I have the final appeal ready to upload on to popla. Please can you point out any errors or corrections needed.
I’m sorry it is a bit long but I greatly appreciate your time and help. Thanks.
POPLA APPEAL – EURO CAR PARKS
Location: Cardiff International – Empire Way
Date of parking event: 19 July 2026
I appeal this Parking Charge Notice as the registered keeper of the vehicle.
I ask POPLA to allow the appeal on the following grounds:
1. Euro Car Parks has not established keeper liability because its Notice to Keeper does not comply with paragraph 9(2)(e) of Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.
2. Euro Car Parks has not demonstrated compliance with section 3.4 of the Private Parking Sector Single Code of Practice following a material change to the longstanding parking arrangements.
3. The alleged new parking arrangements were not communicated with sufficient prominence from the actual approach taken by the driver.
4. The driver’s route after parking materially reduced any subsequent opportunity to encounter the entrance signage.
5. Euro Car Parks is put to strict proof of its landowner authority for this site and the terms of that authority as at 19 July 2026.
6. Euro Car Parks’ rejection failed substantively to address the central issue raised in the original appeal: the recent material change to a previously free car park and the adequacy of the changed-terms warning.
1. Failure to establish keeper liability under Schedule 4 POFA 2012
Euro Car Parks expressly seeks to rely upon Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 to recover the charge from me as registered keeper.
For keeper liability to arise, the statutory requirements of Schedule 4 must be satisfied.
This was an ANPR/postal Notice to Keeper and paragraph 9 therefore applies.
Paragraph 9(2)(e) requires the Notice to Keeper to state that the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver and to invite the keeper:
(i) to pay the unpaid parking charges; or
(ii) if the keeper was not the driver, to notify the creditor of the driver’s name and a current address for service and to pass the notice to the driver.
I have carefully reviewed the Notice to Keeper issued by Euro Car Parks.
It states:
“If you were not the driver at the time the Parking Charge was issued, please provide full name and address of the driver in writing and pass the notice on to the driver.”
This substantially addresses the second alternative in paragraph 9(2)(e).
However, I cannot identify within the Notice to Keeper the corresponding statutory invitation required by paragraph 9(2)(e)(i), namely an invitation to the keeper to pay the unpaid parking charges.
The front of the notice states that a Parking Charge of £100 is payable and provides payment methods. However, the statutory requirement in paragraph 9(2)(e) is not simply a requirement to provide payment facilities or state that money is owed. Parliament expressly required the Notice to Keeper to invite the keeper to pay the unpaid parking charges or, if the keeper was not the driver, to identify the driver and pass the notice to them.
Indeed, under the heading “PROTECTION OF FREEDOMS ACT 2012”, Euro Car Parks states that the driver is required to pay the parking charge and then provides the paragraph 9(2)(f) warning concerning potential recovery from the keeper after 28 days.
What appears absent is the separate statutory invitation required by paragraph 9(2)(e)(i).
I am not suggesting that Schedule 4 necessarily requires Euro Car Parks to reproduce the legislation word-for-word or to put the information into any particular layout. My point is narrower: the Notice to Keeper, read as a whole, must contain all of the information and invitations required by paragraph 9(2)(e).
I therefore ask Euro Car Parks to identify precisely where in its Notice to Keeper it considers the requirement of paragraph 9(2)(e)(i) to have been satisfied.
In the absence of compliance with all applicable Schedule 4 requirements, liability cannot be transferred from the driver to the registered keeper.
The driver has not been identified in this appeal.
I therefore submit that Euro Car Parks has failed to establish keeper liability.
2. Material change to longstanding parking arrangements – section 3.4
This is not simply an appeal based upon a motorist saying that they did not see an ordinary parking sign.
There had been a material change to the longstanding parking arrangements at this location.
The driver had been a regular user of Cardiff International Pool and this car park for a period of years. During that longstanding usage, parking associated with visits to the facility had been free.
There was therefore an established and familiar parking arrangement from the perspective of a regular returning user.
Due to health issues, there was then an unusual period of approximately three months during which the driver did not attend the facility.
Upon subsequently returning, the driver parked in accordance with what they genuinely understood to be the longstanding arrangements.
