Free Traffic Legal Advice

You won't be paying a thing as this is within the Stansted Airport Byelaws, so they can't hold the keeper liable as long as you don't give away who the driver is.

Could you post the back of the PCN as well.

Here's similar posts on this location:
https://www.ftla.uk/private-parking-tickets/stansted-met-southgate-park-starbucks/30/
https://www.ftla.uk/private-parking-tickets/stansted-airport-met-southgate-park-starbucks/

There is no Keeper liability if the driver is not identified for the reason given above. Whilst you, as the named recipient of the Notice to Keeper (NtK) cannot be liable for the charge if the driver is not identified and you have even stated categorically that you were not the driver anyway, you will have to go through the appeals process or initial appeal, rejection, POPLA appeal, possible success. Anything beyond that we will cross that bridge if we ever come to it.

The simple fact is that MET have issued you a speculative invoice for an alleged brach of contract by the driver who is unknown to them. There is no legal obligation on you, the Keeper, to identify the driver to an unregulated private parking firm. Because the location is within the official Stansted Airport boundary, it is land that is covered by airport byelaws and therefore no "relevant land" for the purposes of PoFA 2012, which means that the Keeper cannot be liable for the charge if the driver is not identified.

For now, simply appeal with the following, only as the Keeper and come back for the POPLA appeal once they reject that:

I am the registered keeper. MET cannot hold a registered keeper liable for any alleged contravention on land that is under statutory control. As a matter of fact and law, MET will be well aware that they cannot use the PoFA provisions because Stansted Airport is not 'relevant land'.

If Stansted Airport wanted to hold owners or keepers liable under Airport Bylaws, that would be within the landowner's gift and another matter entirely. However, not only is that not pleaded, it is also not legally possible because MET is not the Airport owner and your 'parking charge' is not and never attempts to be a penalty. It is created for MET’s own profit (as opposed to a bylaws penalty that goes to the public purse) and MET has relied on contract law allegations of breach against the driver only.

The registered keeper cannot be presumed or inferred to have been the driver, nor pursued under some twisted interpretation of the law of agency. Your NtK can only hold the driver liable. MET have no hope at POPLA, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.

You don/\'t use post for anything if you can help it. Use email or, for an appeal, you can use their portal if necessary.

After the appeal rejection, you cause these maps in your POPLA appeal to show that the location is within the Stansted Airport byelaws boundary.

Good Morning guys
Ive had a speedy reply from MET.
Im unsure how to reply to this and don't want to mess things up.
My guess is forwarding the map to them, that shows it is actually on airport property.
What would you advise please

Thanks
G

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I'd email the following response to them:

Subject: PCN [XXXXXXXX] – Kindly Escalate to a Responsible Adult

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am the registered keeper.

Your latest correspondence would benefit from being reviewed by a responsible adult within your organisation who is capable of comprehending a simple geographical and legal fact.

The location you describe as “Southgate Park (Starbucks)” is within the Stansted Airport boundary and is subject to Stansted Airport byelaws. As such, it is not relevant land for the purposes of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. This is not a matter of opinion, nor is it altered by creative wording on your paperwork.

Your continued insistence that PoFA applies is therefore demonstrably false and constitutes a clear breach of Section 8.1.1(d) of the Private Parking Single Code of Practice, namely making misleading statements about keeper liability where no such liability exists. That breach also places you in breach of your KADOE contract. This misuse of keeper data is being reported to the DVLA irrespective of whether you choose to persist with this fiction.

Your apparent belief that leasing arrangements involving Tabacon 2 Stansted Ltd somehow revoke statutory control is legally illiterate. A private lease does not extinguish byelaws. Statutory control remains exactly that: statutory.

You are fully aware that land governed by airport byelaws cannot engage keeper liability under PoFA. You are also fully aware that your parking charge is not a byelaws penalty, does not go to the public purse, and is instead a speculative invoice based on an alleged contract with an unidentified driver only.

The driver will not be identified.

If you decline to cancel this charge now, you are invited to waste further time and money by issuing a POPLA code so that this matter can be disposed of decisively. The evidence held by the Keeper — including definitive boundary mapping — will not change, and the outcome will not change.

This is your opportunity to end a process that is already fatally flawed.

Yours faithfully,

[Name]
Registered Keeper

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Hi Guys
As expected the appeal was refused and they decided to waste more time and money.
I have been issued the popla code and would ask kindly for some help with that please.
I have become addicted to reading about other cases on this site, so have a fair amount of knowledge as how to proceed, if you guys are busy.
Thanks again for your help and providing a great site to read, and some of your comments do make me laugh, you sound like the type of people id gladly have a pint with.
Cheers
G

I am the Keeper of the car and the driver at the time has expressly denied me the permission to use their name, which I agree with.

You're getting good advice and if you follow it you won't pay a penny, but just for anyone else reading this thread, you don't need permission from the driver to name them.

(in legal terms, obviously. If (for example) you're married to them and they say 'name me and i'll divorce you' that's a different story)

But if you've fallen out with the driver and want to throw them under the bus, then you can name them to the company without their permission.