Unfair Parking Charge, any advice? - EURO CAR PARKS Oxford Templars Shopping Park

car_kiwi

Hi everyone!

I just received two parking tickets at this location and I'm trying to see if it makes sense to appeal them, and if anyone has appealed any tickets from this specific car park or any other car park managed by Euro Car Parks or others and has good advice.

Essentially this private-land owner allows parking in this car park, which is located in a shopping area that I assume is owned by the same entity. The free stay is 3 hours controlled in entry and exit via number plate-reading ANPR cameras, and if you overstay - as I did - you get charged a whopping £100. If you pay within 14 days of the issuing of the parking ticket you pay a reduced charge of £60, but I received my tickets only 5/6 days before this 14-day deadline expired. Awesome!!

The overstays have been of 17 minutes and 24 minutes. After taking into account the BPA (of which Euro Car Parks is an approved operator) 10-minute grace period, bringing this down to 7 and 14 minutes respectively.

I will summarise the info here in bullet points:

• Operator: Euro Car Parks. BPA-registered as per the notice.
• Location: Templars Shopping Park - Oxford, Templars Shopping Park, Between Towns Road, Oxford, OX4 3JP.
• Type: ANPR operated, free 3-hour car park, not pay-and-display
• Overstays: 17 and 24 minutes.
• Times of arrival and departure:
  - 17:49:45 - 21:06:47, 3h 17min
  - 17:49:10 - 21:13:10, 3h 24min
  of this I think the BPA's 10-minute grace period should be deducted.
• Ticket issuing dates:
  - 02/04/2026, pay by 16/04 for reduced rate of 60 GBP
  - 01/04/2026, pay by 15/04 for reduced rate of 60 GBP
• Ticket issuing form: mailed letter.
• Registered keeper: me.
• Extra info:
  - Appeals must be received within 28 days of from the date of their initial correspondence (…) Appeals received within 28 days will be held at the rate applicable, if the appeal is rejected the rate applicable will be held for a further 14 days.
  - If the appeal to Euro Car Parks is rejected, I can then and only then appeal to the Independent Appeals Service (POPLA), but apparently, "If you log an appeal to POPLA, you will lose the option to pay the reduced amount".
• Personal arguments:
  - Is it allowed to threaten losing the option to pay a reduced amount if you appeal? Can I use this as an argument against the parking ticket?
  - Possible arguing by the owner for lost revenue from me occupying the space for too long doesn't make sense considering that by 9 pm all shops bar KFC are closed, and at that instance the car park is at 5-10% capacity anyway so the only revenue they could lose is from people not overstaying and paying this unfair charge.
  - If we take off the time after 9 pm from my stay, I would have overstayed by 15 seconds and 50 seconds respectively, yet I'd be charged 100 GBP if I appeal this to POPLA.

Any help is appreciated. Many thanks :)

Gr1pr

Follow plan A in the newbies sticky thread in announcements near the top of the forum

You are unlikely to win any appeal, in which case you deal with any future court claim like hundreds on here

Coupon-mad

Those page 2 show your VRM at the top.

Why did you put this (below) in bold as if it's important or something new? It's not, because nobody ends up paying ECP:

 If the appeal to Euro Car Parks is rejected, I can then and only then appeal to the Independent Appeals Service (POPLA), but apparently, "If you log an appeal to POPLA, you will lose the option to pay the reduced amount".

All irrelevant because nobody pays anything.

Why haven't you tried PLAN A which you must have read about when you read NEWBIES PLEASE READ THESE FAQS FIRST?

Read that before posting.

You can ignore ECP but keep your address up to date in case of a court claim (dead easy to win). But I don't understand why you haven't just read the NEWBIES thread & got the property agents or Store Manager to cancel these.

NICKNAMETAKEN

Be thankful you only got two tickets i had to deal with five but thats another story.

Can I just say that directing people to the newbies thread is rather unhelpful. That thread requires a degree level education to read it and understand it….

Whoever wrote it may want to try and simplify it.

To the person who started this thread my advice is just pay it and take it as a lesson learnt….

Coupon-mad

That thread requires a degree level education to read it and understand it.

I have to disagree; just because it's long doesn't make it hard to understand…and I wrote it and I don't have a degree.

Don't confuse detailed explanations with 'complicated'. It's frustrating these days that so many people can't be bothered to read anything longer than a paragraph and want flowcharts (which I personally hate, so I won't do one of those).

Whoever wrote it may want to try and simplify it.

No and I find posts like that a bit offensive because I did a lot of work to improve & simplify the language in it over the many years since I first wrote it. In particular, Plan A is simple, mentioned early and it's in plain English.

Alternatively, new readers might prefer the 'section by section' style of the official site MSE Guide to fighting Private Parking tickets, which I also helped write and is linked at the top of this page. Same message, different style. Plan A first.

James_Poisson

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81959069#Comment_81959069

The parking industry is a sham that has just evolved and expanded to make money, no other reason, but they devise rules, terms and conditions along with implied contracts to catch people out. They lie, they break their own rules and COP supported by their ATA's who are in on the greedy scams.

The information on here is involved but needs a bit of reading yes. That isn't the fault of the forum members it's the system and the way the industry like it, because along come people that take advice like yours to just give in to bullying and threats.

Why would you just give away £200 to anyone that says give it to me without question?

car_kiwi

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81957738#Comment_81957738

Well spotted. In bold as it is a direct quote, in case the double inverted commas were not enough :)

Believe it or not it's because I didn't see it, I read the two below, and then decided to make a thread:
- https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/parking-ticket-appeals/?from=forum-guidesbar-parking-tickets-fines-parking
- https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets/?from=forum-guidesbar-parking-tickets-fines-parking

Cheers