Trident Gym Chelmsford - Britannia Parking Fine

Coupon-mad

Looks like they have had complaints because that's no longer on the table corner, is it?

Kazaa

yes possibly, nothing else there

Coupon-mad

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82104704#Comment_82104704

No sign to draw attention to it! What a scam. Astonishingly, notorious UKCPM's website shows how it should be done:

https://www.uk-carparkmanagement.co.uk/services/parking-management/parking-kiosks

Kazaa

ok so in my initial appeal i can put in im member of gym and there are no signs in the gym to state enter keypad and on this basis should be cancelled

Kazaa

"I am appealing this Parking Charge Notice as I am a genuine member of Trident Gym and was using the gym at the time of the alleged contravention.

Gym members are entitled to park at the premises for up to two hours without charge. I was therefore an authorised user of the car park and was entitled to park there for the duration of my visit. Please see evidence directly from chelmsford Trident gym stating im a member.

Please therefore cancel the Parking Charge Notice.

If the charge has been issued solely because my vehicle registration was allegedly not entered or recorded correctly on the gym's registration system, I would also ask you to consider the following:

There is inadequate signage directing gym users to the registration keypad or making sufficiently clear that entering a vehicle registration is a condition of the free parking entitlement.
The registration keypad is located inside the gym in an inconspicuous position and is not clearly brought to motorists' attention when parking.
I have attached photographs showing the gym entrance and surrounding area, which demonstrate that there is no prominent signage directing gym members to the vehicle registration keypad or clearly warning that failure to use it may result in a parking charge.
There have also been occasions where registrations entered into the keypad have apparently failed to register correctly. A genuine authorised customer should not be penalised because of a failure or unreliability in the parking registration system.

The purpose of the parking restrictions is presumably to prevent unauthorised use of the car park, not to penalise genuine gym members who are expressly permitted to park there.

Please confirm that the Parking Charge Notice has been cancelled.

If you refuse this appeal, please provide:

Photographs of all signage in place on the date of the alleged contravention, including the signage relating specifically to the requirement to enter a vehicle registration.
Evidence showing where those signs were positioned in relation to the car park entrance and gym entrance.
The registration/keypad records for the relevant period.
The appropriate popla appeal reference/code so that I may escalate the matter.

Thanks"

Coupon-mad

Attach my picture with the red arrow.

Kazaa

ok have done lets wait and see on what they say. Knowing them most likely will reject appeal.

Kazaa

As expected they rejected appeal and their response is below, which doesn't make sense as there are no signs in the gym to state enter in keypad lol :-

Thank you for your appeal received on xxxxxx regarding the above Parking Charge.
We have reviewed the case and considered the comments that you have made. This appeal has been
considered in conjunction with the photographs and any evidence provided. Our records show that the
notice was correctly issued as your vehicle was parked in breach of the Terms and Conditions of the Car
Park.
The Parking Charge was issued to the vehicle because you failed to make a valid payment or validate
your stay at the reception/kiosk.
Please be advised that when using the facilities at the site, guests must enter their registration into the
kiosk at the reception/bar, in order to qualify for the free parking, or purchase a ticket at the machine if not
a guest. These terms and conditions apply at all time to all vehicles, including blue badge holders.
It is the driver's responsibility to ensure that they have read and understood the terms and conditions.
Validation or payment must be made within 10 minutes of arrival.
Please be aware that this site is an ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) controlled car park. A
camera photographs your entry and exit and matches this data against a payment made at the payment
machine or entered at the kiosk. The parking contract clearly states “By parking, waiting or otherwise
remaining within the Property, you enter into a Contract with the Operator and agree to comply with the
Parking Contract”.

