Secure A Space –!help with POPLA appeal

Thanks, Coupon-mad. I will do so, and report back in due course.

Hello everybody. I need to resurrect this thread as I have just received notification from POPLA of the operator's response. They have supplied no fewer than 26 documents as evidence to counter my appeal, including all correspondence we've exchanged, including the original PCN, my appeal as registered keeper, the NTK, my NTK response, 13 photos of the keeper's vehicle (including some rather invasive shots of the interior of the vehicle), photos of the signs at the site entrance and the signs situated on site, the signed agreement with the landowner, and the heads of terms of the contract they have with the landowner.

I have been given 7 days to respond, but I'm really not sure what my next move should be. Can anybody please provide some further advice?

Many thanks!
-PVJ

I've been doing some reading around some recent threads with rebuttals in, and I'm not sure any of the things I've seen so far seem to apply.

The main points of Secure A Space's response to the keeper's appeal are:

1. Vehicle was observed at 14.52 and PCN issued at 15.10 after 17 minutes.
2. Vehicle was parked in area allocated for specific permit holders only, and vehicle did not show corresponding permit.
3. Nearest sign setting out terms and conditions was close to the vehicle.
4. Sign at entrance is a "P" style entrance sign, which says "Parking in allocated bays only" and states to see further signs inside the site for full terms and conditions. This photo dates from 2015, but operator says that parking attendant cannot be expected to take a photo for every ticket because of the size of the site.
5. Entrance sign meets all criteria set by BPA and has been audited annually.
6. There is no provision in the guidelines for a sign being a certain distance from security hut (the driver had to speak to a security person to gain access to the site and hence did not see the "P" style sign).
7. Keeper's failure to provide driver details "has refused to enter into the spirit of the legislation provided".
8. No charges were escalated during the process of issuing NTK, in accordance with POFA 2012 Schedule 4.
9. "We have seen identical appeal templates to this one previously which would indicate it has been taken from an internet forum or similar."
10. Sign in front of the vehicle (which does not show any of the operators' terms and conditions) is "a general additional sign, provided by the Managing Agent."
11. It is not practical to have a sign in front of every bay on the site, neither is it necessary according to best practise and code of practice guidelines.
12. More than adequate grace period was provided by the attendant.
13. In refutation of the keeper's assertion that the Parking Eye vs. Beavis judgement is not relevant:

"Whilst I note that the appellant believes there are not enough similarities between this case and the Parking Eye v Beavis case, hundreds of previous similar cases have been adjudicated by POPLA and have found to be similar enough for this ruling to be relied upon in similar circumstances and appeals. These have included the same sign wording and vehicles parked in a similar location such as case number 7310587008 as an example. Many important parts of the Contractual Agreement terms on the sign used by Parking Eye in the Beavis vs Parking Eye (example as provided by the Appellant) are in a much smaller font than our design attached. This includes but is not limited to, the most important fact that the area is private land and the operator contact details to check on any areas of the contract the driver may wish verify with the Parking Management Company regarding. All signs are designed slightly differently however they have met the British Parking Association’s code of practice upon audit, as has our sign design."

14. Copy of contract with landowner dated April 2015. (Name of company on the handwritten agreement is almost illegible, but it does indeed appear to be the name of the landowner, Comer Property Management Ltd.)

The only points that I can currently think of how to respond are as follows:

3. The photograph showing the nearest sign to the bay in which the vehicle was parked shows that the sign would be completely illegible from the driver's perspective. The operator's sign is directly below a one of the "general additional signs" that just says "Building 3 Parking Only" with no terms and conditions, just like the "general additional sign" that is placed directly in front of the bay in which the vehicle was parked, where there was no operator sign specifying the terms and conditions.

7. It doesn't matter whether the keeper has entered into the "spirit" of the legislation: what matters under POFA 2012 section 4 is whether or not the operator has been able to prove that the keeper of the vehicle was the driver. The operator states that they have not escalated the charges when issuing the NTK as this is "a formal step to be followed when an appellant is not cooperating in the spirit of the above legislation".

9. When a person is being pursued aggressively by a collections agency, the keeper should be entitled to use any and all resources at his or her disposal to counter the unfair and stressful pursuit of an unpaid invoice, including consulting with other people who have had similar experience, and relevant legal precedent and regulations. Simply because similar grounds for appeal have been used before does not render those grounds invalid.

I don't feel confident about the above points –!does anybody have any further advice?

Thanks,
–PVJ

Thanks, Redx. Regarding the contract, the names of the parties signing the contract for both the operator and the landowner are completely indistinct, so it is certainly impossible for me either to identify either party or to assess whether they had sufficient authority to sign it. The agreement itself states that it is valid for a minimum period of one year and then continues unless terminated by either party.

Re: the POFA 2012 compliance, I do not think that the NTK correctly identified "The period the car was parked" –!it merely specifies the time at which the ticket was issued, not the period for which the vehicle was parked. Furthermore, the NTK is obliged to "Specify the outstanding amount of the parking charge and of the maximum additional costs they may seek to recover": however, all the NTK says is that "we will also pass the case to a debt collector where further costs may be added", with nothing about the maximum additional costs they may seek to recover. (I have used parkingfine-appeals.co.uk/ keeper-liability-explained/ as the source of my understanding of exactly what a NTK must contain in order to establish keeper liability under POFA 2012.)

Re: forbidding signs, I'm not sure: the operator's sign states "A Valid Secure A Space authorised permit must be displayed in the front windscreen at all times. Vehicles displaying area specific permits must park in the corresponding bay or area as follows... Site P&D Permit - WHITE bays".

So the parking was indeed for permit holders only, but the kind of permit that was necessary to hold is a "Site P&D Permit", which the driver could have purchased had he/she been made aware of the necessity to do so by sufficient signage close to the parking area.