Fine for entering wrong vehicle reg

I need to submit my POPLA appeal tomorrow and have drafted the below. Could someone please read through and advise if this is sufficient (not sure if I should go into more detail about ANPR data breach). I have highlighted the questions from the POPLA website in bold.

Please write a short summary of this ground of appeal
I am appealing on the grounds that, quite simply, payment was made for the parking in line with the terms and conditions of the car park. I parked my vehicle XXXXXXX in GS Car Park, Mansfield Street, Leicester, LE1 3DL at approx. 16:25 on Friday 22nd March 2019. I paid £1.30 for 1 hours parking and displayed the car parking ticket inside my vehicle’s windscreen. I left the car park at approx. 17:00.

The referenced PCN xxxxxxxx was issued to me by One Parking Solution (OPS) on Thursday 27th March 2019 alleging that I had not paid for my parking. Immediately, on receipt of this I searched for the car parking ticket and unfortunately I realised that I had already thrown it away in that morning’s recycling collection. I cast my mind back to the day and recalled that I had difficulty entering my registration into the machine keypad and may have mis-typed some letters in error. Therefore, there should be a payment of £1.30 not matched to a vehicle.
I submitted a Subject Access Request (SAR) to OPS on 10th April 2019 requesting a redacted copy of any records from the parking payment machines in that car park between the time by vehicle entered and exited. I asked that the records include payments made during this period that are not matched to a vehicle recorded as present. Unfortunately, OPS responded that they are not obliged to share the information unless it relates to my vehicle.
On 23rd April 2019 at 22:30, I submitted an appeal to OPS disputing the alleged charge for the reason that I had paid payment. I explained that it is possible that the vehicle registration number was not fully entered and therefore the payment was not matched to the vehicle. This could be seen if they were to cross-reference payments made during the time my vehicle entered and exited the car park.
Following this, I received a letter from OPS dated 13th May 2019 stating that my appeal has been rejected. A POPLA code was provided which is the route I have now taken to appeal their decision.

Where within your car did you display your parking ticket?
Inside windscreen. Unfortunately, I did not take a photo of the car parking ticket displayed as I did not think this was necessary as payment was made.


Why do you perceive that the terms and conditions of the car park were not properly signed (for example where they blocked, too small, or not showing)?
In the appeal rejection letter from OPS, they state it is the driver’s responsibility to always ensure they are fully aware of and adhere to the terms and conditions when parking on private land. I revisited the car park and noted that there are two separate boards with different terms and conditions (pictures attached). There is a small board near the entrance that states 3 conditions for a parking charge notice:
1. Failure to purchase a ticket
2. Expired tickets
3. Failure to correctly display a valid ticket within your windscreen

And then there is a larger board close to the payment machine which states 5 conditions for a parking ticket:
1. Failure to display a valid ticket or permit
2. Under payment
3. Failure to park in marked bay
4. Parking in disabled bay, without displaying a valid badge
5. Ticket transfer from vehicle to vehicle

Firstly, I have not breached any of these conditions as I paid fully for the time I was in the car park. Secondly, the signage is not clear as there are different sets of conditions.
I also took a picture of the payment machine (attached). This shows how confusing the instructions are and has its own set of conditions of use:
1. Valid ticket must be clearly displayed in windscreen
2. Vehicles must be parked wholly within marked parking bay
3. Vehicles must not overstay paid parking time

Further to this, there is a separate small sign that states this is an ANPR car park. The sign does not form part of any contact and neither does it state that ANPR will be used to record my registration number and collect data. I strongly believe that this charge was not properly given because it breaches the BPA Code of Practice regarding ANPR which requires checks to be made to ensure that a charge is ‘appropriate’ before issuing a PCN.

The payment made would in fact be very easy to identify if this operator had carried out the necessary checks required in the BPA CoP, so I suggest these checks were not made and that the operator has contravened the requirements of professional diligence; a duty of consumer-facing service providers.

I put this operator to strict proof that these checks were made (showing full records from that day including the VRN list of payments around the time in question) and to explain why a charge was issued when they would indisputably have identified the matching 1 hour payment. The operator would have been in no doubt that the car parking was paid for, had they made the required checks.

And the situation is fully within this operator’s control. As cameras are used to record number plates entering and leaving then they should be connected to the ticket machines. As a number-plate begins to be typed, a truly ‘connected’ system would find the ANPR image and simply require the driver to confirm that this is their vehicle, and the system would show the time of arrival (all details known to the system already).

Can you provide any evidence to support your claim that the terms and conditions were not properly signed?
I will attached photos from Post #17.

What did the signage at the car park say?
Detailed above

Why do you consider you complied with the signage?
I met all terms and conditions as explained above

Why does the parking operator consider you to have failed to comply with the signage?
Because they can’t find a payment that matches my vehicle registration number.

Hi Keith,

Apologies, I'm under a lot of stress at the moment and finding this appeal overwhelming. I just went on the PoPLA website to see how to submit the appeal and assumed the questions were the way.

Sometimes I wish I just paid the £60 at first to avoid all this stress but a little voice tells me stick to priniples and fight on.

Putting aside the format of my appeal, is there anything I should change in terms of the wording or arguments?

FG

I did look and you might notice some of the wording I've used is copied from those. The problem is that I can't find a template that relates to my situation i.e. no copy of ticket and relying on just the signage being unclear. Other appeals have a strong case where the machine has genuinely or they have a copy of their ticket to prove they paid.

I'm really not good at this sort of thing and heavily reliant on the goodwill of you guys to help me out please.