Britannia Parking is an active member of the British Parking Association (BPA) and we follow their
Approved Operators Scheme, Code of Practice at all times. We meet all signage requirements under the
BPA's Code of Practice regarding signage and notifying the driver of the terms and conditions.
British Parking Association Code of Practice - Consideration and Grace Periods
The driver must have the chance to consider the Terms and Conditions before entering into the ‘parking
contract’ with you. If, having had that opportunity, the driver decides not to park but chooses to leave the
car park, you must provide them with a reasonable consideration period to leave, before the driver can be
bound by your parking contract. The amount of time in these instances will vary dependant on site size
and type.
A consideration period shall not apply where a parking event takes place. (A ticket is purchased).
Neither a consideration period or a grace period are periods of free parking and there is no requirement
for Britannia Parking to offer an additional allowance on top of a consideration or grace period.
We give motorists a 10 minute consideration period on arrival before entering into the ‘parking contract’. If
the driver has not purchased a ticket or validated at the kiosk within this 10 minute period, a Parking
Charge will be issued.
Therefore, we consider there to be sufficient, clearly visible signage in the car park to draw your attention
to the terms and condition of the parking contract that is on offer. By leaving your vehicle in the car park
without purchasing a ticket or validating your stay, you have broken the terms and conditions and
therefore, we believe the Parking Charge to be valid and correctly issued.
You have now reached the end of our internal appeals procedure.
You now have a number of options from which to choose:-
1 Pay the Parking Charge at the amount stated above. If any discount has been offered you will be given
a further 14 days to pay the discounted rate. Please note that after this time the discounted rate will no
longer apply.
2 If you choose to do nothing, we will seek to recover the monies owed to us via our debt recovery
procedures and may proceed with Court action against you.
3 Make an appeal to POPLA - The Independent Appeals service. Please note that if you wish to appeal to
POPLA, you will lose the right to pay the Parking Charge at the discounted rate, and should POPLA's
decision not go in your favour you will be required to pay the full amount. If you opt to pay the Parking
Charge you will be unable to appeal to POPLA.
You must submit an appeal to POPLA within 28 days from the date of this outcome letter, by
submitting an online case at www.popla.co.uk Your POPLA verification code is xxxxxxxxx

By law we are also required to inform you that Ombudsman Services (www.ombudsman-
services.org/) provides an alternative dispute resolution service that would be competent to deal with your

appeal. However, we have not chosen to participate in their alternative dispute resolution service. As
such should you wish to appeal then you must do so to POPLA, as explained above.
How to Pay:

Internet: Visit https://britannia-parking.ec6pay.com/ and follow the onscreen instructions. Please have
your parking charge number and payment card details ready.
By Phone: Call 0345 5 555888 option 2.

Yours sincerely,
Appeals Department
Britannia Parking

MrJenkinsEsq

My first punt at a popla appeal, if you're so inclined (though I don't hold out much hope for its success). Is there a length limit?

I am the registered keeper of the vehicle. On 13 July 2026 I was a member of Trident Gym, which is on this site, and I was using the gym during the whole of the 1 hour 13 minutes the operator's cameras record. I did not buy a ticket because, as a gym member, I did not need one. I ask POPLA to allow the appeal on the following grounds.

1. The validation requirement the operator relies on is on no sign (Single Code clauses 8.3 and 3.1.3; BPA Code v9 clause 19.3)

I accept that the main sign in the car park sets out a tariff, 60 minutes free, and a list of circumstances in which a charge may be issued. The only instruction on the sign about entering a vehicle registration is expressly confined to paying: "Please enter the FULL and correct vehicle registration into the payment machine when paying the tariff". The corresponding item in the list of charge circumstances, "Fail to enter a full and accurate vehicle registration number for the vehicle which is parked", refers to that same entry at the payment machine. A driver who pays no tariff is not asked by the sign to enter a registration anywhere. There is no separate requirement to enter a registration at a kiosk, a tablet or a reception desk, and none for gym members or guests. The operator's case against me is not that I was a member of the public who stayed over an hour without paying. Its rejection letter says the breach was that I failed to "validate your stay at the reception/kiosk", that guests "must enter their registration into the kiosk", and that "Validation or payment must be made within 10 minutes of arrival". None of those requirements appears on the main sign, on the entrance signs, or anywhere in the gym (photographs attached: the tablet sits on the corner of the reception desk with no sign or notice near it). Clause 8.3 permits charges to be issued only "in accordance with their advertised terms on any site", and clause 3.1.3(i) requires signs displaying the terms to "be clear, unambiguous". A validation requirement that is not displayed at all is not an advertised term, and a sign that lists the circumstances for a charge without mentioning the one the operator now relies on is not clear or unambiguous about it. The Code's own guidance at clause 3.1.3 NOTE 4 is that where the terms require the driver to do something off site, "such as input their vehicle registration mark inside a pub or restaurant, the sign should make clear how this is to be done". Under clause 8.3 the operator cannot rely on the advertised public tariff terms against a permitted user while relying on unadvertised validation terms to say the permission was lost. Under the BPA Code v9, clause 19.3 likewise required the specific terms to be on signs so that drivers could read them.

2. The operator failed to apply the Appeals Charter (Single Code clause 8.4.4 and Annex F)

Clause 8.4.4 requires operators, in considering appeals, to "consider mitigating circumstances in accordance with Annex F". My appeal to Britannia said that I was a gym member using the gym and provided evidence. The rejection letter does not mention Annex F, mitigating circumstances or any reduction. Two paragraphs of Annex F apply.

