Failed to display a blue badge.

shaunyman

I recently parked in a disabled bay in a retail park to collect my partner who was in one of the stores. She is a Blue Badge holder. As we have more than one car, she always keeps the badge in her handbag so she has it, whichever car she is using. According to my mobile phone I texted her at 3.18pm to say I had arrived. I then entered the store to collect the Blue badge and return to the car within 3 to 4 minutes. Placed the badge on the dash and thought no more about it. A few days later I received the notice to keeper from IPC. The time of issue was 3.20pm. I conclude that the parking attendant watched me enter the store, then took photos of my car and issued the notice during the few minutes I was collecting the blue badge. Clearly I am going to appeal, but what are my rights here? I never expect parking companies to be 'understanding', so I fear they will reject my appeal to boost their profits. Do I have a chance to win?

Gr1pr

The NTK PCN letter was not from IPC, so please name the private parking company involved

Name the retail park too

Follow plan A in the newbies sticky thread in announcements near the top of the forum and COMPLAIN about it to the Retail Park Management Company ASAP ( or complain about it to the landowner. )

At the moment any appeal will be rejected, but yes you have a chance to win in court, where a judge would decide

tacpot12

You could point to the five minute grace period that you are supposed to have on entering a car park. While the grace period is supposed to be available to:

• Find and read the parking terms and conditions.
• 
  Locate a payment machine or set up a mobile parking app.
• Decide whether to stay and pay for parking or leave without being charged.

Obtaining the Blue Badge that allows parking without payment seems to be within the spirit of the second bullet point. Also, the rules don't mention that you have to remain visible while setting up a mobile parking app. Your reason for walked into the store might have been to get out of the bright sunlight that prevented you seeing your phone screen. The parking attendant can't assume that just because you have entered the store, that you aren't going to pay within five minutes.

Gr1pr

Its a Consideration period ( not a Grace Period. ) , so look at the latest APRIL 2026 Code of Practice regarding Consideration periods, blue badge requirements, collecting valid permits, reasonable adjustment etc

shaunyman

Apologies. The Parking company is UKCPS. The retail park is Keighley Retail Park BD21 3NU. The shop my partner was in is TKMAXX.

When you say "at the moment any appeal will be rejected" do you mean that is just the state of the industry and where the PCC can claim their charge was issued within their rules, then they will, and matters of right and wrong are simply ignored?

I also saw a comment on the forum from someone called Fisherjim. He said in 2023:

Blue badges are only applicable to on street parking, your instruction book states that.PPC's use them or abuse them to their advantage, in fact you displaying them as a pure courtesy to save them time and money in verifying an entitlement to certain parking advantages, the appeals procedure is allegedly there to cancel wrongly issued invoices but that doesn't make profits for them does it.

This seems to imply that people may the right to use a disabled bay because of their disability, and not just because they have a badge, but I have not been able to verify this anywhere else.

I do plan to complain, but not sure if that should be to TKMAXX or to the Retail Park owner who appears to be Essex County Council. Should I complain to both?

Thanks for you help - Shaun

dnpark38

I live in same area as the OP and recently the local newspaper had an article on a crack down on wrong full use of blue badges.

https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/26247162.dwp-council-checks-cancel-blue-badges-fraud-crackdown/

A lot of abbreviations in the posts here PCC ?

Reading the T&A and the usage rules the one not complied with by OP will be wife not in car when arriving maybe., along with not displaying the badge.

Gr1pr

Correct, all private parking companies routinely reject appeals, because they are only interested in gouging money out of victims, especially UKCPS of Leeds

A Blue Badge is a visible token of having a disability, which tells the private land staff and contractors of that condition and if allowed on site is subject to the site rules

What really matters here is the law, the Equality Act 2010, that allows reasonable adjustment under that law and is the basis by which those bays were made, a lawful requirement for their use, including third parties picking up blue badge holders, be it a taxi or a private vehicle, in your case

The joint Code of Practice has rules that UKCPS have signed up to, in regards to these EA2010 and Blue Badge cases, so you should read everything that applies to an entitled person like Mrs Shaunyman, consideration periods for collecting of the blue badge ( permit. ) and suchlike

UKCPS should cancel the PCN when notified of the above, with a redacted picture of the blue badge ( after hiding the first half of the reference number and obscuring the photograph too

Whether they will do so is a different matter

I believe that they and Moorside Legal would lose in court ( BB holder myself, for many, many years. ) , but would likely discontinue a court claim

You should complain about it by email to the CMA , with copies of the documents and story etc, if UKCPS fail to cancel it

As for the plan A complaint, you should complain about the pcn to the Retail park management company, ( as I clearly mentioned earlier. ) so to the landlord, and maybe see if TK Maxx ( a tenant. ) will intervene, for now

The GSV pictures are 4 years old and the totem pole doesn't say but perhaps its Montagu Evans. ?

Post, if Essex CC are now the landowner, I would suggest that its not relevant land under POFA

Half_way

The ultimate responsibility rests with the landowner, or the entity with overall responsibility for the retail park, and that includes compliance with relevant legislation such as the equality act.(EA)

Not everyone who needs to use a disabled bay which is provided as a reasonable adjustment as per the EA possess a blue badge, i know of two people who would qualify but won't apply due to stubbornness/don't always have bad days and even if they do have a BB it can fall, or be forgotten.

If the car park owner/site management are on the ball as soon as they know a person has a protected characteristic, and has received a parking charge notice for no BB they should tell, not request or ask, but tell the parking company to cancel immediately

Coupon-mad

Make a complaint to Keighley Retail Park about over-zealous ticketing within two minutes flat, of a vehicle being used by (to collect) a Blue Badge holder passenger. Clearly when collecting the disabled person, the driver will not have the Blue Badge and will need a few minutes to fetch it and display it fast, whilst the passenger was following more slowly.

