Wye Valley Visitor Centre - Case won vs Parkingeye

Ddraig11

Another one bites the dust.

Firstly, thank you for all the support and advice from the experts on this forum. I have learned so much over the last 12 months and am happy it has resulted in a successful outcome. 

We attended the civil court last week, and the judge found in our favour.

A bit of background - my wife parked at the notorious Wye Valley Visitor Centre last year, and had problems paying for her parking. The payment machine was faulty, website was unavailable due to lack of signal, and we argued the paybyphone service was not fit for purpose as instructions were not clear. 

I acted as a lay representative and Parkingeye were represented by a "local" representative. We raised a preliminary matter to the judge as the Claimant's Witness Statements had been submitted late. 

Upon arrival at court the Claimant's representative asked us if we would like an informal chat to see if there was anything we wanted clarification on. We agreed to listen to her thoughts, but were cautious not to say anything. She commented on the late submission of witness statements, and that they had not received ours until 2 weeks after the deadline. Clearly nonsense as I had an email showing it had been submitted on time to the Court and to Parkingeye. She also said she was going to ask the judge to put aside the 'Beavis' argument if we agreed. Needless to say we didn't agree.

We were very guarded on our responses preferring to keep them for our the discussions in Court. 

Strangely she didn't mention either matter once we were in court.

Once in court, the judge firstly admonished Parkingeye for the late submission of statements but he agreed to allow the evidence as it had not had a detrimental impact on our case. 

I felt the judge gave us a very fair hearing, and helped us with our lack of understanding of any court procedures, and was very experienced in these type of cases. He seemed to be very familiar of all the arguments we raised which helped considerably. 

Parkingeye had produced lists of successful payments at the machine and by phone on the day in question. We argued there was a significant time gap of 30 minutes at the time my wife arrived, and the list provided showed no mention of any failed transactions, or error messages.

This contradicted our witness statement which had already been accepted by the Claimant as true. Our statement mentioned other members of the public also experiencing issues with at least one void receipt being issued.

We argued that IT issues could last for 3 days or 30 minutes and successful transactions either side of this time slot didn't prove there hadn't been a fault at that time.

Parkingeye argued we could have called Paybyphone, as the details, including location code, were provided on the signage. 

However, when calling the number provided the automated service asked for a 'Pin number' rather than location code, and typing in the location code didn't work. Parkingeye explained that we must have already had an account and had previously chosen a pin. 

My wife couldn't recall setting up an account and we argued the signs didn't mention an account was necessary, and didn't mention the requirement for a 'pin number'.

Parkingeye mentioned there was a option to pay on the website until midnight, but again this wasn't mentioned on the signs, so there was no way we could have known. 

We also raised the additional £25 which had been added on top of the £100 fine mentioned on the signs. At this point the judge, who seemed very aware of this argument stopped us and said he would deal with this as it was a point of law. 

After a hearing of around 80 minutes, the judge dismissed the case on the grounds of there being no reasonable option to pay the fee at the time. Parkingeye had been unable to prove there hadn't been a fault on the machine, and he agreed the paybyphone option was not fit for purpose due to lack of clear instructions. 

We were awarded costs, and the case was dismissed. 

What a relief! 

We're very happy to have been successful and I'm glad we are stubborn enough to see it through. However I can completely understand people who would rather pay the initial fee rather than have to go through this ridiculous process, which is what these

companies rely on. 

The sooner the whole industry is properly legislate the better. 

Thank you again for the support and information provided on this invaluable forum. 

Gr1pr

Well done,  which court and Judge please   ?

Please fill in the government survey to try to get the changes made and regulations implemented 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6617396/parking-code-of-practice-consultation-8-weeks-from-11th-july-2025/p1

kryten3000

Very well done!

ChirpyChicken

Nice result 

Coupon-mad

Gr1pr said:

Well done,  which court and Judge please   ?

