PCN from Parking Eye from Holiday Inn Preston South - Company Car

recordplayer

Just to keep everyone in the loop.

I have sent, via e-mail, a copy of the Edna Basher first letter, which is the one described as being the first one the company sends and usually gets the PCN cancelled. I sent this to 3 e-mail addresses at Parking Eye Ltd:-

dpo@parkingeye.co.uk
enforcement@parkingeye.co.uk
info@parkingeye.co.uk

I received an immediate bounce message on the e-mail from Parking Eye's Office 365 hosted e-mail server advising me that it only accepts e-mail from people in it's organisation or on it's allowed senders list. I not this so no one else wastes time trying this e-mail address, it is clearly setup to block inbound e-mail attempts. I await a response on the other two addresses with interest.

A redacted copy of what I sent is included below

Dear Sir,

Parking Charge Notice XXXXXX/XXXXXX: Vehicle Registration XXXXXXX

I refer to the above-detailed Parking Charge Notice (“PCN”) issued to me by ParkingEye Ltd (“ParkingEye”) as a Notice to Hirer. I confirm that as the hirer of this vehicle, I am its keeper for the purpose of the corresponding definition under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (“POFA”) and I write to formally challenge the validity of this PCN.

You will no doubt be familiar with the strict requirements of Schedule 4 of POFA to be followed in order for a parking operator to be able to invoke keeper liability for a Parking Charge. There are a number of reasons why ParkingEye’s Notice to Hirer did not comply with POFA; in order that you may understand why, I suggest that you carefully study the details of Paragraphs 13 and 14 of Schedule 4 in particular.

Given that ParkingEye has forfeited its right to keeper liability, please confirm that you shall now cancel this charge. Alternatively, should you choose to reject my challenge, please provide me with details of the Independent Appeals Service (POPLA), their contact details and a unique POPLA appeal reference so that I may escalate the matter to POPLA.

I believe that your signs fail the test of 'large lettering' and prominence, as established in ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis. Your unremarkable and obscure signs were not seen by the driver, are in very small print and the terms are not readable to drivers. I also believe the signage present does not comply with the Lord Denning ‘Right Hand Rule’, I refer you to case law established by J Spurling Ltd. Vs Bradshaw (1956) EWCA Civ 3.

Further, I understand you do not own the car park and you have given me no information about your policy with the landowner or on site businesses, to cancel such a charge. So please supply that policy as required under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.

There will be no admissions as to who was driving and no assumptions can be drawn. You must either offer me a POPLA code or cancel the charge.

Thank you for your cooperation and I look forward to receiving your response within the relevant timescales specified under the British Parking Association Ltd Code of Practice.

Yours faithfully,

I will keep you all informed of progress.

Thank you all and best wishes

Gr1pr

I thought they had an online webform appeal page  ?

The details are on the pcn 

Coupon-mad

The PCN doesn't let people appeal by email.

recordplayer

Hello,,

Just wanted to give you an update. After having my request for cancellation by Holiday Inn's manager at the site, and getting no response from Holiday Inn's head office, I made an appeal to Parking Eye Ltd. using the Edna Basher template. Alas, that has been rejected, they citied insufficient evidence, but I did receive a POPLA appeal reference. So I am currently in the process of putting together a POPLA appeal.

I have adapted a POPLA appeal letter I found on here which was successful, but amended to cover these precise circumstances and also to request more detailed information regarding the timing system used on photograph overlay, as network time protocols are an area I have considerable experience and are got wrong on many occasions. I have also incorporated the excellent points raised by castle, GR1pr and Car1980.

Thank you all for your ongoing support and assistance in this matter.

recordplayer

I was planning on submitting the below to POPLA to appeal this parking charge. I would greatly appreciate it if you could look this over and see if I have made any glaring errors.

POPLA Ref No XXXXXXXXXX

I am the registered keeper and I wish to appeal a recent parking charge from Parking Eye Ltd,. The charge is levied despite the driver not being identified.

The vehicle operator entered the car park in order to charge, as they are permitted to do so, as a Tesla vehicle operator, they entered the car park to charge at the Tesla charging points. The operator exited the vehicle, walked around the back of the charger, and connected the charging cable to the passenger side of vehicle, before re entering the vehicle walking around the rear of the charger, to remain away from moving vehicles on the car park, and re-entered the vehicle. There was no visible signage on the charger at the time, or on the rear of the charger, or clearly visible from the footpath behind the charger.