After the Parking Charge Notice was received, I contacted Cardiff International Pool because the charge was unexpected. I was informed by staff by telephone that the car park had been sold to a private owner around April 2026.
I make clear that I presently have no documentary evidence establishing the precise date upon which the new parking arrangements commenced. That information should be readily available to Euro Car Parks and/or its principal.
The parking event occurred on 19 July 2026.
Section 3.4 of the Private Parking Sector Single Code of Practice addresses material changes to pre-existing terms and conditions. Where there is a material change which would not be immediately apparent to a driver entering land that is or has been open for public parking, the Code requires additional temporary notices at the entrance for at least four months, making clear that new terms and conditions/charges apply.
The purpose is particularly relevant to motorists who are familiar with the previous arrangements and could otherwise inadvertently incur parking charges.
The non-mandatory explanatory note accompanying section 3.4 gives the introduction of parking enforcement where none previously applied as an example of a material change.
That is highly relevant here.
I therefore put Euro Car Parks to strict proof of:
* the exact date upon which the previous free-parking arrangements ended;
* the exact date upon which Euro Car Parks’ parking regime commenced;
* the terms which existed immediately before that change;
* the date upon which the additional temporary changed-terms notices were installed;
* contemporaneous dated photographs showing those temporary notices as they appeared when first installed and as they appeared on 19 July 2026;
* their dimensions and wording;
* their precise locations;
* a site plan showing their positioning relative to the vehicle entrance and the driver’s approach; and
* evidence that the required temporary notices remained in place for the required period.
This evidence is particularly important because, if the information given to me by Cardiff International Pool is correct and the material change occurred around April 2026, the parking event on 19 July 2026 occurred only a few months later and potentially within the four-month period expressly contemplated by section 3.4.
3. The material change was not communicated with sufficient prominence
I acknowledge that there was parking signage at the entrance. I am not alleging that absolutely no signs existed.
That is not the issue.
The issue is whether the material change from the longstanding arrangements was communicated with sufficient prominence to a regular returning user.
I have provided photographs showing the site from the driver’s actual approach.
The route involved approaching the roundabout, taking the first left and then, within a very short distance, turning right into the car park.
There was no conspicuous advance warning on the approach which alerted the driver to the fact that the longstanding parking arrangements at this familiar facility had materially changed.
At the entrance there is a Euro Car Parks sign displaying “Pay On Arrival”. There is also a considerably smaller yellow notice associated with the entrance signage referring to “New parking rules in operation.”
I acknowledge the existence of that notice.
However, the fact that a small changed-rules notice physically existed does not itself answer the section 3.4 issue. The question is whether the change was made sufficiently clear and prominent to a driver entering the site in the actual circumstances.
The driver genuinely did not appreciate that the longstanding arrangements had changed.
This was particularly significant because the driver had used this location regularly for years. Following an unusual absence of approximately three months, the driver returned to what was a very familiar location.
From the driver’s perspective, the car park did not feel or present itself as though the longstanding parking arrangements had materially changed.
There had not been some obvious transformation of the entrance which immediately alerted a returning regular user to the fact that a previously familiar free-parking arrangement had been replaced.
There was ordinary Euro Car Parks signage, of the sort motorists encounter at many locations, and the comparatively small yellow changed-rules notice. The latter was not sufficiently prominent from the actual approach to overcome the driver’s established familiarity with the previous arrangements.
The driver’s failure to appreciate the change is therefore not being advanced as a substitute for the Code requirement. Rather, it illustrates precisely why the Code requires additional temporary changed-terms notices where familiar arrangements have materially changed.
The photographs I have supplied should therefore be considered from the driver’s perspective and viewing distance, rather than simply by examining a close-up photograph of an individual sign.
A close-up image establishing that words can be read when standing immediately in front of a sign does not establish that the material change was sufficiently conspicuous to a motorist approaching and entering the site.
I invite POPLA to consider my driver-eye photographs alongside any photographs supplied by Euro Car Parks and to distinguish between close-up evidence of what a sign contains and evidence of what a driver could reasonably appreciate during the actual approach.
4. Driver’s pedestrian route after parking
The location at which the vehicle was parked is also relevant to the practical opportunity to encounter the signage.
The vehicle was parked close to the trees/hedging and pedestrian access/walkway, near the main roundabout.