Please fill in the government survey to try to get the changes made and regulations implemented 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6617396/parking-code-of-practice-consultation-8-weeks-from-11th-july-2025/p1

Echoing all these comments. Well done!

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!

And re the link, please bookmark it. This month, we need to stick around and do the Public Consultation if you haven't done it yet.

We need every poster to come back & complete this vital Consultation before the deadline! Just 2 weeks left but please don't rush it. You can do some then save it and come back to it as you have time.

We understand that you may need some pointers. It looks laborious, we get that.

I'm taking a closer look this week and we'll walk you through it. I should have all the first post 'how to respond to each question' advice ready by the end of this week.

I've covered up to q9 already. More to follow on that thread.

There are vital points to safeguard motorists interests to make, that many people won't think of/need focus. There won't be a template - the survey is for you to reply in your words - but we'll help everyone with what to focus on. 

Coupon-mad

We also raised the additional £25 which had been added on top of the £100 fine mentioned on the signs. At this point the judge, who seemed very aware of this argument stopped us and said he would deal with this as it was a point of law. 

What did the judge say about this point?

By the way, please could you show here asap:

- the sign

- the LBCCC where they first ambushed with the added £25 (that wasn't on the signs)

- the claim form (redacted) showing the £125 claimed...

as I want to show this to the MHCLG with my own response to make a particular point. But I need a case showing all three things please. You'll have all these in their evidence pack.

Ddraig11

Gr1pr said:

Well done,  which court and Judge please   ?

Please fill in the government survey to try to get the changes made and regulations implemented 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6617396/parking-code-of-practice-consultation-8-weeks-from-11th-july-2025/p1

It was District Judge Jackson at County Court, Newport.

Thanks for the link, I'll get that done today. 

Ddraig11

Coupon-mad said:

We also raised the additional £25 which had been added on top of the £100 fine mentioned on the signs. At this point the judge, who seemed very aware of this argument stopped us and said he would deal with this as it was a point of law. 

What did the judge say about this point?

By the way, please could you show here asap:

- the sign

- the LBCCC where they first ambushed with the added £25 (that wasn't on the signs)

- the claim form (redacted) showing the £125 claimed...

as I want to show this to the MHCLG with my own response to make a particular point. But I need a case showing all three things please. You'll have all these in their evidence pack.

Parkingeye argued the £25 was covered in the small print on the sign as "additional charges".

During his judgement the judge mentioned if he had found in their favour he would have rejected the additional amount as the wording was at best "vague" and there had been no justification as to how they arrived at the £25 figure. 

Documents are below - let me know if you need any more info. 

Car1980

Sorry, did you leave or stay after not being able to pay?

And where on earth does it say anything about paying any more other than the parking tariff (£3.00) in their Particulars of Claim?

Coupon-mad

Ddraig11 said:

Coupon-mad said:

We also raised the additional £25 which had been added on top of the £100 fine mentioned on the signs. At this point the judge, who seemed very aware of this argument stopped us and said he would deal with this as it was a point of law. 

What did the judge say about this point?

By the way, please could you show here asap:

- the sign

- the LBCCC where they first ambushed with the added £25 (that wasn't on the signs)

- the claim form (redacted) showing the £125 claimed...

as I want to show this to the MHCLG with my own response to make a particular point. But I need a case showing all three things please. You'll have all these in their evidence pack.

Parkingeye argued the £25 was covered in the small print on the sign as "additional charges".

During his judgement the judge mentioned if he had found in their favour he would have rejected the additional amount as the wording was at best "vague" and there had been no justification as to how they arrived at the £25 figure. 

Documents are below - let me know if you need any more info. 

Thankyou for this evidence.

Ddraig11

Car1980 said:

Sorry, did you leave or stay after not being able to pay?

And where on earth does it say anything about paying any more other than the parking tariff (£3.00) in their Particulars of Claim?

After several attempts to pay, with the machine showing error messages, the last attempt didn't show an error so it appeared payment had been made.

The first we realised it hadn't worked was when we got the PCN.