Free Traffic Legal Advice

It’s a Penalty Notice. Just let it time out after 6 months. Appeal to APCOA on day 27 as the keeper and tell them you paid. No more detail than that. Ask why are they pursuing you.

Eventually you will get a POPLA code when they reject your appeal. It will say you have 28 days from the appeal rejection date. The code is actually valid for 33 days so submit a POPLA appeal on day 32.

The ai m is to string this out as long as possible. APCOA are benign when it comes to litigation and the odds of them pursuing a private prosecution in the magistrates court are about the same as you winning the lottery.

Even if they were to be so stupid as to try and they won, they would not get a penny of any fine issued as it would go to the public purse and not to the thieving bar stewards.

Would personally still write to them just to say that the driver paid and as such they have no claim.

If their online system still lets you submit something, use that.

Unfortunately it was out of time on the online system and before I managed to write to them the Debt Collection Notice arrived from ZZPS - total now £155. My own fault for being slack to respond but been away and didn't manage to get round to it.

Should I still write to APCOA or is there a different approach now?

Well you ignore the DCA who would ignore anything you send them.

I would still put your case to ACPOA.

No big deal. As pointed out on another thread by @Gary Bloke:

The APCOA "penalty" is not a real penalty. It is an offered contract in which APCOA promises not to prosecute for an alleged breach of Byelaws, on condition that you pay them £100 or whatever. Nobody has any obligation to accept an offered contract, so nobody has any legal obligation to pay APCOA the requested amount.

Personally, if it were me, I'd issue a formal complaint to APCOA along these lines:

Subject: Formal Complaint Regarding "Penalty Notice" Issued Under Railway Byelaws

Dear APCOA,

I am writing to raise a formal complaint regarding the "Penalty Notice" issued to me, which you claim falls under railway byelaws. Having reviewed the matter, it is clear that the so-called penalty is not, in fact, a true statutory penalty. Instead, it constitutes an offered contract, wherein you propose to waive potential prosecution in exchange for a payment of £100.

As I am sure you are aware, under contract law, nobody is under any obligation to accept an offered contract. Therefore, there is no legal obligation for me, or anyone else, to pay the requested amount in this situation. This renders your demand baseless in terms of any statutory enforcement under the byelaws.

Furthermore, it seems highly unlikely that you would ever pursue prosecution under the byelaws, as any fine imposed by the court would be paid into the public purse, not to APCOA. This reveals the true nature of your demand: it is an attempt to compel payment through a bluff rather than any genuine intention to bring a case before the court.

Furthermore, I am concerned that the data obtained from the DVLA under the KADOE contract has been used improperly. The KADOE contract allows for keeper data to be used for legitimate enforcement of parking matters, yet it appears you are misrepresenting your notice as a penalty rather than a private contractual offer. If this is the case, it would constitute a misuse of the DVLA data you have accessed, which would be in breach of the terms of the KADOE agreement and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Please address these concerns directly in your response and confirm whether you intend to proceed with a prosecution or drop the matter entirely. Failure to provide a satisfactory response will result in me escalating this issue to the DVLA, the ICO, and any other relevant authorities to investigate your use of DVLA data and compliance with your obligations.

Please confirm receipt of this complaint and provide a full response, clarifying your position and whether you intend to prosecute in court or drop the matter.

Yours faithfully,

[Your Name]