Any ECP PCN is easily defeated if you follow the advice you receive here. However, you first have to get the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree notion that the 40% mugs discount is anything you should even be considering. That is precisely what they hope for, someone who is ignorant enough to think they are getting a bargain because of the discount!
This is simply a speculative invoice from an unregulated private larking firm and if you think you must pay it, especially because they are offering a discount, please give us your address as I could flood you with speculative invoices and offer you even grater discounts and I could profit from that.
As a matter of interest, was the driver a customer at the Peel Centre? I ask because if they weren't, there is no contract formed if they weren't. The sign you have shown us is capable of forming a contract, but only in a limited and fact-dependent way.
For someone who is a Peel Centre customer, the sign reads as an offer of parking on stated terms. It identifies the operator, states the conditions for parking, and states the charge that will be issued if those conditions are not complied with. A driver who parks and remains can be said to accept those terms by conduct, so a contract is capable of being formed with a customer.
However, the sign also uses “CUSTOMERS ONLY” language that is arguably prohibitive. If the driver is not a customer, the wording can be read as not offering parking to them at all. On that reading, there is no contractual offer for a non-customer to accept, so no contract is formed. The position then looks more like an allegation of trespass, which a parking company cannot pursue in its own name unless it has specific landholder rights to do so (it will not have that). In trespass, only damages for loss can be claimed and in this case, there is no loss.
Even where a contract is theoretically possible, the sign can still be challenged on enforceability in the usual ways, such as whether the parking charge term is sufficiently prominent (it isn't) compared to the large maximum stay wording, whether the meaning of “customer” is clear and objectively verifiable, and whether the full terms were properly brought to the driver’s attention at the point they were deciding whether to park.
Any initial appeal is never going to be accepted. Even a POPLA appeal is unlikely to succeed. If it does, great, all done but if it doesn't, it isn't binding on the Keeper and this would 99.9% for sure be won after they issue a county court claim and it is defended with our template defence. I can tell you that any claim issued by DCB Legal on behalf of ECP will either be struck out or discontinued before they are required to pay the £27 trial fee. However, that is many months down the line.
I repeat, as long as you follow the advice you receive here, you will not be paying a penny to ECP.
First step is to submit a minimal initial appeal which will get you a POPLA code once it is rejected. You can try and go to town with POPLA, for what it's worth, but as I said, there is not much chance that that would be successful.
There is no legal obligation on the
known keeper (the recipient of the Notice to Keeper (NtK)) to reveal the identity of the
unknown driver and no inference or assumptions can be made.
The NtK is not compliant with all the requirements of PoFA which means that if the
unknown driver is not identified, they cannot transfer liability for the charge from the
unknown driver to the
known keeper.
Use the following as your appeal. No need to embellish or remove anything from it:
I am the keeper of the vehicle and I dispute your 'parking charge'. I deny any liability or contractual agreement and I will be making a complaint about your predatory conduct to your client landowner.
As your Notice to Keeper (NtK) does not fully comply with ALL the requirements of PoFA 2012, you are unable to hold the keeper of the vehicle liable for the charge. Partial or even substantial compliance is not sufficient. There will be no admission as to who was driving and no inference or assumptions can be drawn. ECP 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. ECP have no hope at POPLA, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.
