Free Traffic Legal Advice

We’ve just heard from the university that they have arranged for the notice to be cancelled. It might take a few days for it to be validated but we can now ignore the PCN letter that was issued which is a relief. Hopefully it won’t happen again, but if it does we’ll contact them first.

My daughter is a university student and at the start of the academic year applied (and was accepted) to have a staff parking permit on campus on disability grounds.

She had to set up an account with her car registration details and autopay. The terms of the permit are that she still pays for parking but at a reduced rate. She pays £10.50 per week (instead of around £60) and is charged varying amounts (£1.00, £2.50, £3.50 and £0.00) totalling £10.50 over a seven day period starting on a Monday.

This has worked absolutely fine all year until the Mayday bank holiday weekend. She was issued a parking charge for ‘not paying’ during one of her parking visits.

I’ve searched through the autopay log on her account and there is nothing showing for the date in question. No amount of any kind - not even a zero amount. There are no charges for her visits on 30th April and 1st May as she’d reached her £10.50 maximum for the week. The next charges are from Tuesday 6th May. However for the week commencing 4th May, she has paid the £10.50 maximum throughout that week, but the first payment was charged on Tuesday 5th May.

We have submitted an appeal with her as the registered keeper, providing evidence of her staff parking account with autopay set up and transactions on her statement for the academic year to date.

For reference - I’m helping her with her parking charge appeal as she’s been completing her masters research project and is completely overwhelmed. I am also supporting her financially so it’s in my interests to get this sorted out!

The company have responded saying:

Thank you for your correspondence regarding parking charge XXXX.
Whilst we appreciate the evidence provided, this does not show a payment made for the date in question.
To allow us to fully investigate your case, please provide us with evidence of a payment made for the date of the contravention.
Please provide your evidence within 14 days of the date of this letter of request. We have placed your case on hold 14 days to allow you to comply with this request.
If we do not receive the required evidence/information within 14 days, we will have no choice but to process your appeal based on the information that we currently hold.

The email also says if you are not satisfied with the outcome of your appeal, you cannot appeal again. You can make a complaint, details on how to do this are detailed on their website.

I am completely flummoxed by this. They have managed to capture my daughter entering and leaving the car park, but have not applied a parking charge on the autopay system even though they have managed it hundreds of times before and multiple times after. There are over 300 entries on her parking log over the academic year.

This isn’t even a case of her forgetting a payment or putting the wrong registration number in. She has a permit to park and has her account set up on auto pay (ironically for the sole purpose of avoiding fines). Ultimately she did not pay on the date of the contravention, but had no reason to think she hadn’t. Surely it is their error?
What else can we do?