Annex F.3(g) requires the charge to be reduced to £20 for 14 days "where the vehicle would have been permitted to park at the location, but the driver failed to enter their registration into a terminal/device as specified in the terms & conditions". That is, on the operator's own account of events, this case: a permitted vehicle whose plate was not recorded on the terminal. The operator did not offer the reduction the Code required.

Annex F.1(i) goes further and states that charges "must not be pursued" where "the parking operator has breached an obligation in this Code relating to the issue of a notice, or such that the driver was unable to adhere to the relevant obligations". F.3(g) presupposes that the terminal is "specified in the terms & conditions". Here it is not specified anywhere (ground 1). A driver cannot adhere to a requirement that appears on no sign, so the operator's failure to display it is a breach "such that the driver was unable to adhere", and under F.1(i) the charge must not be pursued at all.

3. Grace period (Single Code clause 5.2 and Annex B Table B.1; BPA Code v9 clause 13.3)

If, contrary to the other grounds, I am to be treated as a member of the public with 60 minutes free, the Code requires a grace period of 10 minutes after the parking period during which no charge may be issued. The cameras record entry at 12:35:20 and exit at 13:49:13. The Code defines "parked" as "a vehicle being stationary other than in the course of driving" (clause 2.19(b)) and a grace period as "a period of time in addition to a parking period where all terms and conditions have been complied with, when no parking charge can be issued" (clause 2.15). The exit camera records the vehicle in the course of driving out, not the end of the period for which it was parked; the time taken to return to the vehicle and drive to the exit is inside the grace period. The excess over the free hour, camera to camera, is under 14 minutes, of which 10 is grace.

4. I was parked with the permission of the landowner's occupier, and the operator was required to provide for that permission (Single Code clause 14.1(e))

Trident Gym advertises free parking as a benefit of membership. Its website (screenshot attached) lists "FREE PARKING" among the reasons to join: "Enjoy convenient free parking for easy, hassle-free access whenever you train." No condition is attached: no time limit, no registration, no tablet, no reference to Britannia. I joined on that basis and parked as a member using the gym. That is a "specific permission" of the kind clause 14.1(e) requires the operator to hold in writing from the landowner before issuing any charge.

Clause 14.1 of the Code requires an operator, before issuing any charge, to hold the landowner's written confirmation of "the parking terms and conditions that are to be applied by the parking operator, including as appropriate the duration of free parking permitted, parking tariffs, and specific permissions and exemptions, e.g. for staff, residents or those stopping for short periods". Gym members' free parking is exactly such a permission. Britannia's own rejection letter confirms it exists: it says that "guests must enter their registration into the kiosk at the reception/bar, in order to qualify for the free parking". So the operator knows that gym users are permitted to park free and has a device at the gym desk for recording them. The permission is the landowner's; the device is the operator's method of administering it. Whether the operator's device recorded my plate does not change the fact that I was a permitted user. I ask POPLA to require the operator to produce its clause 14.1 confirmation and to show how gym members' parking is provided for in it.

5. The points made in the operator's rejection letter, answered

The operator's rejection letter of 6 September 2026 (attached) makes the following points. Each is answered by reference to the Code.

(a) "Our records show that the notice was correctly issued as your vehicle was parked in breach of the Terms and Conditions of the Car Park." The letter does not say which displayed term. The terms displayed are those on the sign. Clause 8.3 permits a charge only "in accordance with their advertised terms on any site". No advertised term requires a gym member to validate at a kiosk.

(b) "You failed to make a valid payment or validate your stay at the reception/kiosk." Payment was not required of me: I was parked under the gym's permission, which is a "specific permission" the operator must hold in writing under clause 14.1(e). Validation at a kiosk is not an advertised term (clause 8.3) and appears on no sign (clause 3.1.3(i)).

(c) "Guests must enter their registration into the kiosk at the reception/bar, in order to qualify for the free parking ... These terms and conditions apply at all time to all vehicles." This is the operator's admission that a free-parking permission exists for users of the premises. It is also a statement of a term that is displayed nowhere. A term that "applies at all times to all vehicles" must be advertised on the site to be relied on (clause 8.3), and signs displaying terms must be "clear, unambiguous" (clause 3.1.3(i)). The reference to a "bar" at a gym shows that this is template text rather than a consideration of my appeal and its evidence, which clause 8.4.4 and Annex F require ("Parking operators should consider the spirit of the Appeals Charter when deciding appeals").