There may be signs at the boundaries but not all areas are well-signed as a car drives through the middle of the site, so unlike the findings regarding the Beavis case car park, the driver here was certainly not 'bound to' have seen the terms nor could be considered to have 'agreed' to a parking contract like Mr Beavis did. An unfair 'out of all proportion' charge for non-parking activity of using the charging facilities legitimately, and leaving as soon as charging was completely is precisely the sort of charge that the Beavis case Judges made clear would fail the penalty rule which was 'plainly engaged'.

1. The minimum grace period was not allowed by the operator:

The vehicle was alleged to have entered the car park at 14:14 and left at 14:50

British Parking Association Code of Practice 13.1 – 13.4 states:

13 Grace periods

13.1 Your approach to parking management must allow a driver who enters your car park but decides not to park, to leave the car park within a reasonable period without having their vehicle issued with a parking charge notice.

13.2 You should allow the driver a reasonable ‘grace period’ in which to decide if they are going to stay or go. If the driver is on your land without permission you should still allow them a grace period to read your signs and leave before you take enforcement action.

13.3 You should be prepared to tell us the specific grace period at a site if our compliance team or our agents ask what it is.

13.4 You should allow the driver a reasonable period to leave the private car park after the parking contract has ended, before you take enforcement action. If the location is one where parking is normally permitted, the Grace Period at the end of the parking period should be a minimum of 10 minutes.

2. In this case, we have an authorised user using the car park appropriately, there has been no loss to the owner. While the courts might hold that a large charge might be appropriate in the case of a public car park, essentially as a deterrent, there is nothing in the case to suggest that a reasonable person would accept that a £100 (or £60 if paid promptly) fine is a conscionable amount to be charged whilst a legitimate user accesses the Tesla charging facilities.

Therefore, in this case GPEOL should still apply and any putative contract needs to be assessed on its own merits. Consumer law always applies and no contract “falls outside” The Consumer Rights Act 2015; the fundamental question is always whether the terms are fair.

3. Insufficient signage.

The keeper made a special visit to the car park to ascertain the positioning and quality of the sign. They are positioned further inside the entrance and would only be visible to the driver if they happened to be driving a convertible with the roof down and quite clearly this is not the case in the images. Unreadable signage breaches Appendix B of the BPA Code of Practice which states that terms on entrance signs must be clearly readable without a driver having to turn away from the road ahead. A Notice is not imported into the contract unless brought home so prominently that the party 'must' have known of it and agreed terms beforehand. Also because of this visit it is noted that the sign is a forbidding one, so no contract can be made with the driver. The signage is not readable to a driver entering the car park, from the drivers seat, at the point where the camera takes an image of the vehicle entering the site. Using the standard of visual acuity required of a UK driving licence holder, you must be able to read a 79mm high letter from 20M away, the text on the signage does not comply with this standard, therefore it cannot be reasonably expected that all of the terms and conditions on the signage can be read by a motorist from the location where the camera takes an image of the vehicle and the terms and conditions of the alleged contract are deemed accepted.

It should also be noted that the signage on the entrance does not comply with the 'Red Hand Rule' established by Denning LJ, Morris LJ and Parker LJ in case J Spurling Ltd. v Bradshaw EWCA Civ 3 (Bailli) 1956.

The Hotel Manager (Lisa Andrews) has indicated that there is signage on the chargers regarding the charges, however these were not in place on the day of the operators visit, and are not printed on the chargers, but are, in fact, a label affixed to the charger by a third party. Despite requests, no works order and attendant invoice for this work for the attachment of these labels has been submitted as evidence that these labels were, in fact, in place on the date of the vehicle operators visit, who has stated that there were no labels on the chargers at the time of the visit. The wording on the labels does not comply with the Code of Practice with Parking Eye Ltd. is signed up to. The labels use the words 'Fine' which is not allowed by that code of practice.

4. No evidence of Landowner Authority

The operator is put to strict proof of full compliance with the BPA Code of Practice.

