In the County Court at Romford
Claim No:xxxxxxxxxxx
Between:
HORIZON PARKING LIMITED (Claimant)
–and–
XXXXX (Defendant)
Introduction
1. I, XXXXX, being the Defendant in this matter, make this statement in response to the Witness Statement of Deanne Nevers dated 1st July 2026. The facts stated herein are within my own knowledge except where otherwise indicated.
2. I respectfully request that the Court dismiss this claim in its entirety. The Claimant is attempting to enforce an unfair, disproportionate parking charge alongside artificially inflated, legally unrecoverable administrative fees.
### 1. Fundamental Lack of Standing and Authority
3. In Paragraph 3 of her statement, the Claimant’s witness explicitly admits that the Claimant is *not authorised to disclose the landowner agreement* governing the site at Tesco Leyton. The Claimant relies entirely on assertions of a valid contract.
4. The Claimant misapplies One Parking Solution Ltd v Wilshaw [2021]. In Wilshaw, the explicit lack of authority was an issue raised late by a District Judge sua sponte (of his own motion) without giving the parking operator a fair chance to respond. In the present case, the Defendant explicitly challenges the Claimant's strict legal capacity and standing to issue and litigate claims in its own name at this specific location.
5. A commercial agreement must convey the specific right to assign a debt and initiate legal proceedings in the operator’s name. By actively withholding the contract under the guise of "commercial sensitivity", the Claimant fails to discharge its burden of proof to demonstrate it possesses the explicit corporate locus standi required to bring this claim.
### 2. Disproportionate and Unfair Contractual Terms
6. The Claimant asserts that the vehicle exceeded the 1-hour maximum stay limit by 37 minutes on 14/09/2024. However, under Section 62 of the *Consumer Rights Act 2015*, a contractual term is unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights to the detriment of the consumer.
7. The consumer, entering a busy retail supermarket car park (Tesco Leyton), is subjected to automated ANPR tracking from the exact split-second of entry to the exit boundary. This completely fails to factor in standard operational realities, such as:
* Time spent navigating traffic within the car park to locate an available space.
* Time spent queuing to exit the site back onto a busy main road (825 High Road, Leyton).
8. Demanding a severe financial penalty for a minor deviation within a busy commercial environment creates a gross imbalance under Section 62, rendering the core restriction unfair and unenforceable.
### 3. Artificial Inflation of the Claim (Abuse of Process)
9. In their Schedule of Losses, the Claimant seeks a judgment sum that includes a baseline parking charge of £70.00, an additional £10.00 administrative charge, and a further claim of *£70.00 for "additional costs"*.
10. This secondary £70.00 charge is a transparent attempt at double recovery and an abuse of civil court process. The baseline operational costs of managing a parking enforcement business—including debt letters and standard administrative processing—are already factored directly into the primary £70.00 charge itself.
11. The Claimant’s own exhibited case law, One Parking Solution Ltd v Wilshaw [2021], extensively details instances where courts have heavily scrutinized and struck out parking claims where arbitrary debt collection and administrative markups were tacked onto the principal sum. The inclusion of these completely unparticularised "additional costs" serves only to distort the small claims system and artificially inflate the claim value.
### 4. Flawed Witness Evidence
12. The witness statement submitted by Deanne Nevers is highly formulaic, generic, and entirely transactional. Ms. Nevers is an employee of a professional legal services firm based in Warrington, miles away from the site. She possesses zero personal, first-hand knowledge of the physical environment, localized traffic patterns, or the specific visibility/obscurity of the signage layout at the Tesco Leyton site on the date of the alleged breach.
13. Her statement consists almost entirely of generic legal arguments and aggressive template assertions dismissing the Defendant's case as "internet-sourced". It fails to establish any credible, direct factual evidence regarding the specific parking event.
### Conclusion & Order Sought
14. The Claimant has failed to provide a copy of its chain of authority to litigate, relies on unfair contractual terms that breach consumer protection law, and has actively abused the court process by tacking on duplicate, fabricated administrative fees to punish a motorist.
15. I respectfully invite the Court to:
* *Dismiss the claim* in its entirety.
* *Strike out the additional £70.00 cost element* as an impermissible double recovery.
* Award the Defendant appropriate fixed travel and loss of time expenses for attending the hearing listed on 17th July 2026.
### Statement of Truth
I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true. I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.
*Signed:* ............................................................
Name: XXXXXX
Date: 1st July 2026
