Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi I am new to the forum and was wondering if anyone could please give me some advice on challenging a parking fine from Napier Parking

The town where I live has many council run car parks that are free on Sundays. Sadly Napier are 24/7 chargeable.

I parked in their car park, I have Arthritis in my toes and knee so I am not the quickest, I hobbled to the ticket machine, then noticed their long list of terms and conditions that they don't really want anyone to read. I decided to give it a miss and park elsewhere.

Then just days before Christmas I received a £100 fine, £60 if paid within 14 days. I was there 9 minutes total. Even if I had stayed for an hour the charge would have been 70 pence.

 I did appeal the charge, explaining the situation. I even offered to pay £30 fee as a gesture of goodwill, as that is the charge than local council car parks charge for non payment. Which due to the circumstances I thought was reasonable.

The appeal was rejected, they didn't even acknowledge any of the mitigating circumstances.

I have been to the car park to take photos of signage etc. In all their lengthy terms and conditions there is no mention of grace period from entry of the car park, I have looked online and the general grace period mentioned seems to be 10 minutes.
When a private car park has such lengthy terms and conditions surely they should allow people the time to read them and decide if they wish to park, as they hide behind the fact when you leave your car you have entered a contract with them.

I was going to write to the land owner to ask them to rescind he fine, however it seems to be the land owner is 'Lincoln and Boston Ltd' which according to companies house is owned by the same James De Savary of Napier Parking, so this seems to be a waste of time.

Could someone please advise what my next step should be, I have been given the 14 day notice to make payment and this payment will increase to £100 if not paid.

Regards
Dan

Worth noting it is a minimum of 5 minutes. In this case where the driver is disabled by virtue of arthritis there would seem to be a case to argue that the driver might reasonably need longer than 5 minutes to stop the car, read and consider the terms, and then leave.

OP - please can you show us your photos of the signage, the notice you have received, and exactly what you said in your appeal? Guide: Posting Images

I note your comments re. the landowner, but nothing lost by trying to contact them. When you do so, I would point out that the driver ought to be entitled to reasonable adjustments as a disabled person under the Equality Act 2010, requiring longer than the minimum 5 minutes to properly consider the terms. A rigid cut-off of 5 minutes places disabled motorists at a clear disadvantage compared to non-disabled motorists, and if argued well, I would hope a judge would take a dim view of a parking company who failed to make such a reasonable adjustment once the requirement to do so was pointed out to them.

Just so you understand, the parking code of practice sets the consideration period and whether we think it is reasonable or not there aren't really many grounds to challenge other than carpark size and possibly disability discrimination. The latter though is far from a slam dunk defence. Your condition may or not be considered a relevant disability. Do you have a blue badge?

Napier Parking is an IPC affiliated car parking company so the rejection of your rather uninformed appeal is not particularly surprising and I would expect any second stage appeal to the (not so) independant appeals service will be similarly rejected.

You can probably avoid paying this if you are prepared to wait it out. Next stage will be letters from a debt collection agency which can be ignored followed by the start of court proceedings which you can't ignore. If you defend the claim they will most likely discontinue before the actual court hearing.

No, the IAS costs the parking company £23 and its ruling has no bearing on you.

In the unlikely event it actually got to court, the outcome would be based on the facts as presented and the IAS has little impact.