After parking, the driver left the car park through that pedestrian route.
The driver subsequently returned to the vehicle through the same pedestrian route.
Consequently, the driver did not subsequently walk past the vehicle entrance signage after parking.
This matters because any suggestion that the driver necessarily had another clear opportunity, after leaving the vehicle, to appreciate the changed entrance arrangements would not reflect what actually occurred.
The driver entered by vehicle, parked near the pedestrian access, exited by that pedestrian route and returned through the same route.
I have supplied photographic evidence showing the parking position and surrounding layout.
Again, the relevant question is the practical opportunity which this particular driver had to appreciate that a familiar longstanding parking arrangement had recently been changed.
5. Landowner authority
Euro Car Parks does not own this land.
Given the apparent recent change in ownership and/or management arrangements at the location, I require Euro Car Parks to demonstrate that it possessed the necessary authority from the relevant landowner or other party entitled to grant that authority on 19 July 2026.
I put Euro Car Parks to strict proof of written authority covering this particular land and the material date.
That evidence should establish, at minimum:
* the identity of the contracting landowner or person authorised to grant the rights;
* the boundaries of the land upon which Euro Car Parks was authorised to operate;
* the commencement and duration of that authority;
* the parking terms and tariff Euro Car Parks was authorised to impose;
* any exemptions or concessions applicable to users of Cardiff International Pool or other facilities;
* Euro Car Parks’ authority to issue Parking Charge Notices; and
* its authority to pursue unpaid charges in its own name.
A generic statement that Euro Car Parks has authority, or an undated witness statement which does not establish the relevant contractual position on 19 July 2026, would not properly answer this ground.
Given that this appeal specifically concerns a recent material change in the parking arrangements, the commencement date and scope of Euro Car Parks’ authority are directly relevant.
6. Euro Car Parks’ rejection did not substantively address the principal appeal issue
My original appeal raised the recent change to the parking arrangements and the adequacy/prominence of the signage.
Euro Car Parks’ rejection does not meaningfully address that issue.
Instead, it states that the car park is operated using ANPR, that it is a Pay by Mobile car park, that charges apply 24 hours per day, and that no Pay by Mobile account was found for the vehicle.
Those matters establish Euro Car Parks’ allegation that no payment transaction was recorded.
They do not answer the central issue raised in the appeal:
When did the longstanding free-parking arrangement change, and did Euro Car Parks comply with the specific requirements applicable to communicating a material change to motorists familiar with the previous arrangements?
The rejection does not identify the commencement date of the new arrangements.
It does not address section 3.4.
It does not explain when the temporary changed-terms notices were installed.
It does not provide contemporaneous evidence demonstrating how the material change was communicated from the driver’s approach.
It simply concludes that the notice was issued correctly.
I therefore ask POPLA to consider the substantive grounds and evidence rather than treating the absence of a Pay by Mobile transaction as determinative of the appeal.
Conclusion
This appeal is not based merely upon an assertion that a driver did not read an ordinary parking sign.
There are two substantial and separate issues.
First, Euro Car Parks seeks to recover the charge from the registered keeper under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Its Notice to Keeper appears not to contain the complete statutory invitation required by paragraph 9(2)(e), and Euro Car Parks should therefore be required to demonstrate how keeper liability has lawfully arisen.
Second, this location had longstanding parking arrangements familiar to a regular user. Following an unusual absence of approximately three months, the driver returned and genuinely did not appreciate that those arrangements had materially changed. The photographs demonstrate the actual approach and the relative prominence of the ordinary entrance signage and the much smaller changed-rules notice.
If, as Cardiff International Pool staff informed me, the arrangements changed around April 2026, the parking event on 19 July occurred only a few months after that change. Euro Car Parks should therefore produce the contemporaneous evidence necessary to demonstrate compliance with the Code’s requirements concerning material changes.
The driver’s subsequent pedestrian route also meant that the vehicle entrance signage was not passed again on foot after parking.
Finally, given the recent change in the management of the car park, Euro Car Parks should demonstrate that it possessed the necessary landowner authority on the material date and the precise scope of that authority.
For all of these reasons, I respectfully request that POPLA allow this appeal and direct Euro Car Parks to cancel the Parking Charge Notice.
