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Hi All,
I am in receipt of a PCN from Met Parking for alleged overstay at a McDonalds site near heathrow Airport.
I made an appeal giving receipted evidence as a genuine customer and argued the timing of the ANPR recordings, citing that the business of the McDonalds delayed me being able to place my order and contributed to the alleged overstay.
I also used the "unreasonable pre-estimate of loss" defence, and quoted local parking charges at the Airport as being 3 pounds per 30 mins. (I can see this is potentially flawed having since found the Parking Eye vs. Bevis case history)
The appeal has been denied by Met Parking.
I am considering my options. As a person who believes in strong principals, my gut reaction is to mount a vigorous defence. My head says is it worth the time and effort, just take the 50 pound early payment charge, boycott McDonalds for ever more and put it down to experience.
I have read the POPLA annual report statistics. They appear to boil down to about 20% of cases are won on appeal because the parking company withdraws. Of those that progress, the rulings are about 65% in favour of the parking company. So overall, there is about 50/50 chance of success.
I have read on other web forums guidance such as in defence asking for a full copy of the contract between the parking company and the land owner/retailer to be furnished such that the full terms can be seen - e.g. there may be a clause by the retailer that first time offenders are not to be ticketed. The advice is that because these contracts contain information the parking company does not want made public, they can sometimes withdraw the claim.
Another possible defence line I have is as follows. I work in the IT security industry. The ANPR cameras will certainly be linked by IT systems to the parking company's data processing facilities. How can the parking company prove that the recorded times of the ANPR cameras are in fact accurate and correct? What reference time source are they using and how often is this audited? How can the Parking company be certain that information between the ANPR cameras and their processing systems is secure and free from tampering. Can they provide independent auditing records to prove that their systems are designed to recognised IT security standards and regularly inspected such as independent security penetration testing audits? This is an area I feel confident in arguing and would potentially incur the parking company significant cost in gathering evidence and defending this point (unless it has been used before and they have this pre-prepared)
One further defence seems to be around the actual definition of the time the vehicle is parked. British Parking Association guidelines (according to some internet forums) allow for up to 10 minutes to enter and find a space and a further 10 minutes to exit to account for busy periods. Such allowances would cover the alleged overstay that is being claimed in my case 13 minutes beyond the permitted 60 minutes.
Any advice much appreciated.
Regards
I am in receipt of a PCN from Met Parking for alleged overstay at a McDonalds site near heathrow Airport.
I made an appeal giving receipted evidence as a genuine customer and argued the timing of the ANPR recordings, citing that the business of the McDonalds delayed me being able to place my order and contributed to the alleged overstay.
I also used the "unreasonable pre-estimate of loss" defence, and quoted local parking charges at the Airport as being 3 pounds per 30 mins. (I can see this is potentially flawed having since found the Parking Eye vs. Bevis case history)
The appeal has been denied by Met Parking.
I am considering my options. As a person who believes in strong principals, my gut reaction is to mount a vigorous defence. My head says is it worth the time and effort, just take the 50 pound early payment charge, boycott McDonalds for ever more and put it down to experience.
I have read the POPLA annual report statistics. They appear to boil down to about 20% of cases are won on appeal because the parking company withdraws. Of those that progress, the rulings are about 65% in favour of the parking company. So overall, there is about 50/50 chance of success.
I have read on other web forums guidance such as in defence asking for a full copy of the contract between the parking company and the land owner/retailer to be furnished such that the full terms can be seen - e.g. there may be a clause by the retailer that first time offenders are not to be ticketed. The advice is that because these contracts contain information the parking company does not want made public, they can sometimes withdraw the claim.
Another possible defence line I have is as follows. I work in the IT security industry. The ANPR cameras will certainly be linked by IT systems to the parking company's data processing facilities. How can the parking company prove that the recorded times of the ANPR cameras are in fact accurate and correct? What reference time source are they using and how often is this audited? How can the Parking company be certain that information between the ANPR cameras and their processing systems is secure and free from tampering. Can they provide independent auditing records to prove that their systems are designed to recognised IT security standards and regularly inspected such as independent security penetration testing audits? This is an area I feel confident in arguing and would potentially incur the parking company significant cost in gathering evidence and defending this point (unless it has been used before and they have this pre-prepared)
One further defence seems to be around the actual definition of the time the vehicle is parked. British Parking Association guidelines (according to some internet forums) allow for up to 10 minutes to enter and find a space and a further 10 minutes to exit to account for busy periods. Such allowances would cover the alleged overstay that is being claimed in my case 13 minutes beyond the permitted 60 minutes.
Any advice much appreciated.
Regards
