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There is one point, which I will come to. However, I think you'll be hard pressed to say that there is insufficient notice that customers who wish to stay longer than 90 minutes need to input their VRM into a terminal within Costa.

For your Plan A, you should really be aiming as high up the Costa management food chain as possible. Find an email address for the CEO and start there.

Regarding an appeal point that may or may not work for Plans B and C is a failure to fully comply with the strict requirements of PoFA 9(2)(e)(i) as I cannot see anywhere in that NtK an invitation to the keeper to pay the charge. Because of this, they cannot rely on the provisions of PoFA to hold the keeper liable. As they don't know the identity of the driver (who is liable) they have nowhere to go.

Another point will depend on where exactly this Costa is actually located. If it is indeed in the car park of the airport, it may not be on "relevant land" for the purposes of keeper liability.

So, under no circumstances identify who was driving. Any appeal or communication is from the keeper only.

Having just tried to find the exact location of this Costa Coffee based on the location identified on the NtK, I am confused. Where exactly is this Costa coffee? A Google Maps search reveals only a Costa within the terminal. The NtK says "Costa Coffee Southend Airport, Southend" and on the back of the NtK it states "Costa Coffee Southend Airport, Southend Car Park".

With a location that is undoubtedly ambiguous, you have another PoFA appeal point (9(8)(a)) that should get this cancelled at Plan C, POPLA stage. I had one like this recently and appealed to POPLA where ParkingEye withdrew the PCN before adjudication. If it comes to that, I will provide you with the wording of that POPLA appeal.

I must stress that any PoFA appeal points are only valid as long as the drivers identity is not revealed, inadvertently or otherwise.

Your friend should still complain as high up the management chain of Costa. Whilst it may seem obvious that they should have known that they had to enter their VRM into the terminal in order to be permitted to stay longer than 90 minutes as a customer, the fact is, your friend didn’t, for whatever reason. Maybe the signs weren’t prominent or clear enough. It doesn’t matter.

Costa should not have their patrons subjected to a speculative £100 invoice for an alleged breach of contract from an unregulated private parking company because they were a patron for more than 90 minutes. What kind of customer service is that to loyal patrons spending money with them.

However, now that you’ve explained where the Costa is, they are probably not the landowner who contracted Parking Eye to manage the car park. If it’s a retail site, you would need to find out who the landowner or estate manager is and ask them to get PE to cancel the PCN. Still write to Costa as they may be able to request the estate management to get the PCN cancelled. Your friend was not some rogue motorist using the parking space nefariously without being a customer.

The fact that the location of the Costa is ambiguous means that they have again, failed to fully comply with the strict requirements of PoFA.

ParkingEye have no idea who the driver is. They can only get the registered keepers details from the DVLA. What PoFA 2012 does, IF they fully comply with the strict requirements of PoFA, is allow them to go after the keeper if they don’t know the identity of the driver. However, the keeper is under no legal obligation to identify the driver and an unregulated private parking company cannot assume or infer that the keeper was also the driver. Hence the reason to only communicate as the keeper.

In the meantime, your friend needs to continue with Plan A. If that hasn’t succeeded by the 27th day after the PCN was issued, the Plan B appeal goes in. Don’t miss that deadline though. Just show us what your friend is planning to put in that appeal before it’s submitted.

Should have just gone to the top to begin with instead of wasting time with whoever sent you that email. They obviously have no comprehension about the difference between a fine" and an invoice from a private company. That person is also oblivious to keeping their customer happy.

Looking at the location on GSV, the images from May last year do not show any signage at the location. Has that changed?