Show Posts - freestuie

That's great. Thanks for the reassurance, guys. I'll keep you up to date. I just phoned Moorside and asked them to take me to court ASAP in my most polite and friendly manner, even though I'm f*cking seething 

Hi @b789 - thanks for the reply. This was just the response to the letter of claim I sent to Moorside. Still, they've today came back and said that "Considering the evidence, we are satisfied that the PCN has been issued in line with industry standards and is compliant with the International Parking Community’s (IPC) code of practice. The signage of the car park also complies with the International Parking Community’s Code of Practice", with links to the usual payment options. Obviously, this is incredibly frustrating, and I'm at the stage where I think I should just pay it. What are the next steps? If I go to court, do I stand a chance? Am I going to be just as out of pocket with legal representation? I'm reluctant to say I'll represent myself because I suspect that would be foolish, but what are the chances of me being able to just give my statement, hoping the judge is a reasonable person? I'm at breaking point with it all, I'm not going to lie. If I were guilty, I'd have paid up long ago.

So I'm just replying to a letter of claim from Moorside Legal for a PCN from Ocean Parking that I received a couple of years ago. My appeal was rejected by them and POPLA, but I refuse to pay and, after a period of hoping it might go away, I've asked them to either drop it or take me court already! This is my response (names and other details removed). I'd appreciate any thoughts: To whom it may concern,As per my declaration in Box D of your reply form, I am writing to dispute the debt because Anchor Security Services/Ocean Parking are incorrect in their claim that we exceeded the maximum stay period at Plas Coch Retail Park. Timeline of eventsAfter leaving my job at Wrexham University shortly after 16:00, I drove to X High School to collect my partner from her place of work. She then drove us to Plas Coch, where we visited The Range briefly (at that time, the only store there) on the side of the retail park that Ocean Parking cover, arriving (as per the PCN) at 16:26 and making a purchase at 16:36 (as per our bank statement below).  We then left the site and returned home. Later that evening at approximately 18:45 we returned to a different area of Plas Coch Retail Park to visit TK Maxx, where I remained in the vehicle with our dog, whilst my partner and stepdaughter spent an hour or so shopping. My stepdaughter, then aged 15, paid with cash and unfortunately, we have been unable to locate the receipt.We would then visit Sainsbury’s on another section of the site (again, not covered by Ocean Parking) where we would make a purchase at 20:19 (as per the above screenshot). The PCN notes us leaving at 19:57, it is likely we drove through the camera-monitored area near The Range again while considering re-entering the store but ultimately decided not to. Our earlier visit was mainly to purchase art supplies for my stepdaughter and had proven mostly fruitless. It is likely we debated taking her in to look for alternatives but decided against it when we pulled up to The Range. Misinterpretation and AppealOur initial appeal to Ocean Parking wrongly assumed that they also covered the TK Maxx side of the site and therefore hadn’t considered that we had even gone back over to The Range again until many weeks later and created the misleading appearance of a continuous stay. We realised this too late, and it is also why we are unable to provide evidence that we were at TK Maxx, despite being parked directly in front of the store for over an hour. We regret being unable to provide additional evidence from that evening. As locals, we didn’t use maps for directions and did not have dashcam or Ring doorbell footage at that time. However, this does not mean we remained at the site for the full 3+ hours, and this situation highlights the limitations of relying solely on ANPR snapshots.Accuracy of Camera RecordsWhilst I appreciate that we were not caught on camera leaving after our first visit or arriving for our second visit, this does not mean that it didn’t happen. In April 2023 and again in April 2025, I submitted Subject Access Requests (SARs) to Ocean Parking. On both, these logs include examples of arrivals with no recorded departures so I would question the accuracy of the cameras. The results do not include anything with a less than 75% confidence rating, which further calls into question the completeness of the data. The April 2025 SAR shows visits to The Range and Farm Foods for which there are bank transactions but no associated camera records. For example, our purchases at Farm Foods on 04/01/25 and 03/02/25 are not listed. Based on the available entries, we were recorded arriving 88.9% of the time but leaving only 55.5% — or 62.5% if you exclude the disputed double visit on 6th March. This inconsistency undermines the reliability of the ANPR data used to issue this PCN.The reality is that if we had instead only been captured arriving both times, or leaving both times, or leaving the first time and arriving the second time, we would not be in this situation. But as it is, Ocean Parking have been given the perfect opportunity to “double dip” and issue us with a PCN because the “right combination” of being caught on camera came out. Local Knowledge and Parking BehaviourOcean Parking’s claim assumes we parked at The Range for over three hours without further purchases. This is implausible - not only because our original visit was short and for a specific item (which we didn’t find), but because The Range is too far removed from the rest of the retail park to serve as a practical parking location for the other shops (not covered by Ocean Parking), as you might do if you parked, for example, at Boots and crossed over the road to Sainsbury’s. Local awareness of a story in 2022, where shoppers were penalised for crossing between Sainsburys car park and the Boots/Pets at Home side of the site, meant that we would have been careful not to repeat that mistake: https://www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/20233149.wrexham-disgraceful-parking-fines-retail-park-slammed/ The biggest flaw in Ocean Parking’s argument is that if we had we wished to remain parked somewhere for an extended period, we would simply have used my staff parking at the University, located directly across the road. The video below demonstrates how short a distance it is between The Range and the University:[link removed] I have marked on the map The Range and the X building which is where I am located. I have also marked in yellow where I would normally park, but you will also note that there is parking even closer to the B5101 if needed, by the Creative Industries building. There is also parking at the front of the University building on the Mold Road entrance if we needed to park closer to the town:  For reference, Boots is highlighted in blue, and TK Maxx is highlighted in orange. Misleading Signage and Matchday ConditionsThere was no signage indicating a return prohibition within a specific time period, nor did the 1.5-hour matchday rule apply — it was not a matchday, and I am not a Wrexham supporter. I also feel that is important to point out that Plas Coch retail park is only populated by shops - other than the Plas Coch pub/restaurant, which has its own ample parking. No cinemas, bowling alleys, or any other entertainment that would demand a longer stay.  Context and CharacterWe are law-abiding local residents, with my partner working as a secondary school teacher and myself employed at Wrexham University. This is not an attempt to evade payment - in fact, in the time since this was issued, we have received and paid other PCNs where we were at fault (including a stay over 3 hours in Chester, and once for a mistyped registration).We are moving house, and the threat of a CCJ over something we genuinely did not do has caused considerable distress. We intend to fight this because, as I’m sure you can imagine, being wrongly accused of something is incredibly frustrating. This isn’t an elaborate story to get out of paying £60 £100 £160 £267. It would have been easier to pay the escalating fine to ease this burden (I suspect that’s the tactic that companies like Ocean Parking take – keep applying just enough pressure until people crack and back down), but we are standing our ground because we are confident that we did not violate the stated parking terms.ConclusionThe current evidence, based on flawed camera data and misinterpretation of vehicle movements across multiple distinct parking zones, does not prove that a breach occurred. We request that this matter is either withdrawn or passed to a court where it can be properly reviewed.Yours sincerely,