ParkMaven PCN - Overstayed duration - Tried to pay but machine said payment already received

Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice on whether I have strong grounds for a POPLA appeal against a ParkMaven PCN issued at The Mall Maidstone.

Background:
The parking event was on 13/06/2026 at The Mall Maidstone.
The driver is a gym member and validated the vehicle for the free 2.5-hour gym parking period. The vehicle remained on site for a total of approximately 4 hours 6 minutes, so additional parking charges would have been due for the period beyond the gym validation.I have misplaced the original PCN so cannot upload or have the specific entry date/time and exit date/time.

Before leaving, the driver went to the payment kiosk to pay for the additional time. However, after entering the reg, the payment machine displayed the following message:

"We have received a payment for this vehicle within the last 30 minutes. If you have not left the car park and returned, you do not need to pay again." Please see this link for the picture taken of the payment kiosk:

The driver had not left and returned, so reasonably understood this message to mean that no further payment was required.
The machine did not offer any obvious option to continue to payment from this screen.

I have also attached a photo of the car park signage:
The signage states:

"Pay when leaving"
Enter your registration number at the kiosk and pay when ready to leave.
It also references "Post Pay" options.
The driver followed the advertised process by attending the payment machine before exiting the car park.

Appeal Rejection
ParkMaven rejected the initial appeal.
What I find strange is that while the PCN relates to 13/06/2026, the rejection letter contains the following statement:

"the validation for your vehicle started on 14/03/2025"

and also refers to parking occurring on 14/03/2025.
This appears to be an entirely different date and year.
To me, that raises concerns that the appeal may not have been properly considered and that a template response may have been used.

My Main POPLA Arguments:

The operator's own payment machine instructed the driver that no further payment was required.

The driver attempted to pay.
The machine recognised the registration number.
The machine stated that payment had already been received and that the driver did not need to pay again.


The signage instructed motorists to pay when leaving and that is exactly what the driver attempted to do.

The rejection letter contains material factual errors, referring to March 2025 instead of June 2026.


The driver had poor/no mobile signal in the car park, so app-based payment methods were not realistically available. However, the driver had already been told by the kiosk that no further payment was required, so there was no reason to believe another payment route needed to be used.


Missing PCN
Unfortunately, I have misplaced the original Notice to Keeper/PCN and only have:

the appeal rejection letter:
the kiosk photograph: https://ibb.co/BKGFBMXW
the signage photograph: https://ibb.co/G34Ydy6z
the online ParkMaven payment page showing some of the PCN details:

Would it be worthwhile requesting a copy of the original PCN/Notice to Keeper from ParkMaven before submitting a POPLA appeal so that I can check for any Protection of Freedoms Act (PoFA) issues or wording defects?

Would really appreciate any advice and whether or not this will be worth pursuing to POPLA.

Thanks in advance.

Would it be worthwhile requesting a copy of the original PCN/Notice to Keeper from ParkMaven before submitting a POPLA appeal so that I can check for any Protection of Freedoms Act (PoFA) issues or wording defects?

With a Subject Access Request, yes,

You should use POPLA simply because the audit trail shows that you have done. If the appeal is rejected an it goes to a court claim at least you can show that you tried. Most court claims don't actually make it to court if defended properly.

Thanks for the reply, I will send them an SAR.

In your opinion, do you think the assessor would be likely to side with the appellant in this circumstance?