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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Welcome. SO any things wrong with that Parking Charge Notice (PCN). Please stop fretting over the "mugs discount" you have missed. Do you always pay speculative invoices from private companies just because there is a 40% discount offered?
If you follow the advice you won't be paying a penny to Minster Baywatch.
What do the signs at the location say? Can you get some photos of them? Is there any mention of 'Bransby Wilson' on the signs? Hopefully, you have not been in touch with them yet.
If the terms of the car park have materially changed within the last 4 months, they should have had very clear and prominent signs notifying drivers of the material changes. This is a requirement according to the BPA/IPC Private Parking Single Code of Practice (PPSCoP), section 3.4 which states:
3.4. Material changes – notices
Where there is any material change to any pre-existing terms and conditions that would not be immediately apparent to a driver entering controlled land that is or has been open for public parking, the parking operator must place additional (temporary) notices at the site entrance for a period of not less than 4 months from the date of the change making it clear that new terms and conditions/charges apply, such that regular visitors who might be familiar with the old terms do not inadvertently incur parking charges.
NOTE: Examples of material changes can include introduction of parking enforcement where none has previously applied, introduction of time-limited free parking, or reductions in the time limit within which free parking is available. Given the need to avoid confusion and clutter at entrances the test is whether the fact that a change has been made is clearly signalled to drivers on entering the land and the nature of the change is clearly displayed thereafter – it may also be necessary to install repeater notices depending on the scale of the premises.
The postal Notice to Keeper (NtK) you have received is not fully compliant with all the requirements of PoFA which means that they cannot hold the Keeper liable. As the Keeper, you are under no legal obligation to identify the driver to an unregulated private parking company. They have failed to note the "period of parking" as required by paragraph 9(2)(b) of PoFA.
So, before you attempt to appeal this, please answer the questions I asked earlier in the post.
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/25aaDulThese 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/JRJ1p1JHere 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.
So where are the signs that show the tariffs and the terms for breach of those tariffs? The parent & child signs are incapable of forming any contract. The other signs with the large £100 on them are also impossible to read, thus breaching the operators ATA code of practice.
Where is this "letter" you say states "The letter claims the driver visited on 30th December for 10 hours, 10 mins, and 4th January for 10 hours, 19 mins."? You've only shown us the NtK.
You said that "The 14 hour limit was introduced a month ago according to a Google search." Where is this material change notified?
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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Without seeing the signs that formed the contract with the driver, it is difficult to progress this for now.
The "notice of change" is nothing to do with notices in the local media. Any material change to the terms and conditions of parking have to be notified on the signage at the location. It has to be prominent and obvious. It has to notify regular users that there have been changes to the terms and where to fond these changes.
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/uWrumEZThe 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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OK, so there is one single sign alerting drivers of material changes. You state that there are no other signs within the car park that repeat or alert regular users of the car park what these material changes are.
We are not interested in the Parent Child signs as they are not relevant to this matter. Do you think that the operator has complied with the requirements of the PPSCoP which states:
NOTE: Examples of material changes can include introduction of parking enforcement where none has previously applied, introduction of time-limited free parking, or reductions in the time limit within which free parking is available. Given the need to avoid confusion and clutter at entrances the test is whether the fact that a change has been made is clearly signalled to drivers on entering the land and the nature of the change is clearly displayed thereafter – it may also be necessary to install repeater notices depending on the scale of the premises.
I am still unclear how the tariffs are displayed and explained. It sounds confusing the way you've explained it with multiple parking sessions allowed but with restrictions. It MUST be posted somewhere. How do you pay for these parking sessions? If it is online then show us. If it is at a payment machine, there must be a sign showing the tariffs.
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 parties to a parking contract are the driver and the parking operator. Whilst Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act provides a mechanism to recover unpaid charges from the keeper, that does not alter the parties between whom the contract was formed.
In light of this, I'm not sure what evidence Minster Baywatch could produce to show that the driver was the same on each occasion, and that any driver has exceeded the 14 hours per week limit.
The signage is silent as to whether the 14 hours applies to the driver or the vehicle, which brings to mind the following from the
Consumer Rights Act:
69 Contract terms that may have different meanings
(1)If a term in a consumer contract, or a consumer notice, could have different meanings, the meaning that is most favourable to the consumer is to prevail.
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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.
there is CCTV evidence to back this up
Please share this evidence with us (happy for faces to be redacted of course).
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 driver spoke to the landowner and they refused to intervene because they viewed CCTV footage which confirmed the driver did overstay, the landowner confirmed details which had previously not been made aware to them (such as where the driver went after parking), so CCTV footage does exist and can be accessed.
I’m unsure whether the landowner would be willing to share the footage with Minster Baywatch should they ask? Would they be allowed to share footage or would this violate GDPR by sharing the footage with a third party?
The terms and conditions signage do state CCTV and ANPR is in use.
Thanks again for all your help, the driver has had a license for over a decade and never received a single ticket or fine in all that time so this is entirely new territory for them.
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.
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