You have to consider whether you are prepared to fight this all the way to a county court claim. You can ignore all the useless debt recovery letters. Debt collectors are not a party to any contract referred to and are powerless to actually do anything except to try and intimidate the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree into paying up out of ignorance and fear.
As this will almost certainly go to a claim, you have to consider your basic position. This is my considered opinion...
You went there only to use a public EV charger that is clearly branded and operated by a third party (Egg). You paid Egg in full for that charging session and you left as soon as it finished. Nothing on the charger told you that you also had to pay a separate parking fee to a different company. The only extra notices around the charger talk about “Goals customers” registering in reception for free parking between 6am and 5pm, but you were not a Goals customer and in any event the reception was shut until 10am. So the “register for free parking from 6am” option simply did not exist in reality.
Consumer Rights Act angleThe Consumer Rights Act 2015 says that any term a business wants to rely on against a consumer has to be fair and transparent. Transparent means that it must be clearly expressed and brought to your attention in a way that lets you make an informed choice. Fair means it cannot create a significant imbalance in the trader’s favour, especially if it is hidden or unclear.
Applied to your situation:1. The deal that is obvious to you is: “Egg sells me electricity; I pay Egg using the app or contactless; I can then stand there for as long as the car is charging and leave when done.” That is the contract you clearly accepted.
2. The parking company is trying to say there was a separate, additional contract with them which required you to pay £6 for parking, or, if you were a Goals customer, to register in reception. But the signs at the charger do not say “You must also pay Premier Park” or “Charging here does not include parking” or anything of that sort. There is no clear warning that you are entering into a second chargeable contract on top of the money you have already paid to Egg.
3. Because of that, any term that says “if you remain on this land during chargeable hours without paying us £6 you must pay £100” is not transparent. A normal person using a clearly branded commercial charger would not expect to have to hunt around for another set of signs to find out there is a second tariff.
4. It is also arguably unfair. You have already paid a company to use that bay for the very purpose of charging. To then hit you with a £100 penalty because you did not also pay a hidden £6 parking fee, when there is no clear mention of it at the charger, is exactly the sort of imbalance the Consumer Rights Act is meant to prevent.
5. On top of that, the signage says Goals customers can register their registration at reception “between 6am and 5pm” for free parking, but Goals is not actually open until 10am. So they advertise a registration option that in practice does not exist for several hours each morning. That is misleading and undermines the fairness of the whole scheme. A judge could look at this and say, “You cannot rely on a term that you do not really make available.”
So your first main argument is: I agreed a clear contract with Egg to buy electricity. Any extra term that says I must also pay Premier Park, or that I have agreed in advance to a £100 penalty, was not clearly or fairly communicated. Under the Consumer Rights Act that term is not binding.
Refuelling / charging is not parking – Jopson and similar reasoningThe second strand is the “refuelling is not parking” point. In general law there is a recognised difference between:
• parking – leaving the vehicle for some time as a matter of convenience; and
• a brief stop for a necessary purpose directly connected with the vehicle or the premises, such as loading, unloading, dropping someone off, or refuelling.
In the case of
Jopson v Homeguard (a County Court appeal), the judge said that “parking” does not include every single time a car stops with its engine off. He accepted that short stops for loading or similar are not the same as parking and should not be treated as such. That decision is not as strong as a Court of Appeal or Supreme Court case, but it is a helpful, persuasive authority in small claims.
You can use that reasoning by analogy:
1. Charging an EV is the modern equivalent of refuelling at a petrol station. The driver has to stop and be connected to the charger for a period of time. The whole point of the bay is to allow that activity.
2. While you were plugged in and charging, you were not “parking” in the everyday sense; you were carrying out a necessary activity at the designated facility. You did not go off to work or shopping and leave the car there all day. You were only there for the time needed to obtain the energy you had paid for.
3. At a petrol station, no-one would say you are “parked” while you are at the pump. If a private firm put up a sign saying “no parking” next to a petrol station forecourt and then charged anyone who refuels there £100 for breach of contract, a court would almost certainly say that was nonsense. Your situation is analogous: the main sign talks about paying for “parking” or being a Goals customer, but you were simply using a commercial charger in the way it is obviously meant to be used.
4. The parking company will argue that 44 minutes is too long to be seen as a “brief stop” and that EV charging is more like parking because it takes longer than filling with petrol. You would respond that 44 minutes is entirely normal for an EV charge, especially on that type of charger, and that the time is dictated by the charger, not by your choice. The bay is provided precisely so that EVs can occupy it during that charging time. It would be unreasonable to pretend that normal use of the charger counts as prohibited parking.
So the second main argument is: for the time I was there, I was not parking in the ordinary sense; I was refuelling. Any “no parking without paying us” term should not be interpreted as catching someone who is actively using the site’s refuelling facility for a normal charging period, particularly when that charging facility is advertised and separately charged for.
How a judge might see itYou do need to be realistic about how a judge might approach it:
The judge may be sympathetic to the idea that the terms were not clear or fair, especially given the missing early-morning registration option and the lack of any mention of double-charging at the Egg EV charging point. That is your strongest ground under the Consumer Rights Act and under general fairness.
On the “refuelling is not parking” point, a judge might accept that the analogy is valid and that
Jopson supports a distinction between activities like loading/charging and parking. Equally, a judge might say that because the stay was 44 minutes, during normal “chargeable hours”, and in a car park that obviously charges for being on site, it still counts as “parking” for the purposes of the contract. It will depend heavily on how a judge views reasonableness and common sense.
Put simply:
• Argument 1 (CRA, lack of transparency, misleading signs, hidden extra tariff) – strong and credible.
• Argument 2 (charging is like refuelling so not parking) – worth running, backed by Jopson-style reasoning, but not guaranteed to succeed because of the length of the stay and the general trend of EV cases.
Together, they give you a coherent, principled defence. You say: I paid for the only service that was clearly offered to me; I was there only to refuel the car; any extra term about paying a separate hidden parking fee or a £100 penalty was not clearly or fairly brought to my attention and should not bind me.
SO, you have to now decide whether you are prepared to fight this all the way.
