Free Traffic Legal Advice

When you appeal to POPLA, the operator (P4) must respond to the appeal and a copy of their response is sent to the appellant (you). The appellant is then given seven days to respond to the operators evidence.

So, you will have received at some point between you submitting your POPLA appeal and the appeal response (decision) information about what evidence P4 was relying on to rebut your appeal. It is normally sent to the appellant by email if they provided an email address with their appeal (did you?). So, where is the operator evidence pack from POPLA?

I did receive an email saying


Your parking charge appeal against P4 Parking (UK) Ltd - EW.

P4 Parking (UK) Ltd - EW has now uploaded its evidence to your appeal. This will be available for you to view by clicking here

Please note: some evidence may not show immediately, if it is not currently available on your account please check back later before contacting us.

You have seven days from the date of this correspondence to provide comments on the evidence uploaded by P4 Parking (UK) Ltd - EW.

Please note that these comments must relate to the grounds of appeal you submitted when first lodging your appeal with POPLA, we do not accept new grounds of appeal or evidence at this stage

Any comments received after the period of seven days has ended will not be considered and we will progress your appeal for assessment. Therefore, if you have any issues with the evidence uploaded by P4 Parking (UK) Ltd - EW such as being unable to view it online, please contact POPLA immediately via phone - 0330 1596 126, or email - info@popla.co.uk, so that we can look to rectify this as soon as possible.
After this period has ended, we will aim to issue our decision as quickly as possible. The decision we reach is final and binding. When the decision is reached there is no further option for appeal.



However i never logged in to see the evidence. Naive of me i know.

On the POPLA page for my case it has a Operator Case Summary from P4 Parking (UK) Ltd - EW which has the following:

OPERATOR STATEMENT Regarding below appeal, please find enclosed the following documents: 1. Photographic evidence of the vehicle{removed} at the alleged time of contravention 2. Appeal received 07-05-2024 3. Re-print of PCN 800459 4. P4Parking decision 18-05-2024 5. Terms and conditions sign 6. Contract Parking charge notice details: VRN – {removed} PCN - 800459 Issue Date & Time - 29-04-2024 20:00:43 Location - Oakes Park P223 Contravention – Parked Outside Of The Markings Of A Bay Or Space Charge £60.00 – discounted rate if paid in 14 days /£100.00 – full amount if paid on 28 days The principal purpose of P4Parking is to ensure that vehicles are only allowed to be parked on the land with authority. The authority is solely dependent upon the rules as laid down by the landowners or their authorized agents and is without exception represented in the conditions as described on the notices throughout the carpark. P4Parking Ltd (UK) has been contracted to monitor & enforce a parking enforcement scheme at Oakes Park P223.Parking is extremely limited; therefore, the parking permit scheme was solely implemented in order to combat resident over improper parking. A covenant on the land requires that parking is controlled and all PCN’s are issued on behalf of the landowners’ agents for breach of the terms and conditions. The operator has a signed agreement with the client, landowner, or the managing agency acting on their behalf. P4Parking is acting as the principal in the contract and has pre-agreed rights to operate the carpark and enforce the contract. The signage clearly states: “ THIS LAND IS PRIVATE PROPERTY. By parking here, you are entering into a BINDING CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT. All vehicles parked within these private grounds and not displaying an authorised parking permit or parked outside of the markings of a bay or space or parked outside of this development parking regulations will be charged via the issuance of a parking charge notice. We appreciate the appellant’s comments regarding the fact that he is a resident but the vehicle was not authorised to park outside of marked bay at Oakes Park P223. As a resident you are fully aware of terms and conditions of the car park and signage is clearly displayed around the development which one of the conditions clearly states if parked outside of marked bay parking charge notice will be received. From the pictorial evidence the appellant's vehicle was parked outside of marked bay/space. Therefore, the parking charge notice was issued correctly by the operative as the vehicle was parked outside of the markings of a bay. I hope this information is enough to prove that vehicle was left in contravention of the site regulations. Kind Regards, Appeals Department P4Parking

Quote from: owen243 on July 16, 2024, 10:34:25 am

No i was parked outside which the land is not owned by me.

I think I know what you mean, but that's gibberish and includes a probably accidental double negative to boot.

AND?

P4 Parking are benign. They are not litigious. However, that does not absolve the OP from getting their act together when it comes to dealing wth scammers operating on private property that they are in some way involved or a party to a lease.

Maybe, if they sense that they are dealing with someone who is such low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree, you may be the first to encourage them to try and file a claim.

I can't express enough thank you's for helping me.
You reckon i should just pay the £100 and count my losses? Im just a bit upset that a condition i had which affects my cognitive decision making means nothing to those b****ds and the fact that they are effectively 'above the law' as they stated to me when i rang them and they said they don't have to adhere to Road Traffic laws as its private land.