As this operator does not have proprietary interest in the land then I require that they produce an unredacted copy of the contract with the landowner. The contract and any 'site agreement' or 'User Manual' setting out details including exemptions - such as any 'genuine customer' or 'genuine resident' exemptions or any site occupier's 'right of veto' charge cancellation rights - is key evidence to define what this operator is authorised to do and any circumstances where the landowner/firms on site in fact have a right to cancellation of a charge. It cannot be assumed, just because an agent is contracted to merely put some signs up and issue Parking Charge Notices, that the agent is also authorised to make contracts with all or any category of visiting drivers and/or to enforce the charge in court in their own name (legal action regarding land use disputes generally being a matter for a landowner only).

Witness statements are not sound evidence of the above, often being pre-signed, generic documents not even identifying the case in hand or even the site rules. A witness statement might in some cases be accepted by POPLA but in this case I suggest it is unlikely to sufficiently evidence the definition of the services provided by each party to the agreement.

Nor would it define vital information such as charging days/times, any exemption clauses, grace periods (which I believe may be longer than the bare minimum times set out in the BPA CoP) and basic information such as the land boundary and bays where enforcement applies/does not apply. Not forgetting evidence of the various restrictions which the landowner has authorised can give rise to a charge and of course, how much the landowner authorises this agent to charge (which cannot be assumed to be the sum on a sign because template private parking terms and sums have been known not to match the actual landowner agreement).

Paragraph 7 of the BPA Code of Practice defines the mandatory requirements and I put this operator to strict proof of full compliance:

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

Also Parking Eye have provided no evidence that the ANPR system is reliable. The operator is obliged to ensure their ANPR equipment is maintained as described in paragraph 21.3 of the British Parking Association's Approved Operator Scheme Code of Practice. I require the Operator to present records as to the dates and times of when the cameras at this car park were checked, adjusted, calibrated, synchronised with the timer which stamps the photos and generally maintained to ensure the accuracy of the dates and times of any ANPR images. This is important because the entirety of the charge is founded on two images purporting to show the vehicle entering and exiting at specific times. It is vital that this Operator must produce evidence in response to these points and explain to POPLA how their system differs (if at all) from the flawed ANPR system which was wholly responsible for the court loss by the Operator in Parking Eye v Fox-Jones on 8 Nov 2013. That case was dismissed when the judge said the evidence form the Operator was 'fundamentally flawed' as the synchronisation of the camera pictures with the timer had been called into question and the operator could not rebut the point. I require proof of logs on both the time server and the time client (camera), the precise time protocols which are relied upon, evidence of the logs being checksummed with an algorith of at least SHA-256 strength to avoid the files being tampered with, and logs provided from all time servers back to Stratum 1 levels of accuracy.

Parking Eye has not provided any evidence to show that their system is reliable, accurate or maintained. I request that you uphold my appeal based on this.

If I have made any omissions or errors then I would greatly appreciate any feedback you can offer.

Thank you for your ongoing support and assistance in this matter

Car1980

If you do want to do Popla, strip it down:

1. No signage visible from the chargers.
2. Stickers have since been installed, which is a clear admission signage was inadequate.
3. Google reviews are full of people alerting others that the signage is inadequate and you must register
4. In any case, the signage that is elsewhere on site claim non-hotel residents must pay a parking tariff . But charging at a charger is not parking.

1505grandad

"I am the registered keeper and I wish to appeal.........."

Just checking  -  is a company the RK?

recordplayer

1505grandad said:

"I am the registered keeper and I wish to appeal.........."

Just checking  -  is a company the RK?

Yes, it is, in the name of the limited company

recordplayer

Car1980 said:

If you do want to do Popla, strip it down:

1. No signage visible from the chargers.
2. Stickers have since been installed, which is a clear admission signage was inadequate.
3. Google reviews are full of people alerting others that the signage is inadequate and you must register
4. In any case, the signage that is elsewhere on site claim non-hotel residents must pay a parking tariff . But charging at a charger is not parking.

Thank you so much, very helpful and appreciated.

Coupon-mad

recordplayer said:

Car1980 said:

If you do want to do Popla, strip it down:

1. No signage visible from the chargers.
2. Stickers have since been installed, which is a clear admission signage was inadequate.
3. Google reviews are full of people alerting others that the signage is inadequate and you must register
4. In any case, the signage that is elsewhere on site claim non-hotel residents must pay a parking tariff . But charging at a charger is not parking.

Thank you so much, very helpful and appreciated.

Where's the winning point about the NTH?