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tHANKS ALL- THIS WAS SUCCESFUL. ECP WITHDREW AFTER REFERRING TO POPLA

Hello,

I am hoping someone may be able to assist me with an appeal. As registered keeper, I recieved a PCN for an overstay recorded on ANPR. I've never had a pcn appeal get to this point and im being asked for a response to the evidence.

I lodged an appeal via euro car parks, which was rejected-
Reason For Appeal: The Euro Car Parks Notice to Keeper (NtK) shows no parking time, merely two
images of a number plate corresponding with that of the vehicle in question.
There is no connection demonstrated whatsoever with the car park in question.
The Notice to Keeper states:
“On 14/02/2025 the vehicle entered Sainsbury’s- Ilford, at
16:59:09 and departed at 19:08:19 on 14/02/2025.”
These times do not equate to any single evidenced period of parking.
Since there is no evidence to actual parking times this would fail the requirements
of POFA 2012, paragraph 9(2)(a)
The signage at the entrance does not comply with BPA code of Practice Appendix B- if there are previous
allowances made for this by the BPA please provide evidence.

I have appealed via POPLA, on the grounds that he signage is non-compliant and poor, no illumination is available and does not
take into account approach speed or viewing from a moving vehicle. The Notice to keeper is non
compliant The ANPR images do not constitute reliable evidence- and have just received a response from ECP with their evidence.

Section 18.3 of the British Parking Association’s (BPA) code of practice explains that signs
“must be conspicuous and legible and written in intelligible language, so that they are easy to
see, read and understand.
• Signage on site is clear, when parking on private land it is the driver’s responsibility to
read the signage displayed and parked accordance with the terms and conditions as
stated. Euro Car Parks have provided photographic evidence showing that the appellant
remained at the site for 2 hours 9 minutes (Figure 1)
• The signage clearly states the terms and conditions of parking, all drivers are required
to adhere to the maximum stay on site.
• Signage is visble when entering and inside of the car park and when entering private
land it would be the driver’s responsibilty to read the terms and conditions and adhere
to them. (Figure 2 – See Section 7). Also, please note the time and date stamped images
of the signage on site.
• Any form of parking ticket or ‘notice’ is issued under the law ‘of trespass and Contract Law’. A
driver who is invited (or chooses) to park on private land and use the car parking facilities and
pays a fee/s does so under a contract (signage) with the car park operator. The parking contract
sets out the terms that apply to the parking service, including the price.
• Figure 3 confirms that the NTK is POFA compliant.
• Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems are effectively image processing and microprocessor devices with an internal reference clock based around a set of components referred
to as the ‘Real Time Clock chipset’ or RTC. The chipset uses a quartz crystal reference source
and will provide a reliable time reference dependant on a drift characteristic determined by
variations in local camera temperature. High fluctuations in local ambient can cause the RTC
to drift as much as 30 seconds a month and to counteract this an NTP server is utilised. The
NTP server is effectively a computer situated in a control room and takes a reference time
source from a GPS satellite and provides a hyper accurate time reference. All camera systems
operated by ECP are configured to request a time synchronisation from the NTP on a sixty
second basis. This ensures that all cameras have a universal time reference which is accurate
to a few thousandths of a second. Cameras also report a ‘heartbeat’ to our back office
environment, again on a sixty second basis, and this is used to establish camera operation;
logs of these transactions from all cameras are retained for approximately six months. On
capture of an ANPR read this is transmitted to a similar back office environment where the time
difference between that tagged on the raw capture and the ‘real time’ of the servers is again
tested.
• All ANPR cameras used by ECP are compliant under the home office approval framework as
stated under NAAS/NASP.