Im getting a little angsty purely because if they send court letters and im out of the country with my family the whole of October and CCJ's stay on record for so long too.

Quote from: owen243 on July 16, 2024, 01:42:43 pm

1 - My property
2-6 - Parking bays for all other properties (Mine is one bay in 3)
7 - Outside my property there is a tiny pavement before its brick roads. I parked right outside my property (1) which there is no bay.

I can't see your scans (firewall issue) but it seems your saying it's not included in your freehold so must presumably come under an easement?

Ah Damn

I guess so. Ive read "easements" briefly so im only going by my understanding of

- My property line is up until where the pavement starts
- I parked on the pavement right outside my property away from my Bay (And waited 45 minutes until my Sugar returned to normal range to move the car as advised by the DVLA)

Thanks for the diagram.

Do you think that 'As my bay is away from the house and i was 1 minute from home, i decided to park outside my house..' really provides a reason? Sorry to be pointed, but for all anyone knows a space in area 3 right opposite where you parked was available and you drove past it.

Be that as it may, IMO they would be unlikely to succeed in court.

If you read their responses it seems as if they are acting as enforcer for the landowner whose 'policies' and 'regulations' are the basis for their actions, not a contract between you and P4P.

Surely you must have something from the landowner or their agent regarding estate management fees and their scope and the rules which you must follow within the estate and similarly the rights conferred on you.

Thanks for the diagram.

Do you think that 'As my bay is away from the house and i was 1 minute from home, i decided to park outside my house..' really provides a reason? Sorry to be pointed, but for all anyone knows a space in area 3 right opposite where you parked was available and you drove past it.

Be that as it may, IMO they would be unlikely to succeed in court.

If you read their responses it seems as if they are acting as enforcer for the landowner whose 'policies' and 'regulations' are the basis for their actions, not a contract between your and P4P.

Surely you must have something from the landowner or their agent regarding estate management fees and their scope and the rules which you must follow within the estate and similarly the rights conferred on you.

We get ticketed if we park in the wrong bays too. Also when im low on sugar (hypoglacemic) i can't really fully think straight and the only thing i wanted to do was quickly get home, unlock the door and get some carbs in me. I wasn't even neglecting the policy around the area.

I emailed Bellway asking for what arrangements they had in place but they told me to contact PM-UK who are the management company (Who contract P4PARKING to enforce parking) in the area. So im being swung around the roundabout at the moment from both companies.

But the OP says P4 were engaged after they bought the property so it is unlikely to be in the conveyancing documents.

You reckon i should just pay the £100 and count my losses? Im just a bit upset that a condition i had which affects my cognitive decision making means nothing to those b****ds and the fact that they are effectively 'above the law' as they stated to me when i rang them and they said they don't have to adhere to Road Traffic laws as its private land.

Im getting a little angsty purely because if they send court letters and im out of the country with my family the whole of October and CCJ's stay on record for so long too.

Absolutely not! No one is telling you to pay. You don't run the risk of a CCJ either even if you were unfortunate enough to lose, should it ever get that far. As already stated, P4 are not litigious. It is doubtful they will ever proceed all the way to a court claim.

Even they did, there is whole process to be followed before they can. They need to send you a Letter of Claim which gives you at least 30 days to respond before they can issue a claim. If you wanted to, you could extend that mandatory 30 days by another mandatory 30 days by responding to their LoC with notice that you are seeking debt advice and require an additional 30 days to do so and you would just send that on day 29 or day 30 after the LoC was sent.

Once that has been done, they can issue a claim at any time after the 30 or 60 days. Once a claim is issued, it is "deemed" served 5 days after the "issue date". You would have another 14 days to acknowledge the claim (AoS). Once you have done the AoS, you would then have 28 days (plus any weekend or bank holidays if the 28th day falls on one of those) from the "deemed" date of service to submit your defence which is provided as a template with minimal tweaking required.

After the defence is submitted and the claimant has responded, you would wait for the CNBC to send out a Directions Questionnaire (DQ) where you would indicate any dates in the next 6 months that you would be unavailable to attend a hearing after which another lengthy period of time, the claim would be allocated to a county court local to you and then another period of time before the local county court would allocate a date for a hearing.

Normal timescale from rejection of final appeal to actually getting to court (if ever) is around 9-12 months minimum. So, even if you are away for a whole month in October, you have time to prepare for one, Justin case, even if it means a family member checking your post once a week while you are away and you would have had to have received an LoC around the beginning of September to be in danger of missing a claim form. You would only need to submit a debt advice response just before you go away to put that one to bed.

However, all the above is academic as you'd be the first victim to be taken to court by P4 for your sins. Unlikely but forwarned is forearmed.