a new, Single Appeals Service which is impartial. The new service must be led by a legally qualified Lead Adjudicator who is used to operating an ADR service.

It must also be staffed by independent persons with integrity and an eye for Code rules and fairness, who are completely unconnected (past and present) to PPCs, DRAs or parking litigating law firms. These assessors must be named on decisions (initial and surname at least) and must have no conflict of interests: i.e. the pool of assessors must NOT be from the same pool of parking claim legal reps who appear for parking firm Claimants at hearings and they mustn't be spoon-fed template 'decision' crap about Elliott v Loake and other irrelevant trash.

Which is what IAS assessors seem to be. It is NOT OK to say 'oh it's fine, they are all solicitors or barristers'. Yes Will H, no doubt they are. I believe that bit! They are jobbing barristers without a pupillage (I've met their type in court). I just don't believe they are impartial. Frankly, the IAS must be killed off.

delabc

What do you think about my point on ANPR? I would recommend that where a site is controlled by ANPR there should ALWAYS be a system of payment after the event. With 95%+ of PCN's being issued for ANPR sites this could cut out a huge number of spurious cases as the motorist would always pay for the exact time they have stayed.

delabc

Sorry, I meant 90%+.

Nellymoser

Yes it's an excellent idea wonder why the experts in parking management didn't think of it!!
I went a bit further than recommending I said ANPR parking systems which allow or create motorists errors MUST be banned by Govt. 

Le_Kirk

I made the point that the PPC knows the VRM of every car in the car park, otherwise they wouldn't be able to ask DVLA for keeper details and should therefore, at their PDT or payment app stage be able to match a VRM with the details input by the motorist and, if different, do not allow the motorist to continue until the VRM is corrected!  Of course, that way no PCNs can be issued!

Kaizen2024

The tariffs would need to increase significantly to accommodate this, as terminals that have this capacity are few and far between; and cost at least 3 to 4 times as much as a standard terminal.

Also, any form of communication error between the terminal and ANPR would close the car park down (you can’t pay if the terminal does not know you are there in this setting). 

Standard terminals and ANPR can carry on working independently in the event of a network issue, and store the data until connectivity is resumed.

If this was forced upon operators, most would remove all terminals and go 100% phone payments.

Basically, it’s never going to happen.

Car1980

The tariffs would need to increase significantly to accommodate this

Sounds ok to me. Parking tariffs are generally quite reasonable (some city centre rip-off sites excepted).

delabc

Like I said in my first post on this thread, all they have to do is allow payment on their website or app like TFL do with the Congestion Zone and ULEZ. Wouldn't cost them a penny. No need for machines. And they could allow three days to pay like TFL. I remember a toll road in Italy controlled by ANPR which allowed up to 7 days to pay. I nearly got caught out though because all the signage was in Italian!

delabc

Having a system like Epping Forest car parks with ANPR AND payment in advance for an estimated time on the dreaded RingGo app is crazy, except that it creates multiple opportunities for the PPC to issue PCN's.