Maximum Stay
• The car park is operated by Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) – cameras
capture an image of vehicles entering and leaving the car park and calculate their length
of stay.
• The car park in question is on private land and upon entering such land vehicles are
subject to the terms and conditions of parking as shown on the signage. This signage
quite clearly states that if your vehicle is in breach of the terms and conditions of the car
park then a Parking Charge Notice will be issued.
• Parking at the above site is limited to 90 minutes Monday to Sunday 07:00 hours to 22:00
hours. There is a maximum stay of 10 minutes outside of these hours.
• On entry to private land it is the responsibility of the driver to check for signage and
ensure that your vehicle has been correctly parked.
• Your vehicle was parked longer than 90 minutes, therefore the notice was issued
correctly.
• The vehicle does not need to be parked to have gained utility from the site The site is
private property and signage on entrance within the private car park clearly set out the
rules and regulations of the site and the tariffs (if applicable). By entering the site,
parking and leaving the vehicle the driver has accepted the “contract” and therefore if
the driver fails to comply with the terms and conditions a parking charge notice will be
correctly issued.
• Euro Car Parks do not need to provide evidence of who was driving the vehicle, it is the
registered keeper’s responsibility to inform of the full name and UK Serviceable address
within 28 days beginning with the day after the notice was given. If the full amount
remains unpaid, under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (‘the Act’),
Euro Car Parks have the right subject of the Act to recover from the keeper of the vehicle
at the time it was parked so much of that amount which remains unpaid.
• The Protection of Freedoms Act (PoFA) does not alter the principle of driver liability.
What it does do, is to allow proceedings against the registered keeper for unpaid parking
charges when the landowner or their agent, the parking operator does not know who the
driver was at the time.
• The creditor/operator must follow the procedures set out in PoFA Schedule 4 to achieve
the benefits of keeper liability.
• According to BPA Code of Practise 13.4 – car park operators should allow the driver a
reasonable period to leave the private car park after the parking contract has ended;
before enforcement action is taken. If the location is one where parking is normally
permitted; the grace period at the end of the parking period should be a minimum of 10
minutes.
• I can confirm that Euro Car Parks have given to driver the suitable grace period of 10
minutes and was issued a Parking Charge Notice.
• Please note that the appellant has not provided any proof of being customer on the day
in question i.e. bank statement.
• Signage is visible when entering and inside of the car park and when entering private
land it would be the driver’s responsibility to read the terms and conditions and adhere
to them.
• A minimum of 10 minutes is sufficient to let the motorist to acknowledge the terms and
conditions of parking.
• I would respectfully remind that contract law applies in this instance.
• Any form of parking ticket or ‘notice’ is issued under the law ‘of trespass and Contract
Law’. A driver who is invited (or chooses) to park on private land and use the car parking
facilities and pays a fee/s does so under a contract (signage) with the car park operator.
The parking contract sets out the terms that apply to the parking service, including the
price.
• The contract (signage) clearly states the extra charges are that the driver will incur and
have to pay if they decide to break the contract terms − for example, by parking longer
than the time paid for or exceeding the maximum time limit applicable.
• The ANPR technology we implement on parking sites is maintained by a dedicated team
of technical specialists who dynamically monitor the data feeds to ensure optimum
performance.

Maximum Stay
• Regular planned service visits are sequenced across our whole estate to ensure we
properly maintain all the equipment on a car park and ensure that data generated from
any ANPR system is working within an optimum performance envelope. At Euro Car
Parks we believe we have an industry leading approach to our systems and operate all
our systems in excess of all current standards and compliance levels.
• Landowner Authority contract between Euro Car Parks and Sainsburys – Ilford – figure

There are multiple images taken from within the car park, alongside the NTK and land agreement.

I'd be grateful if someone could advise on what i can do next? They dont seem to have address the non-compliant signage in their evidence...

Thank you.

Hi everyone. Thanks in advance for the help.

We recieved a euro car parks PCN for an unpaid 12 minute stay. The car park in question has very poor signage upon approach and no lighting so we weren't even aware we had parked in the car park.

There is an approach to the car park that has several bays alongside it, I am not sure if these are part of the car park or not. We essentially parked to grab something from the shop and then left, if I'd know we were in a pay and display I would've paid the £1!

We don't normally drive through this area so we aren't familiar with the normal parking restrictions.

The signs aren't visible during the evening so we were unaware we had this issue. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ra4spC69qVNW3cTi9?g_st=ac

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