Free Traffic Legal Advice

1. Received a notice to keeper about overstaying at Meadowhall shopping centre. Parking charge notice has been issued. You’re apparently allowed 14 hours combined stay over a 7 day period, Monday to Sunday.

2. The letter claims the driver visited on 30th December for 10 hours, 10 mins, and 4th January for 10 hours, 19 mins.

3. The driver did visit at those times for those durations, but was unaware there was a week long limit on the maximum total stay. The driver has been visiting the location regularly for two decades, there are obvious restrictions on blue badge and parent parking bags as these bays are marked, but there is apparently signage regarding the 14 hour limit which was either missed upon arrival, or no attention paid to it as previously it has only referred to the disabled bays and parent and child bays which the driver has no intention of using. There is also known restrictions on Meadowhall staff using the customer car parks which the driver would also assume would be a part of any signage, so again it’s not something which the driver would check for updates on during every visit to the location. The driver is not a Meadowhall employee.

4. The driver was at the location for those visits, with a single bank transaction from a shop on each occasion showing they were a paying customer, though the PCN only refers to a maximum combined stay of 14 hours at the location, nothing else regarding the terms and conditions on the signage, so unsure if you have to make a transaction or not. You can visit the location and not spend money, it’s a shopping centre so you could sit in there all day and not buy anything in theory.

5. The 14 hour limit was introduced a month ago according to a Google search. Again, the Driver was unaware of the signs being changed as there has always been signs regarding the disabled bays, parent bays and staff using customer car parks.

6. The date of issue was 8th January, the letter only arrived yesterday (22nd Jan). There’s a 14 day window to pay a reduced fee, which has been missed. No clue as to why the letter took so long to arrive, likely due to Royal Mail delays. This means the reduced payment window has been missed through no fault of the drivers own.


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Thanks for the helpful response. I’ve no photos myself as I’m not near Meadowhall at present, but there’s photos I’ve found online:

https://imgur.com/a/25aaDul
These are examples of previous signage that I’m aware of, which mainly refer to the car park for being for customer use and having the right permits for marked bays.

https://imgur.com/a/JRJ1p1J
Here is an image I found which shows the updated terms.

These big yellow signs are throughout the car park, I’m not aware of any other signs indicating they have been updated. At the entrance to Meadowhall there are some upright A1 poster holders which do state that you must register for child & parent bays, these have been in place for a while as that was a new rule introduced last year as well. Nothing regarding 14 hour maximum stay as far as I saw.


Edit: there is another page with photos of the ANPR camera shots of the car entering/exiting, and a page of legal jargon.

I’ve attached ‘the letter’, these is the ANPR cameras showing the days/times of entry, which relates to the 20 hours cumulative time on premises which I was referring to.

No notice of change has been made, to my knowledge. I’ve since googled it and seen a few articles published but I don’t follow the news outlets that have reported on it.

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There’s one singular sign on entry, I’ve been to look today, this states that the terms have changed and that’s it. It doesn’t state what or when. The parent and child permits were introduced in August 2013 and various additional signs warning specifically of this have been in place since. I’m unsure when the time limit changes were imposed, the earliest mention I can find online is 4th December but these are all unrelated social media posts. The driver is also unaware of these additional changes or these signs, aside from the parent and child updates.

https://imgur.com/a/uWrumEZ

The above link includes a screenshot showing the placement on entry and a close up of what it reads. I didn’t notice it on entry as I was focused on the car on the left who was approaching the junction as I was about to make the turn, it’s my right of way but you do have to be cautious. When I reviewed my dashcam footage that’s when I spotted the sign. The driver also states they have never seen that sign before in their life. It’s unknown if it was there during the time of the alleged infringements.

There are several car parks and entry points and when I checked my own dashcam footage of visiting the location personally on unrelated occasions, I can’t see that same sign repeated, there are other signs but they’re all in different formats, with different layouts and fonts, nothing is cohesive and nothing is particularly readable from a moving vehicle. The only consistent signage on entry is the yellow signs with the detailed terms, but it would be quite difficult to read these when driving past as the text is incredible small.

On entry to the centre, there are the following attached additional signs warning of parent and child permits, these have been there since the previous changes were made. There’s nothing even remotely similar to this mentioning the 14 hours.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond, I do appreciate it and will let the driver know the provided information.

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It’s free parking, the only restriction is the 14 hours per week, it isn’t possible to pay for any additional time, go over the 14 cumulative hours and you get the PCN automatically via ANPR  cameras.

The parent thing requires a permit which must be obtained from the centre, which is then displayed, similar to a blue badge, if you don’t get the permit or display it when using a parent bay, you’ll be given the penalty charge too. This requires a parking warden to issue as it isn’t ANPR controlled, the warden will leave the PCN on the windscreen.

It is confusing, the attached is the Private Land terms and conditions notice displayed around the car parks but the only one warning you that this has been changed was the one on entry photographed above. I will try to get a clearer photo detailing the small print on the bottom of the terms and conditions sign.

I’m unsure whether the terms and conditions refers to the driver or the vehicle, which is daft given some people share a car so could easily clock up 14 hours over a week if multiple people visit on separate occasions but use the same vehicle.



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The driver was the same person on both occasions, and there is CCTV evidence to back this up. I’m not sure whether this CCTV belongs to Minster Baywatch or the landowner but it’s my understanding they would have access to it to confirm the driver is the same person.

I think the main point is that the driver had no idea the 14 hour rule was in place, and had no idea the terms had been updated recently, in part due to them being updated a year ago so all present additional signage was assumed to relate to said previous update, which is unrelated and doesn’t affect the driver.

I’m not sure what to advise them with regards to an appeal, it is a place local to us and has always advertised free parking, and at one car park there’s even a large sign stating ‘free 24 hour car park’, unless you check the signs every single time you go you’re really not going to be aware of a week long time limit.

Have you seen this CCTV "evidence" or are you simply assuming that it is there. Why do you imagine that an unregulated private parking company can simply obtain CCTV images and then use them as some sort of forensic evidence? They can't.

Even if they had a close-up image of the driver they have absolutely no idea who that person is. What makes you think that they know it is you? There is no magic unicorn database where they can input a photo of someone and out will spit their personal details. they are not the police or any sort of authority that can perform forensic analysis of CCTV footage. All they are allowed to do is capture the vehicles VRM.

Unless the 14 hour clause is very obvious then it cannot be considered a contractual term. As already pointed out, it is the driver who forms the contract. Even if they could show that it was the same driver each time (how?) they still don't know the identity of that person.

The signage must not only state that CCTV and ANPR is in use but must explicitly state what it is being used for and how that data captured is handled.

You may hope that the landowner shares the footage with the operator as that would open them up for a massive compensation claim. You are overthinking this.