Premier Park Appeal

iZyk

I have got a parking charge issued after 72days of incident. Appealed to Premier Park which was declined with a generic response. 
I have appealed to POPLA and have received a response from Premier Park. POPLA has asked me to respond to Premier Park's statement. I have drafted this. Can someone read through to see if it will help with the POPLA Appeal? Original PCN redacted and attached too.  Thanks in advance

Appeal to Premier Park on 8th June:
Premier Park Ltd
PO Box 624
Exeter EX1 9JG
8th June, 2025

Dear Sir/Madam,
XXXXX: FORMAL REQUEST TO CANCEL PARKING CHARGE NOTICE
I am writing as the registered keeper of the vehicle with registration number XXX XXX, in response to the Parking Charge Notice referenced XXXXX dated 2nd June 2025 for the vehicle being parked on 22nd March 2025 at NG7 5QJ.
You have failed to comply with the requirements of Schedule 4 of The Protection Of Freedoms Act (POFA) 2012 namely, but not limited to, failing to deliver the notice within the relevant period of 14 days as prescribed by section 9(4) of the Act. You cannot, therefore, transfer liability for the alleged charge from the driver at the time to me, the keeper. There is no legal requirement to name the driver at the time and I will not be doing so. Your Notice to Keeper was not served within this 14-day period. As such, you have not established the right to pursue the registered keeper under POFA, and I am under no legal obligation to name the driver.
Therefore, the only options open to you are: To cancel the PCN, or To pursue the driver, if you can identify them As the PCN does not meet the requirements of POFA 2012, any further attempt to enforce it against me, the registered keeper, would be unlawful and unenforceable. Please confirm in writing that the charge has been cancelled. Should you refuse, I will escalate this matter to the appropriate alternative dispute resolution service (POPLA as stated) and lodge a complaint with the DVLA for your misuse of keeper data.

Regards,
XXXXX
yyyy@gmail.com.

Rejected Appeal from Premier Park:

Thank you for your appeal against the above Parking Charge Notice (PCN). We have carefully considered your appeal, however on this occasion the appeal has been rejected for the following reason;

Whilst we note the comments and reason for appeal, as per our photographic evidence, the vehicle was parked in contravention of the advertised terms and conditions. As the vehicle was not parked fully within a bay, we can confirm that this PCN has been issued correctly.

Either due to the reason for issue and/or the insufficient evidence provided to support the details of your appeal, we have considered this PCN and found that it does not fall under the category of Annex F the Appeals Charter of the Single Code of Practice. Therefore, if no further evidence is provided, we will deem this to be our final decision. 

You have now reached the end of our internal appeals procedure and therefore you now have two options; you can either pay or appeal to POPLA - you cannot do both:

 You can pay the total amount due as shown above via the following payment options;

• Call us on: 01302 513232
• Pay online: 
• Send a postal order: Premier Park Ltd, PO Box 624, Exeter, EX1 9JG

Or, you can appeal to an Independent Appeals Service, POPLA (Parking on Private Land Appeals) using the POPLA reference code provided above. Please note, should you decide to appeal to POPLA and your appeal is subsequently rejected or you withdraw your appeal, the option to pay a discounted amount will no longer be available and the full amount of the PCN will become due. Please note, if you pay the PCN prior to appealing to POPLA, your appeal will be withdrawn as you will have accepted liability in full.

If you decide to appeal to POPLA, you will need to visit their website,  popla where further details of how to appeal (either online or by downloading the relevant forms) can be found. If you are unable to access their website, please call us for further information on how to obtain the forms. Please ensure your POPLA Reference Number, as noted above, is quoted on all correspondence to POPLA. You have 28 days from the date of this email to submit an appeal to POPLA. If you appeal to POPLA we will suspend recovery activity on the PCN and the charge will not increase until the appeal has been determined.

By law we are also required to inform you that Ombudsman Services 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.

If you do not make payment or submit an appeal to POPLA within the relevant timeframe, the outstanding PCN may be passed to our appointed debt collection agency for further action. All costs associated with this process will be added to the amount outstanding.

