Well done. However, you should also send the following complaint to POPLA at info@popla.co.uk and CC enquiries@flexibleresolutionservices.co.uk; info@trustalliancegroup.org:
Subject: Formal Complaint – Incoherent and Unprofessional “Appeal Withdrawn” Correspondence
Dear POPLA Team,
I am writing to raise a formal complaint about the extraordinarily poor standard of the template email issued when an operator cancels a Parking Charge Notice before an appeal is assessed. The communication I received is so lacking in clarity, logic, and basic literacy that it calls into question the intellectual capability and procedural understanding of the person or team responsible for drafting it.
The phrase “the operator has withdrawn your appeal” is, on its face, nonsensical. An operator cannot withdraw an appellant’s submission, and no competent writer would use wording that implies otherwise. The fact that this has been adopted as standard text suggests that whoever authored it did not understand the process they were meant to be describing, or lacked the linguistic ability to articulate it accurately. Either possibility is deeply concerning.
The rest of the letter is equally inelegant. It is clumsily structured, contradictory in places, and written in such a muddled fashion that it reads like a hastily assembled paragraph from someone intellectually out of their depth. Basic sequencing, grammatical consistency, and coherence are all missing. The message lurches between confused hypotheticals and ill-fitting explanations, none of which reflect how the process actually works.
It is not merely embarrassing; it is an indictment of the level of internal oversight within POPLA. Any halfway competent professional would have sent this back for correction. Instead, it has been allowed to stand as an official communication from an organisation that claims to assess evidence, interpret procedures, and apply reasoning in a quasi-judicial setting.
If the standard of written communication is this poor, it raises a legitimate question: how can the public have confidence that POPLA is capable of the analytical, evidential, and reasoning-based work expected of an appeals service? A body that cannot draft a coherent template letter cannot reasonably be assumed to possess the competence required to evaluate appeals with fairness and intellectual rigour.
I request confirmation that this complaint will be logged and reviewed, and I expect a response addressing:
1. How this wording was approved;
2. Whether POPLA acknowledges that the current text is inaccurate, misleading, and grammatically deficient; and
3. What steps will be taken to correct the template and improve internal quality control.
I look forward to your prompt and considered response.
Yours sincerely,
[Name]