(d) "It is the driver's responsibility to ensure that they have read and understood the terms and conditions." Clause 3.1.3 places on the operator the obligation to display the terms so that drivers can read them, and clause 8.3 confines the operator to the terms it has advertised. A driver can read only what is displayed. I read the sign; it says nothing about validation.

(e) "Validation or payment must be made within 10 minutes of arrival." No sign says this. The sign says "UP TO 60 MINS FREE". A displayed term offering 60 minutes free and an undisplayed rule requiring action within 10 minutes cannot both be the advertised terms; if the operator relies on the 10-minute rule the sign is not "clear, unambiguous" (clause 3.1.3(i)) and the charge is not issued in accordance with the advertised terms (clause 8.3). The Code's consideration period (clauses 2.9 and 5.1) is time for the driver to decide whether to accept the displayed terms; it is not a deadline by which a permitted user must register on the operator's device, and the operator cannot use it to add a term to the sign.

(f) "A camera photographs your entry and exit and matches this data against a payment made at the payment machine or entered at the kiosk." That describes the operator's system for recording permitted users. If the system did not record my plate, that is a failure of the operator's device, not a breach by me of any displayed term. Clause 7.3(d) requires ANPR images to "have been subject to a manual quality control check, including the accuracy of the timestamp and the risk of keying errors" before a charge is issued, and clause 6.3 requires an operator whose terms depend on a driver entering a registration to "have and follow a documented policy and procedure to avoid issuing or enforcing a parking charge in respect of accidental keying errors". The operator has produced neither the tablet record nor the check nor the policy.

(g) "The parking contract clearly states 'By parking, waiting or otherwise remaining within the Property, you enter into a Contract with the Operator and agree to comply with the Parking Contract'." The sign's own small print defines the Parking Contract as "the terms and conditions within this notice". The kiosk requirement is not within the notice. Agreeing to comply with the terms on the sign cannot be agreement to a term that is not on the sign (clause 8.3).

(h) "We meet all signage requirements under the BPA's Code of Practice regarding signage." The signs may be visible; the question under clause 8.3 is whether the term relied on is on them. It is not. The operator cites the BPA Approved Operator Scheme Code; if that code governs this site's signage under the transition provisions, its clause 19.3 required "signs containing the specific parking terms" so that drivers could read them, and the validation term is on none. The Single Code governs the operator's handling of my appeal in any event (clause 8.4 and Annex F).

(i) The passage on consideration and grace periods. The operator quotes the consideration period provisions and says nothing about the grace period, which is the one that matters for a stay of 74 minutes at a site offering 60 minutes free. Clause 5.2 and Annex B Table B.1 require a grace period of 10 minutes after a free period of an hour or more, during which "a parking charge must not be issued" (see ground 3). The operator's statement that "if the driver has not purchased a ticket or validated at the kiosk within this 10 minute period, a Parking Charge will be issued" describes a payment deadline that appears on no sign and is not what the Code's consideration period is for (clause 2.9).

(j) "You have now reached the end of our internal appeals procedure." The rejection does not engage with the evidence I supplied (membership; photographs of the gym desk) and does not mention Annex F, mitigating circumstances or the reduction required by F.3(g). Clause 8.4.4 required the operator to consider mitigating circumstances in accordance with Annex F. It did not.

6. Evidence the operator should be required to produce

(a) Its landowner authority under clause 14.1, including the schedule of permissions and exemptions at 14.1(e) and how gym members are provided for.

(b) The record from the gym's tablet for 13 July 2026, and the manual quality control check that clause 7.3(d) requires before a charge is issued on ANPR images, "including the accuracy of the timestamp and the risk of keying errors".

(c) Any sign, anywhere on the site or in the gym, that mentions validation, a kiosk or tablet, guests, or a 10-minute period, so that POPLA can test the operator's compliance with clause 8.3. I say there is none.

Summary

I was a gym member using the gym, and the gym gives members free parking: a permission the operator was required to hold and apply under clause 14.1(e). The operator knows that permission exists and has a device to record it; it did not record my plate, and it has charged me for breaking a validation rule that is on no sign, contrary to clause 8.3. The Code required it to consider that on appeal under clause 8.4.4 and Annex F and, at the least, to reduce the charge under F.3(g); because the rule was never advertised, F.1(i) requires the charge not to be pursued at all. I ask POPLA to allow the appeal.

Coupon-mad

Very good!

There's no character limit as that appeal can be put into a word doc with the photos embedded like a storybook, then saved as a PDF.

Then that single document with photo evidence embedded in it, not separately, is uploaded to POPLA as per post 3 of the NEWBIES thread.