Euro Carpark POPLA appeal

Bl0168

Hello all, I was wondering if you could have a look at my planned POPLA appeal. We had parked in Parc Pemberton retail park and apparently overstayed the 3 hour limit whilst shopping. We did not purchase anything on the day but ended buying a sofa and curtain at a later date (we were doing our research)

1) We have been paying customers of the retail park and have not caused any financial loss to the landowner

According to BPA Section 20.5

If the parking charge that the driver is being asked to pay is for a breach of contract or act of trespass, this charge must be proportionate and commercially justifiable. We would not expect this amount to be more than £100. If the charge is more than this, operators must be able to justify the amount in advance.

We had visited the retail park on multiple occasions to research and purchase a sofa and curtains. These are large purchases that require time to decide before purchase. We did end up buying a curtain and sofa from the retailers here. Furthermore, the car park was not full at the time of our visits and hence we have not incurred any financial loss to the landowner due to our stay. We would therefore require evidence from Euro Carparks to justify the estimated amount of loss from this alleged contravention. This justification cannot include any operational tax-deductible business running cost such as cost of signage, cost of appeals, staffage or write-off costs, as this would not represent a loss from a breach of the parking contract.

Please see addendum for receipts/quotes

2) No evidence of landowner authority

In accordance to the BPA Code of Practice:

7.2 If the operator wishes to take legal action on any outstanding parking charges, they must ensure that they have the written authority of the landowner (or their appointed  agent) prior to legal action being taken.

7.3 The written authorisation must also set out:

a) the definition of the land on which you may operate, so that the boundaries

of the land can be clearly defined

b) any conditions or restrictions on parking control and enforcement

operations, including any restrictions on hours of operation

c) any conditions or restrictions on the types of vehicles that may, or may not,

be subject to parking control and enforcement

d) who has the responsibility for putting up and maintaining signs

e) the definition of the services provided by each party to the agreement.

As Euro Car Park does not have proprietary interest in the land, they are required to produce an unredacted copy of their contract with the landowner. This must include any details, exemptions and enforcement rights that the landowner has agreed on. A witness statement is not sufficient for this as they are usually generic pre-signed documents and do not adequately identify the agreements and services provided between both parties.

3) Failure to comply with the data protection 'ICO Code of Practice' applicable to ANPR (no information about SAR rights, no privacy statement, no evaluation to justify that 24/7 ANPR enforcement at this site is justified, fair and proportionate). A serious BPA CoP breach

BPA’s Code of Practice (21.4) states that:

“It is also a condition of the Code that, if you receive and process vehicle or registered keeper data, you must:

l be registered with the Information Commissioner

l keep to the Data Protection Act

l follow the DVLA requirements concerning the data

l follow the guidelines from the Information Commissioner’s Office on the use of CCTV and ANPR cameras, and on keeping and sharing personal data such as vehicle  registration marks

Following this, the ICO Code of Practice states:

“If you are already using a surveillance system, you should regularly evaluate whether it is necessary and proportionate to continue using it.”

“If you are using or intend to use an ANPR system, it is important that you undertake a privacy impact assessment to justify its use and show that its introduction is proportionate and necessary.”

It is therefore necessary for Euro Car Parks to provide evidence of regular privacy impact surveys to ensure their use of ANPR is lawful, justified, necessary and proportionate. Furthermore, the ICO Code of practice also states that:

“5.3 Staying in Control

Once you have followed the guidance in this code and set up the surveillance system, you need to ensure that it continues to comply with the DPA and the code’s requirements in practice. You should:

• tell people how they can make a subject access request, who it should be sent to and what information needs to be supplied with their request;”

“7.6 Privacy Notices

It is clear that these and similar devices present more difficult challenges in relation to providing individuals with fair processing information, which is a requirement under the first principle of the DPA. For example, it will be difficult to ensure that an individual is fully informed of this information if the surveillance system is airborne, on a person or, in the case of ANPR, not visible at ground level or more prevalent than it may first appear.

One of the main rights that a privacy notice helps deliver is an individual’s right of subject access.”

In none of euro car parks signage or communication have they suggested or mentioned the keepers right to Subject Access Request. As this is a mandatory requirement by the ICO, this makes euro car parks use of ANPR and processing of any data obtained through it unlawful. As the BPA requires full ICO compliance, this in turn highlights that the PCN was not issued appropriately.

