ParkingEye PLeasureland Morecambe

jolite100 · 30 September 2017 at 9:44PM

Looking for advice on POPLA appeal.
I don’t live near Morecambe – has anyone got any recent photos of the entrance supposedly showing “clear signage” or the display notice next to the ticket machine? I’ve found a few photos on the forums dated 2016 showing inadequate signage but cant recall if that’s been fixed or what was showing when I visited on 3 Sep 17.

In short, I paid £2 for 3hrs parking on the Sunday (still have the ticket), but it took my partner 24 mins to get change from a busy Morrison’s a hundred meters away. I had no idea ANPR was monitoring the entry time so I took the time on the printed ticket as the time to watch out for when exiting. We left 10 mins before the ticket expired. Received a £100 parking notice charge in the post about a week later. That stated my time in the car park was 3 hrs 13 mins, which is correct.

I've already appealed to ParkingEye as registered keeper stating the facts above hoping the mitigation would be enough but it didn’t work and now have POPLA appeal number.

I was thinking of challenging on:
1) Missing or poor signage at entrance and by ticket machine (photos?)
2) Signage does not state that the parking time starts from point of entry into car park. How could I be expected to remember time of entry when I though the time that counts is the time printed on my ticket?
3) No allowance for grace period after entry to gather correct change needed (we could not reasonably have been any quicker).
4) I will include a scan of my parking ticket

Anything else? POFA para printed on reverse and I received the notice within a week. I could have paid £3 for 12 hours parking (that was the tariff), so is it worth challenging an excessive £100 charge for a stay of 3 hrs 13 mins (which would only have cost me £3)?

thanks!

jolite100 · 2 October 2017 at 8:17PM

I have now drafted my POPLA appeal below, centring on two main points. I guess I could add a few of the the other stock contentions. I received my PCN within the 14 days. I have photos showing how busy the car park was on the day, the ticket machine and my parking voucher which I will embed. All this is about being 13 mins over a 3 hr time purchase. I note there's a successful POPLA decision posted today about Newquay for a 13 min overstay. Any advice on my draft appreciated.

I am writing to you to lodge a formal appeal against a parking charge notice. I contend that I am not liable for this parking charge on the basis of:

No reasonable grace period
Inadequate signage

No reasonable grace period allowed – delay on entering coinage after entry
Comparison between the purchased P&D ticket and the ANPR exit photo, clearly indicates the vehicle exited the car park at 16.22, which is 10 minutes before the P&D ticket expiry time of 16.32 (see photo - £2 buys 3hrs and the purchase time was 13.32). In ParkingEye’s appeal rejection letter of 28 September, they contend that “insufficient time was paid for on the date of the parking event”. In their PCN of 8 September, they contend the vehicle was parked for 3 hours 13 minutes. Yet no allowance has been made for the time delay I incurred by looking for an empty parking bay in a busy car park with children and dogs at a popular beach location on a Sunday lunchtime in summer. No time allowed finding the ticketing machine, to read the tariff and other notices, nor to look for correct change. No time allowed for my partner to obtain pound coins from the cashiers at the busy adjacent Morrison’s supermarket (on what was a popular ‘vintage weekend’ event in Morecambe). No allowance for time taken to enter the vehicle registration number correctly or return to the vehicle to display the ticket in the windscreen. Lesser delays were incurred on exit, but this still took a couple of minutes.

The British Parking Association (BPA) Code of Practice states in section 13.2, “You should allow the driver a reasonable ‘grace period’ in which to decide if they are going to stay or go. If the driver is on your land without permission you should still allow them a grace period to read your signs and leave before you take enforcement action”.

[Insert pics of parking voucher and busy car park ]

Inappropriate signage
There is nothing transparent about ParkingEye’s signage at Pleasureland car park to inform the driver that ANPR cameras are used to calculate the time that needs to be paid for. The main detailed sign indicates that the “car park is monitored by APNR systems” with an icon of a CCTV camera which gives an impression these are used to monitory safety and security. Nowhere does it say that the APNR system is used to track the time of entry and departure to determine the contract period.

The instructions on the ticketing machine tell the driver to “display ticket clearly in vehicle” which leads the driver to think that compliance is enforced locally by a parking attendant. The driver is therefore misled into thinking that the printed ticket time is the start time of the parking contract. In our case, I monitored our time spent in Morecambe to ensure the vehicle left the car park before the P&D ticket expiry time. ParkingEye’s use of the arrival time is of no help to the driver as this time is not revealed after entering the vehicle registration number. When deciding on what tariff to pay, there is nothing on the machine or elsewhere to remind drivers to make an allowance for the time elapsed between arriving at the car park and entering the coinage. It is unreasonable to expect otherwise and unreasonable for drivers to accurately remember the time of entry in order to work out the time they need to exit.