Appeal to POPLA:

Grounds: No Keeper Liability – POFA 2012 Non-Compliance

I am the registered keeper of the vehicle referenced in this Parking Charge Notice. I am writing to formally challenge the Parking Charge Notice (PCN) issued by Premier Park Ltd on the following grounds.

I dispute the Parking Charge Notice (PCN) on the following grounds:

(1) Failure to adhere to the requirements of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA)

(2) The operator has not shown that the individual who it is pursuing is in fact the driver who may have been potentially liable for the charge

(3) Inadequate signage leading to failure to adhere to PoFA 2012 and breach of the BPA Code of Practice

(4) No evidence of landholder authority

 (1) Failure to adhere to the requirements of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA)

Premier Park Ltd has failed to comply with the strict requirements of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA), and therefore cannot hold me, the keeper, liable for the charge.

There was no windscreen ticket on the vehicle and a Notice to Keeper (NtK) was sent via post. The NtK was issued more than 14 days after the alleged parking incident; 72 days to be specific (incident date: 22nd March 2025 and PCN issue date: 2nd June 2025).

Under Paragraph 9(4) of PoFA Schedule 4, if no notice was left on the vehicle at the time, a notice must be delivered to the registered keeper within 14 days beginning with the day after the specified period of parking. Premier Park has clearly failed to do this and delivered the notice 72 days after the date of the incident stated. Which makes this PCN issued incorrectly. I have appealed to them on these grounds, yet I have received a generic response without a consideration of my reference to PoFA breach where Premier Park Ltd still stand their grounds that they have correctly issued the PCN which is deceptive and dishonest.

As such, this is a Level 1 non-conformance under the Private Parking Sector Single Code (hereafter referred to as the Code) (Annex H, Sanction Scheme, point 3 under Level 1) of Practice of British Parking Association (BPA) and International Parking Community (IPC) (Page 52) which  states Sending of a notice implying that they are pursuing the keeper using the Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act when they are outside of the timescales is clearly a breach of the BPA Code. It is also a  Level 3 non-conformance as it is a misuse of Keeper Data (as stated on Page 53) and Level 4 non-conformance in that upon mentioning in my earlier appeal to Premier Park Ltd, they have still gone on to email me, the registered keeper, and stated that they will  further pursue the POFA non-complaint charge (Page 53, point two of Level 4).

(2) The operator has not shown that the individual who it is pursuing is in fact the driver who may have been potentially liable for the charge

Furthermore, the NTK fails to meet other key POFA requirements, such as:

Paragraph 9 (2) (f) (ii) of PoFA 2012 which states: “(f)warn the keeper that if, after the period of 28 days beginning with the day after that on which the notice is given”…“the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver, the creditor will (if all the applicable conditions under this Schedule are met) have the right to recover from the keeper so much of that amount as remains unpaid.”

No specific warning that the keeper will be held liable if the driver is not named (Paragraph 9(2)(f)) has been stated in the notice. Which further makes it incorrectly issued. This warning must be explicitly stated in the NtK.

Upon examining the NtK, it is evident that this required warning is completely absent. The lack of this warning is a critical failure because PoFA only allows for keeper liability if all conditions are met, and this specific warning is essential for notifying the keeper of the potential transfer of liability. Without this warning, Premier Park Ltd cannot lawfully hold the keeper liable under any circumstances.

The omission of this warning means that Premier Park Ltd is not compliant with PoFA Schedule 4, and it is not enough for them to comply with other parts of the Act. PoFA requires full compliance for the transfer of liability to be valid. Partial or substantial compliance is not sufficient, as established in several POPLA decisions and persuasive appeals in the courts. Therefore, Premier Park Ltd ’s NtK is invalid for the purposes of transferring liability to me as the registered keeper.

(3) Inadequate signage leading to failure to adhere to PoFA 2012 and breach of the BPA Code of Practice

Also, the signage is not prominent, clear or legible from all spaces, and there is insufficient notice of the parking charge itself at the premise.

(4) No evidence of landholder authority has been provided.

As also stated in the Code, Page 27 under Relationship with landowner, there is no evidence showing that the parking operator has the landowner’s/s’ authority.

Because Premier Park Ltd has not complied with POFA, they cannot transfer liability to the registered keeper and I will not be naming the driver as the registered keeper. As such, I request POPLA to allow this appeal and cancel the charge.

