Received PCN for time queuing & despite not occupying a space

geremi

Hi everyone- looking for advice please.

Needed to attend Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. Upon entering the hospital’s entrance, joined a queue to the car park, which was located further inside the site of the hospital. The queue was very slow moving and was stuck there for 35-40mins. eventually entered the car park, but immediately turned the car around and left - was never parked. total time in the actual car park was no more than 5 mins.

Received a private parking charge notice (Parkingeye) for failing to pay for parking, ANPR time stamp between entering and exiting of 42mins. The ANPR camera is located at the entrance to the hospital site, not the car park, so unsure if they have evidence of when the car physically entered the car park. Furthermore, the T&Cs signage of the car park is located inside the car park, not at the entrance of the hospital site and nowhere outside of the car park where the queue was.

As the registered keeper, where do i stand? I’m hoping the fact I have a picture of the queue to the car park (see pic below) will help and I have strong grounds to challenge the charge.

Does the fact that I didn’t occupy a bay further support my challenge? Their T&Cs does state “By parking, waiting or otherwise remaining within this private car park, you agree to comply with the terms of the Parking Contract…”

However, on the PCN it states "On the [DATE] vehicle [REGISTRATION PLATE] entered the Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead - Pears Building 00 car park at 10:40:06 and departed at 11:23:03 on [DATE]".

The address they're referring to is to the car park itself. As mentioned, the car spent the majority of this period on the road in the queue outside the car park and only eventually entered the car park for max 5mins before exiting. Is this something that requires proof?

Should I go straight to appeal or is it better to go to the hospital's PALS first to try and cancel the charge? What wording should I use to PALS as i don't want to incorrectly incriminate myself.

Thanks for any help

GrannyKate

No special wording needed for PALS - just tell them your story. Supply the picture, point out that the time outside the car park should not count (from T & C By parking, waiting or otherwise remaining within this private car park) as the roadway with double red lines is definitely not part of the car park. If they refer you back to ParkingEye ask for the matter to be escalated to the CEO as a formal complaint.

Coupon-mad

Do the PALS complaint this month and put any appeal on the back burner.

You should also consider sending your photo and PCN to a local journalist if PALS won't step in. Get it in the press to name and shame ParkingEye because everyone in that queue will have got a PCN for 'underpaying'.

That clearly isn't the 'car park' and the ANPR camera positioning is plainly unfair. It's premature data processing; it should not use the first image on site to count time from the roadway in a hospital because long stationary queues for undercover multi storeys in these places are common.

And they'll have other images that they could have checked if a human eye had looked at these queueing cars and double checked other cameras before the system auto-linked to the KADOE electronic link and auto-churned a postal PCN.

I'd be willing to bet that ParkingEye do have images from inside the car park too because they have cameras everywhere. Read about this ParkingEye hospital court case - ten years ago but in some ways similar to yours - where they had lots of images as the car traversed the site but their camera auto-PCN system defaults to the first and last two, which made it look like an overstay:

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.com/2016/03/parkingeye-lose-in-court-accuse-drivers.html?m=1

Car1980

I can't see any signage offering a contract prior to entering the car park.

They are adding 5 secs - 45+ minutes to every single person's parking time.

You could U turn and exit and would still receive a PCN accusing you of parking.