Why do you think that the road is not on private property? If it is private land, the blue badge does not apply. They could paint whatever colour lines or patterns if they want.
However, you do have a case but I doubt that you would get a fair hearing unless it went to small claims court. CPM are ex-clamper thugs and will not accept an appeal.
CPM are members of the IPC and their supposedly “independent” appeals service, the IAS, are anything but “independent” and a successful secondary appeal through them is as rare as hens teeth. You are unlikely to win at any appeal.
Nothing says you shouldn’t try and appeal but experience says you would have to wait and see if/when they decide to take you to court over the alleged debt. It’s your time and effort. The advice on here is free.
The driver could not have entered into a contract with CPM as the signs are prohibitive. The NtK alleges a breach of contract. For a contract to have been established between CPM and the driver, it has to have three things… an “offer”, “acceptance of the offer” and “consideration”.
No contract can have been formed:
No Offer: There was no valid offer made to form a contract. Prohibitive signs (e.g., "No Parking") do not constitute an offer but rather a restriction.
No Acceptance: Without a valid offer, there can be no acceptance. Parking in a prohibited area cannot be construed as accepting terms that would form a contract.
No Consideration: For a contract to be valid, there must be consideration (something of value exchanged between the parties). In this scenario, there was no exchange of value.
You also state that you did not see or were unaware of any signs that indicated you were not in a public road, in other words, on private property.
So, if you want to bother with a futile appeal (others will disagree with my approach) you need to appeal on the following grounds:
No Contract Formation:
Argue that no valid contract was formed because there was no legitimate offer of anything. The signage was prohibitive rather than offering terms that could be accepted for consideration.
Signage Clarity and Legitimacy:
Question the clarity and prominence of the signage. If the signs were not clearly visible or understandable, the driver could not be reasonably expected to have seen and accepted the terms even if they were valid.
Whatever you decide to do as far as appeals are concerned, the outcome is most likely to be rejection which leads to the ultimate option, wait and see whether they decide to take you to court for the alleged debt. Before that can happen, they would get their debt collectors to send you scary but useless letters which can be safely ignored. Debt collector letters are designed to get the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree to poop their pants and pay the, by then, inflated charge with added fake damages.
Eventually, they would have to decide whether they can be bothered to issue a county court claim in the small claims track. Often they won’t bother if you’ve not succumbed to their debt collector threats. Even if they do serve a county court claim, they are likely to discontinue if it is defended robustly using the template defence.
If it ever actually got in front of a judge, you would have very good probability of winning. Even if you were one of the less than 1% who lost, you would pay less than the original claim and are in no danger of getting a CCJ if it is paid in full within 30 days of judgment. That is a worst case scenario.
At the end of the day, it is your money and decision. How aggrieved do you feel about a firm of ex-clamper thugs operating an unregulated private parking company who have sent you a speculative invoice for an alleged breach of contract by the driver where no contract can have existed?
