Britannia Overstay at Waitrose

TheLightWasYellowSir

Received a Parking Charge Notice to Keeper today. As I wasn't driving cannot comment on the veracity of the alleged overstay or any signage issues.

However, the 'date of contravention' is 17/07/2026. The 'date of this notice' is 26th/08/2026 and I received the invoice today, the 07/09/2026.

Presumably I just need to highlight the date contravention and that I will not be giving details of the driver, even if I knew who it was?

Thanks in advance

Jame4ters

if this is the original Notice to Keeper then it doesn’t meet POFA requirements so you would appeal accordingly without saying who was driving

Coupon-mad

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6682515/britannia-overstay-at-waitrose

Very easy one. Send Britannia this:

Dear Britannia,

You've sent me a non-POFA NTK, Under contract law there is no lawful presumption that the keeper was the driver.

Send me my POPLA code, or cancel.
The case law is against you and your ilk. And for your information, I wasn't driving and I won't be naming the driver.

This was tested on appeal and your mates at VCS lost:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/w0k19zxzlpf9eumu68u7b/VCS-v-EDWARDS-Transcript.pdf?rlkey=5t2gilebrjx7g0d6jmy32lou4&e=1&dl=0

In April 2023, His Honour Judge Mark Gargan sitting at Teesside Combined Court (on appeal re claim H0KF6C9C) held in Vehicle Control Services Ltd v Ian Edward that a registered keeper cannot be assumed to have been driving. Nor could any adverse inference be drawn if a keeper is unable or unwilling to nominate the driver, because the POFA does not invoke any such obligation.  HHJ Gargan held:

35.1. "The finding I make is consistent with the underlying purpose of Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act, namely, that it was necessary to bring in keeper liability pursuant to that legislation, because liability could not be established.  If this were not the case car parking companies could simply have obtained the details of the registered keeper, launched proceedings and waited to see whether or not there was a positive defence put forward, and in the absence of a positive defence they would have succeeded. If the court took such an approach, it would have been imposing a duty on the registered keeper, to identify the driver or at least set out a positive case in order to avoid responsibility himself. In my judgment that was not the position before ... [the POFA] ... was in force; 

35.2.  my decision preserves and respects the important general freedom from being required to give information, absent a legal duty upon you to do so; and 

35.3.  it is consistent with the appropriate probability analysis whereby simply because somebody is a registered keeper, it does not mean on the balance of probability they were driving on this occasion..."

You must show this reply to POPLA in your evidence pack, if you persist.  Send me a rejection or acceptance of my appeal this month or I'll involve my MP.

Coupon-mad

Or simply complain to Waitrose and ask their store manager to email Britannia to cancel it. Get angry about this misleading demand.

Please show us both sides of this PCN.