Instead, a lurking ticketer made a wrong assumption. The vehicle was correctly parked.

Attach a copy of the Blue Badge.

Don't call i the above an 'appeal'. The above is a complaint to send to the retail park property agents (their name is online and probably shown with contact details at the site entrance, too).

Separately, send the same thing as an appeal to UKCPS. With the Blue Badge pic.

Then wait…

If UKCPS respond offering 'settlement' at £20, DO NOT PAY IT.

This is not the law and that only exists because the non-impartial APAs colluded to write a Joint Code of Practice with over 30 changes in it (compared to the proper MHCLG Code). All those changes work against fairness and against consumers.

One of those changes is that they let their beloved paying AOS members invent a £20 'admin fee' blink-and-you-miss-it offer to dangle for a pathetic 14 days, to try to fool the MHCLG into thinking that's reasonable. Even the CMA (astonishingly) appears to have been slightly duped by the BPA and IPC so far, into thinking that's OK and the norm.

It isn't the norm and isn't OK in cases where:

• machines, apps or systems don't work
  
• permits slip off the dash or are being fetched
  
• drivers make a VRM typo
  
• old machines cause a VRM typo
  
• drivers are genuine patrons but don't see a hidden VRM screen/tablet inside
  
• drivers are authorised residents with lease rights and don't need any 'permit'
  
• consideration periods are inadequate
  
• minor human errors are punished

or as in your case

• an occupant of the car (including a passenger being collected) is disabled and is entitled to use an accessible bay. These bays are a 'reasonable adjustment' provision and users have a legal right under the Equality Act 2010 to use them. If the Blue Badge can't be seen because it slipped down, or was simply being fetched momentarily from adjacent premises, then ticketing a car is unfair and the charge MUST be cancelled in full (completely, which the MHCLG's incoming statutory Code gets right) because it's illegal to charge a disabled person or carer any money for using an accessible bay.

It was also established by the Supreme Court in the binding case of ParkingEye v Beavis, that parking charges cannot be levied to punish. There must be a 'legitimate interest' to charge and that's impossible in the above examples because these circumstances either aren't a breach, or aren't the motorist's fault, or are unfair (effectively a multiple £20-generating financial trap, as seen with Euro Car Parks at Kent Country Parks)

Hence the £20 is unjustified in EVERY case. Arguably only OK in a case where a person inputs the entire wrong numberplate in error (partner's car, usually).

That's the only one where it might at a stretch be OK but even then, it's not, because the MHCLG has said in a previous Public Consultation that the Government reasonably expects operators to use modern systems that work in the motorist's interests and not set them up to fall. It wouldn't take much for systems to prompt 'Wait, are you sure? That vehicle doesn't match one captured by our cameras today'.

Also what the CMA seem to have missed is that after 14 days, people who refuse to shell out £20 to ex-wheelclamper rogues are pursued aggressively and ultimately sued, not for £20 but back to the usual £170 extortion!

The MHCLG doesn't want people sued at all for the above situations.

The CMA should not have issued a video urging people to pay £20 or £60 to make private PCNs go away.

Wrong stance when most PCNs are unfair. Wrong stance, which sounds like the BPA and IPC worked on the CMA to put this poor 'guide' out, yet the trade bodies aren't independent at all, and continue to be a major part of the problem. "Foxes in charge of the hen coop" MPs said in 2018.

Anyway…

In your case £20 would be illegal because it's taking payment despite knowing you were entitled - BY LAW - to park in that bay if fetching a Blue Badge holder. And you rushed back with the badge within 3 minutes. What more could you have done?

Let's see how UKCPS respond.

shaunyman

Thanks to Coupon Mad for that detailed response.

Keighley retail park was owned my Essex county council from 2017, however, it was sold to an 'undisclosed buyer' in 2023/4. I have not been able to find out who the land owner is. I did find a management co who are offering retail space for rent, but they have failed to respond to my contact. TKMaxx have decline to help and also told me they are unable/unwilling to disclose any information about their landlord.

As expected UKCPS sent me a rejection basically saying that blue badge must be displayed at all times and since it wasn't they want their money.

They have as Coupon Mad suggested, offered me a chance to pay the reduced rate of £20.

I am now not sure how to proceed. I regularly see in Money Saving Expert's weekly email - 'Fight unfair parking fines" or words to that effect. So is this unfair in my case? It seems to me that the PPCs make the rules, they state the rules on a sign on the wall of a carpark and we are all forced to unwillingly enter into a contract by entering the carpark. One of the rules on this occasion is that Blue Badges must be displayed at all times and for a few minutes ours was not. UKCPS clearly believe that I am therefore in breach of the contract and must pay, and clearly do see their view as being in any way unreasonable (No surprise there). I feel almost certain the IAS will, after sending me lots of platitudes regarding any points I make to them, simply support UKCPS's view. So then I take my chances with a County Court Judge. But, are the judges hands tied? He or she might agree that morally I have been treated unreasonably, but might they be forced to agree that within contract law, I was actually in breach of the contact - case closed.

I am tempted to just pay the £20 and just get on with my life, but I appreciate that doing so only helps these 'criminals' to prey on more victims. So my final question is how likely I am to win if I take on this fight? If I can win, then I will fight, but if this is a lost cause already, then I would rather not waste the time, effort and money fighting. Do I have chance?

Thanks to anyone who offers any advice, I do really do appreciate that there is a community here who care enough to spend your time answering queries like mine.

Thank you - Shaun

dnpark38

Take a deep breath and pay.