Euro car parks lying to reject appeal?

eazydaze

Entered car park through number plate reader barriers, stayed for just over 5 hours, paid the £10 fee for ‘over 5 hours’ as can be seen in the photo of the signage. Then exited and was automatically let out by the barriers as the fee had been paid.

Then I get a PCN letter from ECP. There wasn’t much explanation on the initial letter but I appealed it with a screenshot of the fee paid from my bank and a photo of the signage at the car park.

ECP rejected the appeal stating that they acknowledge the payment but the signage clearly states the max is 5 hours… except it doesn’t. You can see from the photo that the charge applies for any stay ‘over 5 hours’.

Are they just chancing that I would pay this when they are clearly wrong? Or am I missing something?

Would this be an easy popla appeal and is there anything I shouldn’t say to risk accepting liability somehow?

Gr1pr

In addition, the Code of Practice allows a MINIMUM of 10 minutes grace period to leave a car park, probably longer if its a busy time, note the word minimum

Seems to me that its an easy win at popla on both counts, signage and grace period

A complaint should also be made to the Orchards management company or landlord or landowner, plan A, in writing

I would expect ECP to withdraw at popla

marlot

You're clearly in the right.

I would ask what they see as the difference between the £5 fee and the £10 fee.

Note also that lost tickets are charged at 'the full daily rate' of £10.

prowla

Let them take it to court.

You've got the evidence of the "contract" you entered into.

James_Poisson

I would make a strong complaint to the centre administrator alison.marshall@orchardsdartford.co.uk it would appear (if your photo is current) that there are two charge rates in operation:

https://www.orchardsdartford.co.uk/parking

Coupon-mad

I fail to see how a tariff that was £10 and now hiked by 50% to an eye-watering FIFTEEN QUID encourages shoppers to come to that retail park for a cafe/bakery lunch and a leisurely afternoon's browsing, trying clothes on & doing other shopping.

This is why retail is dying.

Parking firms with zero interest in high streets, consumers, shops or communities just leech off of real businesses like parasites, then leech off their customers too.

Who cares if some are driven away, or only stay on site for 2 hours as long as you can churn out PCNs for supposed '11 minute overstays' when in fact it takes most of that time to drive in and out, up & down narrow multi-storey ramps .. 

…never mind the time taken to actually find a space, park, lock the car, walk over to a sign, read it, work out your likely tariff then finally download an app, complete your data, VRM and card payment set up. Then pay.

Even on a Sunday, if wanting a food shop, you'd be forced to do a trolley dash round Aldi then leave. No chance of being tempted to linger, to try the smaller businesses.

Appalling greed and extortion and that's before you even think about jumped up PCNs.

Car1980

Are they lying?

Yes. Yes they are.