Received PCN from GroupNexus (BPA), have grounds for appeal

sjwk

I've read the newbies FAQ post, but still confused on what the best approach is, as I don't want to make the wrong first response and mess things up for myself later!
Advice I've read or received from others has been: Appeal; ignore it until they go away; respond but refuse to say who was driving; complain to the shop/owner, and several other variations.

Have just received a PCN from GroupNexus, who are with BPA, for overstaying the free 2 hours in a local shopping centre, owned by British Land, containing a variety of retail units, of which we made purchases in at least three.  The car park has cameras recording entry and exit times so it wasn't a windscreen PCN, but sent in the post.  As such they obviously already know name and address.  The PCN includes photos, albeit tiny thumbnails and I can't read what I assume are datestamps, but I don't have reason to believe they're incorrect.

My grounds for appeal are that on exit you go to a machine and enter the registration and it tells you whether it's free or you need to pay, calculated from cameras, no ticket on entry.  However on this day, the machines were all broken.  When you enter the registration it whirrs for a minute and said it couldn't find the registration.  At which point it asks you what time you entered the car park.  I had absolutely no recollection of the time beyond a rough 30 minute window, so gave it a time that was just under 2h, but from the PCN they have a record of 2h25. 
About 15m of that was spent queuing at two different machines behind other people getting equally confused - by the second machine I had worked out that they were all broken but with the waiting for it to find the registration, very bad touch screen calibration multiplied by the number of people in front of me at each machine.

With hindsight I should have taken a photo showing the machine not working and to show that in good faith I'd tried to use it properly, but there were too many other people waiting.  If I'd known I'd been there more than 2h I would have paid, but as I had no expectation of needing to make a note of the time when I entered, I didn't voluntarily make up a time that led to a charge just in case.

In my opinion, a normal and reasonable person would consider that good enough, particularly if they receive a number of similar statements and/or are aware that the system had broken from their technicians.  But I suspect that employees of private parking enforcement companies are not normal or reasonable on the whole.

So.. should I try the appeal, but then if I've admitted that I was there, they know who to target?  Should I ignore, but then I would most likely lose the ability to lodge an appeal later?  Is it worth complaining to any of the shops I made purchases in or to the landowner?  I can't imagine the latter will care, and the shops as tenants probably don't have any sway.

Le_Kirk

In the NEWBIE sticky it states: -
Plan A - complain to the landholder (British Land)
Plan B - appeal/complain to parking company Void for Impossibility due to broken payment machine!

Gr1pr

You say that you read the newbies sticky thread yet ask about appealing,  which is plan B, so study plan A instead, because that is your best chance of getting your pcn cancelled  !

Plan A, in your particular case, is to complain about it to the retail park management company or landlord that are acting for British Land,  probably a big management company like JLL or Savills, so check the signage or totem on site, they have the powers to cancel,  not the tenants on that site

Complain about it to British Land too, by copying them into the complaint, and complain about it to the shop managers too,

Give them redacted copies of the pcn and copies of the receipts as well,  proof of patronage , demand a cancellation 

No blabbing about who was driving,  it's a keeper complaint only, using the royal we !

The squeaky wheel gets the oil

As for plan B , the appeal,  it's already written for you in blue in the newbies sticky thread,  appeal as keeper using the blue text, state that the occupants of the vehicle were genuine shoppers and add redacted copies of the proof of patronage are attached,  plus mention that you have complained about it to the landowner and management company 

No blabbing about who was driving,  it's a keeper appeal only

Check your NTK PCN letter too, to check if it is Pofa2012 compliant,  or not 

Plan B is submitted around day 26 following the pcn issue date,  to GN, using the appeal step given on the pcn, preferably not by snail mail 

All the advice given above is in the newbies sticky thread in announcements 

Which Retail Park was it  ?

Coupon-mad

An retail park overstay case is not worth taking to POPLA. Don't waste your time on appeal. No paying it though.

sjwk

Gr1pr said:

Plan A, in your particular case, is to complain about it to the retail park management company or landlord that are acting for British Land,  probably a big management company like JLL or Savills, so check the signage or totem on site, they have the powers to cancel,  not the tenants on that site

Complain about it to British Land too, by copying them into the complaint, and complain about it to the shop managers too,

Give them redacted copies of the pcn and copies of the receipts as well,  proof of patronage , demand a cancellation 

No blabbing about who was driving,  it's a keeper complaint only, using the royal we !

Which Retail Park was it  ?

Thanks for that, had clearly missed a couple of bits in the newbies thread, where I thought the BPA advice was only listed for windscreen notices, but saw the bits I missed.

Went back to the retail park at the weekend to check signage and so on - the parking notices made no mention of who the management company was (as I'd seen in a couple of other GroupNexus signs posted here) but did find a sign elsewhere saying that the retail park (Orchard Centre, Didcot)  is 'owned and operated by British Land' rather than being operated by another management company, so will contact them stating that we visited and made purchases in at least 5 shops on that day (have receipts for at least 3, bank statement would show them all).  Currently reading the 'successful complaints' thread to look for good wording.  Will send something to British Land's 'general enquiries' email tomorrow.

Then on day 26 (give or take) will file an appeal as noted, without naming names and flagging the issues with the parking machines requiring me to guess when I had arrived as well as other boiler plate.

Is there anything more I've forgotten?
Thanks again.

Gr1pr

Forgotten   ?  No

By all means complain about it to British Land,  but they usually use a managing agent, as I mentioned earlier,  so ask them to contact the M.A or give you their details if necessary, you must assume that N.L. delegate the day to day running of the site to an M.A , unless proved otherwise 

Should there be one,  as well as the owners,  I would complain to both, in writing 

Google says 

The Orchard Centre in Didcot is managed by British Land, and its joint leasing agents are Green & Partners and Morgan Williams.

For general inquiries or property-related matters, you should contact one of the agents. 

• Green & Partners: Joint leasing agent.

• Morgan Williams: Joint leasing agent.

https://news.completelyretail.co.uk/british-land-appoints-leasing-agents-at-didcots-orchard-centre/

And

https://www.britishland.com/news/british-land-continues-to-grow-its-leading-retail-park-portfolio-with-240m-of-acquisitions/

Coupon-mad

Waiting until day 26 is for windscreen PCNs