This is a crucial challenge that POPLA should uphold, as it directly affects the legality of the operator’s attempt to hold the keeper liable.

I have attached copies of the PCN, Appeal and the Rejected Appeal Decision. Thank you.

Kind regards,

XXXX

Response from Premier Park to POPLA



My Draft Comments to Response to POPLA 

1.      Appellant is the keeper of the vehicle and has never stated to Premier Park that they are the driver of the vehicle at the time of the incident.

2.      The Operator is confusing my appeal with another appeal as:

a.      Appellant has never mentioned anywhere in correspondence to Premier Park that they were the driver or at any time of the incident and that they were utilising the car park to answer their phone

b.      Paragraph 8 of the Operator response mentions: Whilst we note the further comments made, we would advise this does not negate the issuance of the PCN. As can be seen from the Operatives images, none of the vehicle lights are on and the wing mirrors are turned in, indicating the engine has been turned off.

This statement is wrong as can be clearly seen from the images that the wing mirrors of the vehicle are still TURNED OUT, contrary to what is being mentioned in response and as can be seen in all the images uploaded by the Operator and no lights seen as it is daytime (13:02) as such an inference cannot be made that the engines are off. To add to this, even if the lights are off, it could be that the engine was still on and  the driver may have been correcting the parking when the images were taken as the images were taken after an observation time of just 1 minute (Page 3 of the response) which is clearly not enough time to place charges if the driver was to be correcting the parking to park wholly in the bay. No further images are provided after the 1 minute of the observation when the images were taken.

3.      The last but five paragraph of the Operator’s Response mentioned they quoted the paragraph 9(2)(f) Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 in the Notice to Keeper as: “if, after the period of 28 days beginning with the day after that on which this notice is given – the full amount of the unpaid parking charge specified in this notice has not been paid in full, and we do not know both the name and current address of the driver, under paragraph 9(2)(f) of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 we will have the right to recover from the Keeper so much of that parking charge amount as remains unpaid’

But that is not true. Looking at the Paragraph 5 of the Parking Charge Notice issued, the Operator mentioned: You are advised that if, after the period of 28 days beginning with the day after that on which this notice is given – the amount of the unpaid parking charge specified in this notice has not been paid in full, we will have the right to recover the parking charge amount that remains unpaid from the DRIVER of the vehicle. If we are required to take further action to recover this Parking Charge the amount due may increase to up to £170.00.

The mention of right to recover parking charge amount that remains unpaid from the DRIVER of the vehicle, where in this case the DRIVER of the vehicle is not known cannot be transferred to me, the keeper, as the Operator is assuming I, the registered keeper and the appellant, was the driver at the time of the incident.

This is in contradiction to the paragraph 9(2)(f) Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 and a blatant falsehood in the quoted Notice to Keeper the Operator claims to have sent to me the keeper. I have mentioned this non-compliance to POFA 2012 in my appeal to the Operator but they did not look at it at all

 

4.      The response given by the Operator appears previous generic response to a Not Wholly Parked in bay has been provided by Operator as some of the claims in the response are not applicable and relevant to the appeal and response appellant made.

 

5.      Dates provided to indicate locations of the signages by the Operator are more than 3 years old (Timestamped and Dated: 13 Feb 2022) and may not reflect the current state of signages at the premise.

 

Even the closest highlighted signages in the image of the response (Timestamped: 2025-03-22 13:02:23) (Page 11 of document titled 6661755055) show the signages far off from the location of the parked vehicle which will make it difficult to sight and read the terms and conditions stated. Also, from the page 11 of the same page, the last image (Timestamped: 2025-03-22 13:02:23) shows the back of a car in the previous bay protruding into the bay of the parked bay which may have been the reason for the incident of not parking wholly in bay if that was the only bay available at the time of the incident.

Le_Kirk

Not parked wholly within a bay!  It is correct; why did you park like that?  Of course we cannot see the cars that were parked either side of you when you arrived forcing you to park so badly and then disappeared.  I cannot condone parking like that and I fear your only recourse is what I mentioned.

Coupon-mad

That is awful parking!

But the POPLA appeal will win.