1 minute beyond grace period at Slate Quay, Caernarfon

haplesshippo

Hi

I would appreciate some help with a PCN I received from Initial Parking for Unpaid Tariff Time at Slate Quay Car Park in Caernarfon. Here are the facts:

• I was clocked in to the car park at 12:41 (ANPR).
• I purchased a paper display ticket at 12:46 for 4 hours with an expiry time of 16:46.
• I arrived back at my car at 16:46 with my family.
• After putting our baby in the car he did a poo and needed his nappy changing which delayed us leaving by 5 minutes approx.
• In the back of mind I was thinking that I had a 10 minute grace period to leave the car park so was not too worried.
• As I was leaving the car park there was a lot of congestion with lots of vehicles attempting to leave at the same time so it took 5 minutes approx to exit the car park.
• As a result of these delays we exited the car park at 16:57 (ANPR).
• After receiving the PCN I contacted Caernarfon Harbor Trust to explain the reasons for the overstay and request they ask Initial Parking to cancel the ticket. They said they would not be able to help and said "an overstay is an overstay, even if just for 1 minute".
• I appealed to Initial Parking with the template response from **NEWBIES forum, but this was also rejected. I have not stated who the driver was.

It is obviously a frustrating situation as it was not until I exited the car park that I realized that I had overstayed the grace period and was therefore likely to receive a PCN. I am not sure if there was any thing I could have done at that stage to avoid it, perhaps I could have driven back in to the car park and paid for another hour and then driven straight out. I am not sure that would have worked as I would still have the "Unpaid Tariff Time" period which would not be covered by any ticket.

The next stage is to appeal to POPLA. I was hoping someone could advise me of how to best appeal this PCN through POPLA. Being so heavily panelized despite having vacated the parking space within the grace period and exiting 1 minute after seems very harsh. But I am not confident that I will be successful if I put such a human argument to POPLA. I feel it is likely they will just say "rules are rules, pay up".

If there is an example of successful appeal of a similar situation? Or are there more technical points I can raise to increase the chances of a successful POPLA appeal? I do not live any where near Caernarfon so I cannot investigate the signage in the car park. There are a few articles and forums online about disgruntled people receiving PCNs from this car park, but no specific advise on how to appeal. I have attached snapshots of the NTK below.

Many thanks for your help.

[Unredacted images removed by Forum Team]

Coupon-mad

POPLA will consider your explanation as to what delayed you on arrival before paying and what held you up a bit before leaving. Lay it all on thick.

How to appeal at POPLA stage is in post 3 of the NEWBIES thread.

haplesshippo

Notice to Keeper:

[Images removed by Forum Team]

Nellymoser

Still showing PCN number in both pics and vehicle reg number in 2nd image payment slip. 

haplesshippo

Thanks for the heads up. Notice to keeper:

Gr1pr

Bear in mind that the grace period is a MINIMUM of 10 minutes to leave,  it's not an absolute  ( I repeat,  MINIMUM   )

Your story is exactly why the grace period says MINIMUM,  due to circumstances beyond your control,  such as congestion and delays, waiting in a queue to exit is not parking etc.  It never ceases to amaze me how people know about the 10 minutes but ignore the word minimum 

Emphasise all of this in your popla appeal,  quote the BPA Code of Practice section etc

I wouldn't be going into graphic detail about the circumstances before starting the engine,  but do concentrate on the issues after everyone is strapped in and the engine is started 

haplesshippo

@Gr1pr thanks. And I need to speak about "the driver" and their experience in detail, but in the third person?

Gr1pr

haplesshippo said:

@Gr1pr thanks. And I need to speak about "the driver" and their experience in detail, but in the third person?

That depends on if the NTK PCN is compliant with POFA or not,  plus it depends if the driver was outed or not in the appeal 

But a first person account from an occupant of the vehicle would carry more weight in the future 

haplesshippo

I have posted the redacted NTK above, I am not sure if it is POFA compliant. In the appeal I did not state who the driver was.

haplesshippo

This is an update regarding the parking charge detailed above. I appealed to POPLA based on a template appeal I found on this forum, but it was rejected. They stated that the total of the time between entering the car park and buying a ticket plus the time between the end of the session and exiting the car park equals the grace period. They can not be considered as two individual grace periods, and therefore my overstay was 16 minutes.

I did not get a further communication from Initial Parking. The next thing I got was an email from Debt Recovery Plus stating that I owe £170. They must have got my email address from Initial Parking as I submitted it in the appeal.

Can I confirm that the correct course of action is to just ignore these emails? I have read the info on the NEWBIES thread, but was wondering if there is anything specific relating to email communications (as opposed to letters) from debt recovery agencies.

Umkomaas

Ignore debt collector letters. Debt collectors have no power to do anything.

Should you receive a Letter Of/Before Claim from the PPC’s solicitors, or a County Court Claim via the Northampton CNBC, come back to this thread for further advice. To get ahead of the curve, you could prepare yourself with a bit of gentle reading of the NEWBIES FAQ Announcement, second post, and the Template Defence Announcement, both situated near the top of the forum thread list.