There is nothing about the £100 charge on the ticket machine.

There is no clear signage around the payment machine indicating to the motorist that what the driver is paying for. According to ParkingEye, this is stay time yet the machine states “parking tariff”. In addition, the machine instructions state “During busy periods please find parking space prior to purchasing ticket”. This again indicates the contracted period of time starts at the time of purchase of the ticket.

There is no clear signage on the driver’s side on entrance to Pleasureland car park.

Pleasureland car park is a large beach car park site and the ANPR system is not connected to the Pay and Display system. This is wholly separate and runs to its own timing on tickets, which does not match the ANPR camera times. The systems are separate, can be minutes out from the time printed on a ticket, skewing the entire 'evidence' and grace periods argument. I put ParkingEye to strict proof otherwise.

[insert pic of ticket machine]

Coupon-mad · 2 October 2017 at 8:46PM

You've missed out the usual 'no landowner authority' template from post #3 of the NEWBIES thread.

I note there's a successful POPLA decision posted today about Newquay for a 13 min overstay

Quote the POPLA code, date and Assessor's name from that other decision, that the alleged 'overstay' was 13 minutes same as the skewed timing alleged here, and say how similar the situation is at Pleasureland Car Park in late Summer, on a popular event weekend as at Newquay.

jolite100 · 21 October 2017 at 10:53AM

Well I submitted my updated appeal letter (thanks Coupon-Mad) on Tuesday, and yesterday (20th), Popla emailed telling me that Parking Eye have now submitted their evidence. When I click on the link to view the document (supposedly a PDF file), it's all gibberish, pages of ASCII characters and random text. What's going on? Above the link it says, 'the operator didn't provide a case summary'. I've got 6 days to respond to unreadable evidence - tried to open it on tablet and pc, no luck.

The_Deep · 21 October 2017 at 11:01AM

Have you seen this?

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/waiting-for-space-is-not-parking.html

Redx · 21 October 2017 at 11:32AM

do you have adobe reader installed ?

can you open other pdf documents ?

if yes , phone POPLA on monday morning and ask them about it (obvious really) and ask them to email the pdf to you (or the claimants evidence pack)

jolite100 · 21 October 2017 at 12:06PM

Thanks, will do, didn't know Popla will speak to you over the phone

Umkomaas · 21 October 2017 at 12:26PM

jolite100 wrote: »

Thanks, will do, didn't know Popla will speak to you over the phone

Why not, they’re not God?

jolite100 · 21 October 2017 at 1:27PM

Right, just tried opening the attachment on a third computer and it now opens - all 45 pages of it, so no idea what went wrong with other 2. Im just out and about at the moment so just scanned it. Seems to be a stock response to generic issues (some of which I didn't invoke). They haven't addressed any of the arguments I've raised about circumstances on the day hindering the purchase of the ticket, stating, "all grace periods in place are a minimum of 10 minutes or more". They've included lots of photos of the plot and signs but not one of the ticket machine itself, which gives the mixed messages
about the ticket time being all important. I included a photo of the ticket machine instructions in my evidence. They also included the supply agreement for car park management- redacted in places, plus associated terms and conditions which are virtually illegible.

On the supply agreement it states, 'Initial term: a period commencing on the effective date and expiring after 24 months". The signatures at the bottom are dated 25/06/15 for the customer and 2/7/15 for Parking Eye. So it expired before I parked there in September.

Redx · 21 October 2017 at 1:56PM

good , draft up a popla rebuttal based on recent similar rebuttals on here

use all the issues you can find like you said above , looking for signage issues , contract issues and anything else

post the draft rebuttal on here when complete , for critique

chances are you dont have a pdf reader set up on the "faulty computers" , so its your tools , not popla

Coupon-mad · 21 October 2017 at 4:02PM

They also included the supply agreement for car park management- redacted in places, plus associated terms and conditions which are virtually illegible.

Did they show the 'grace period' in that agreement? It could well be 15 minutes. Who knows? Ring Pleasureland and ask to speak to the manager and ask them (tell them ParkingEye appear to be withholding the grace period information so you cannot get a straight answer from them). If he/she confirms it's 15 minutes ask for that by email immediately.

If no luck, then set out some SHORT bullet points for POPLA, re your observations about the evidence, pointing what PE have omitted, saying you believe the grace period is actually 15 minutes and PE have covered that information in the ''contract''.

Also look at the date of the contract; if more than 12 months ago, point out it appears to have expired. If the signatories are not shown/identified, object to that too.

ParkingEye PLeasureland Morecambe

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