Free Traffic Legal Advice

I received a PCN final reminder relating to not paying for parking at the Hilton Bournemouth.

1. I stayed overnight at the hotel on the said date and gave my car number to reception

2. I did not receive the first discounted notice. only this final reminder

I have attached the parking notice and redacted my name & address.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. thanks

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Whilst the advice from @DWMB2 is the all important Plan A where you use your initiative to complain to the hotel about the actions of their agent, an unregulated private parking company issuing you a speculative invoice for an alleged breach of terms, you should also consider what you need to be doing for Plans B, C and D.

Plan B would be an appeal to Britannia Parking. However, we do not know whether they are attempting to hold you liable as the driver or as the keeper of the vehicle. Without showing us the original NtK you received, we may never know. What you must not do, until we can be sure, is identify who was the driver. For now, you are being pursued as the keeper. Unless you have identified as the driver, they have no idea who that may be and no assumptions can be made or inferred.

If your Plans A and B are unsuccessful, Plan C will involve an appeal to POPLA. You cannot proceed to Plan C without first completing Plan B.

However, you do have something that I can see in the NtK reminder (assuming that the same evidence is in the original NtK) that a POPLA assessor may take into consideration which would invalidate the PCN. The evidential photos used must bear an accurate time and date stamp applied at the point the picture was taken. Whilst the originals may contain a time stamp, the ones we can see in the reminder have been cropped and do not show any evidence of when they were taken. As long as the original NtK has the same images, it would be worth pointing out to a POPLA assessor and you could quote them to refer to the recent POPLA decision (2413353469).


Any POPLA decision is not binding on you if you were to be unsuccessful. That would leave Plan D which, if Britannia Parking want to, would lead to a county court claim where it would be up to a judge to decide whether you owe them a debt or not. That is an if/when scenario and a long way off, if ever, for now.

OP, let's look at the evidence and your post.

The driver stayed overnight;
[at some unspecified time] the driver gave their VRM to reception;

The parking charge was issued because of an alleged breach which occurred 2 hours after parking on 9th, nothing to do with overnight.

I'm certain that the obvious questions are apparent to you...

Where did the driver go at 22.08;
When did they return;
When and how were reception notified;
Why wasn't this or perhaps a subsequent parking charge raised on 10th if reception didn't enter the VRM at any time?

Let's think about these issues before contacting the hotel.

The charge relates to entering at 7.48pm and exiting at 10.08pm, presumably on the day of registration. But exactly when registration took place(info given to reception)and how we don't know. 

And if the VRM wasn't entered at all, then why no subsequent charge for the period from whenever the car re-entered to next time it left??

OP, pl address the questions.

update to above post ;
- I did not receive a first notice to keeper, only the final notice/reminder i attached
- I have not identified the driver or contacted Britannia yet.
- Car was parked in front of hotel from 7.48pm. Registered at front desk at 7:50pm
- Car was moved from hotel to next door parking at 10:08

I called the front desk and have some updates from there;
1. Hotel has two parking companies they work with; Britannia (hotel premises) and Horizon (parking area next door)
2. Any parking after 20 mins is charged by Britannia. Hotel has no say according to front desk
3. £15 per day parking was charged on hotel invoice but is for using car park next door.


I'm thinking to write to Britannia and ask for the original NTK to be sent so I can put details here?
Apologies for late reply as I was indisposed.

update to above post ;
2. Any parking after 20 mins is charged by Britannia. Hotel has no say according to front desk

I think you need to go a bit higher up the management food chain than the front desk to see about getting the PCN cancelled. I doubt that the hotel has "no say" in the matter. It is likely that the hotel have contracted Britannia and you may want to ask the hotel who is the monkey and who is the organ grinder in their contractual relationship with their agent.

However, if it is for parking at the front of the hotel as per BWMB2's question, you may have a hard time arguing the point. Not that you shouldn't go there the appeals process.

Without seeing the original NtK and whether they are relying on the provisions of PoFA to hold the keeper liable, as far as dates are concerned, they are compliant. The reminder notice mentions that the original NtK was issued on the 16/01/2024.