PCN from Vehicle Control Services (VCS) received during Covid-19 lock-down

[Phillip]

During April & May 2020 I visited a number of local authority and hospital car parks in Cheshire and Manchester where the payment machines were covered up and a small notice added stating that during lock-down all charges were suspended. I left one such hospital car park and drove 500m to a car park signed as a Public Car Park. In the middle of the car park the payment machines were covered and a small white notice stuck on. It looked identical to all other car parks during the lock-down in which parking charges were suspended.There were three other cars in the car park. I parked, took a photo of the machines (50m away) from my car to remind me that these machines were also not in use and returned an hour and a half later and drove off. I received a PCN a few weeks later. I went back to the car park to look at the notice which was only just legible from about 1m. I wrote to VCS stating mitigating circumstances of the private car park being signed as "Public" thereby misleading me into thinking it was another local authority controlled "free" car park, and the tiny notice, not repeated anywhere else, that stated that one should pay by other means. I also appealed via IAS, which was rejected. I cited inadequate signage, and gave picture of other local authority public car park's signage suspending charges, and later pictures of very large additional signs when charges were reinstated which clearly stated charging back in operation at local authority car park entrances. VCS and IAS rejected all of this, in the meantime upping the PCN charge from £60, to £100, to £160 pounds. The day after I got the IAS appeal rejection I went back to the car park and found that the small signs had been replaced by much larger and clearer signs in line with what I had been arguing was required all the way through the appeals process. I have been issued with another notice threatening me with legal action. I now wonder what to do. If I go to court will the court merely uphold contract law, or will they view the evidence of me being misled by poor signage and VCS failing to meet their own signage standards as mitigating circumstances?

[Phillip]

Dear Ostell
I saw your answer to this last night and now it's disappeared. I wanted to thank you and add some extra info about the signs
Best regards
Phillip

[ostell]

I think you have multiple threads active about this.

[Phillip]

Thanks Ostell. They argued that all the usual signs were there to tell me to pay by other means if the coin payment machines were faulty. My.point was that the machines were covered with a tiny notice also stuck on that looked similar to signs I'd seen in public car parks suspending charging. They argued that it was my responsibility to go up close to it to see that they had only stopped payment by coins. From a distance it led me to believe that since the car park was signed as "Public" it was operating the same suspension of charging I'd seen elsewhere. I also queried their use of "Public" (see POPLA definition). I have pictures of their permanent & temporary signage, & what they changed it to after the IAS rejected my appeal. Would a court take that into consideration? Phil