4) No Evidence of Period Parked – NtK does not meet PoFA 2012 requirements

According to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4 paragraph 9 refers at numerous times to the “period of parking”. Most notably, paragraph 9(2)(a) requires the NtK to:

“specify the vehicle, the relevant land on which it was parked and the period of parking to which the notice relates;”

The Notice to Keeper simply mentions the entry and exit time to the car park, not the specific period of parking which is required by POFA 2012. It is inappropriate to imply that the time of entry and exit and time in car park to be equivalent to the POFA requirement of period of parking. I would require Euro Carpark to provide evidence that the vehicle was parked at the date and time for the duration claimed at the location in the notice to keeper.

5) Vehicle Images contained in PCN: BPA Code of Practice – non-compliance

The BPA Code of Practice point 20.5a stipulates that:

"When issuing a parking charge notice you may use photographs as evidence that a vehicle was parked in an unauthorized way. The photographs must refer to and confirm the incident which you claim was unauthorized. A date and time stamp should be included on the photograph. All photographs used for evidence should be clear and legible and must not be retouched or digitally altered."

The Notice to Keeper only shows photographs of the car passing by the entrance of the car park and close up photographs of the license plate with a time stamp placed above it. No evidence in accordance to the BPA guidance is provided to show that the car has actually been parked for the time stipulated by the Notice to Keeper. As the area is unbounded and unmarked as being parking restricted, any passing vehicle could have been identified and issued a NtK. As a result the images utilized are not appropriate as evidence for the incident. 

It is widely known that private parking and private parking tickets is a highly unregulated and financially incentivized field. See (cant post the links but I quoted a rac and BBC article about private parking tickets) for proof of the statistics and damages this has caused both motorists and landlords. As such I would require that Euro Carparks produce strong evidence audited by an impartial third party to prove that its process is not financially motivated.

Thank you for the help!

Gr1pr

Before submitting your popla appeal,  what about plan A in the newbies sticky thread in announcements   ?

Namely,  a complaint about it to the retail park management company or landlord or landowner regarding Parc Pemberton retail park  !

Plan C is popla,  after the initial appeal,  but plan A should have been done from the moment the pcn was received 

1505grandad

If you intend using POPLA are you using/quoting the ppssCoP?:-

https://www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/AOS/Sector Code Templates/sectorsingleCodeofPracticeVersion1.1130225.pdf

Bl0168

Gr1pr said:

Before submitting your popla appeal,  what about plan A in the newbies sticky thread in announcements   ?

Namely,  a complaint about it to the retail park management company or landlord or landowner regarding Parc Pemberton retail park  !

Plan C is popla,  after the initial appeal,  but plan A should have been done from the moment the pcn was received 

Thanks, I have tried to find the landlord of the retail park and think I may have found it. Have also sent them an email but have yet to hear back from them.

Car1980

None of those arguments will fly at Popla.

Don't waste your time.

But by all means make a scene with the furniture shop and landowner and say you will be returning the sofa.

Ultimately you'll probably end up defending a court claim from Euro that they will inevitably discontinue.

Coupon-mad

DO NOT TRY POPLA.

That version is really out of date and even if you tweak it to update to the right Code, you'll lose, THEN the retail park will say it's too late to cancel it as you tried POPLA.

Big mistake when people do that.

Just get the retail park to cancel it asap. 

Bl0168

Seems like there’s been a shift, previously it seems like popla was slightly more reasonable with their appeals process. I guess this has changed more recently?

Gr1pr

It probably changed somewhat after London Councils were replaced by the Ombudsman service a decade ago,  then worse still 5 years ago when they started tinkering with watered down codes of practice, especially the 2025 Joint CoP 

But plan A has been the BEST OPTION for about 15 years,  yet many victims don't seem to try it for some strange reason,  yet if they bought stale or contaminated food from Tesco or Asda,  or a pack of faulty light bulbs or batteries  etc,  they would complain about it to the retailers  ! Like this recent Hospital example 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6623648/apcoa-parking-appeal-hospital-pick-up#latest

Filling in the current government public survey consultation, this week,  is how things should change for the better,  with proper regulation and some sort of tribunal to replace popla,  perhaps similar to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal Service   ?

The current systems are appalling,  it needs proper regulation by implementing the Private Parking Bill 2019 in its entirety 

Coupon-mad

Bl0168 said:

Seems like there’s been a shift, previously it seems like popla was slightly more reasonable with their appeals process. I guess this has changed more recently?

Nope, you'd never have won at POPLA with those points unless you had evidence that the signs and/or the £100 is non-prominent.