Free Traffic Legal Advice

Vehicle was parked around this spot where there are no yellow lines. A PCN was received which states that the car parked on private land in breach of terms and conditions for "Parked On An Access Road Or Pavement." It says that there is signage throughout the area which states the land is private and that parking conditions apply, managed by "Premier Park" ("MEMBER OF BPA").

Feel free to look at the location yourself: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cranbrook+Way,+Shirley,+Solihull/@52.3929176,-1.8009258,3a,75y,178.88h,59.91t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sSygAzluy_ACvoPTIcJ1sLw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D30.088028399639626%26panoid%3DSygAzluy_ACvoPTIcJ1sLw%26yaw%3D178.8846572901101!7i16384!8i8192!4m6!3m5!1s0x4870b9b5108d26bb:0x116257bc917fea1d!8m2!3d52.3922014!4d-1.8024981!16s%2Fg%2F1tslj4sz?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwOS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

I'm quite clueless on how to proceed. It states that I can pay a reduced amount if I pay now.

We need to see photos of the signage and where it is?
Also, a copy of the PPN with personal data redacted, but leave dates.

Redacted for privacy:



From what I can see there is no signage, inside the car park there is signage, but the vehicle is not parked within it. The google maps link shows where the vehicle was.

Cranbrook Way in Shirley is not an adopted highway. It is recorded by Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council as a private road, meaning it is not maintained at public expense and responsibility for its upkeep rests with the landowner or management company rather than the council. If absolute confirmation is required for legal or conveyancing purposes, this would normally be obtained through an official highway search or direct confirmation from the council’s highways authority.

As it is private land, yellow lines or none have no meaning in the sense you are asking. They could put red and blue polka dots instead of lines and say that if a your car is not blue and it is not a Friday, you will owe them £100.

However, their Notice to Keeper (NtK) is not PoFA 2012 complaint. As any initial appeal is never accepted, irrespective of the argument used, just appeal and get a POPLA code where you can be more detailed as to their PoFA failures.

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. Premier Park 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. Premier Park have no hope at POPLA, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.

Yep... but that GSV view is over 5 years old. I'll bet you they have some signs up there now. Not that it matters much as long as the Keeper does not blab the drivers identity, it'll not get anywhere near a courtroom.

Yep... but that GSV view is over 5 years old. I'll bet you they have some signs up there now. Not that it matters much as long as the Keeper does not blab the drivers identity, it'll not get anywhere near a courtroom.

I will have to look again to make certain. I am reasonably sure there are no signs present where the vehicle is parked. People regularly park there.

Last year they already had an entrance sign so there will be street signs with Ts&Cs on them somewhere.

I'll update you with the Ts&Cs.

Immediate sign.

On the face of it, that sign is unlikely to be capable of forming a clear parking contract in the circumstances you describe.

1. It reads as a prohibition, not an offer
The primary wording is “No stopping / parking or waiting … No exceptions.” That is “forbidding” language. In contract terms, it does not obviously offer any licence to stop/park on stated terms; it purports to ban stopping/parking altogether. Where signage is purely prohibitive, the better argument is that there is no contractual offer capable of acceptance by a driver who stops, so the operator’s remedy (if any) would lie in trespass, which a parking contractor usually cannot pursue in their own name unless they are the landholder.

2. Even if a court treats it as a “contractual charge”, it is tied to double yellow lines
Crucially, your sign does not say “no stopping anywhere on the access road.” It says no stopping/parking/waiting “on the double yellow lines along the access road.” If there were no double yellow lines where the vehicle was, then on the wording shown the driver has not breached the stated term. At minimum, it creates a serious ambiguity about what is and is not prohibited.

3. The term is not sufficiently certain or transparent if the “double yellow lines” do not exist at the location
A contract term has to be clear and certain. If the sign relies on road markings to define the restriction, but the markings are absent where the vehicle was, the operator will struggle to show the driver was given clear notice of any restriction that applied to that place. Any ambiguity is generally interpreted against the drafter.

4. Practical evidential point
If you have contemporaneous photos showing (a) the exact place the vehicle was, (b) the absence of double yellow lines there, and (c) what signage was actually visible from that position and on the route in, that is strong evidence. The operator would then be put to strict proof of the vehicle’s precise location and the existence/visibility of the double yellow lines referred to on the sign.