Free Traffic Legal Advice

Firstly, stop trying to pay this - these types of parking charges are essentially a scam.

Please post up the original PCN redacting ONLY personal details.

The initial guidance is provided in the "READ THIS FIRST" sticky at the top of this forum. We have taken a lot of trouble to ensure that it is not obscured by vans.

DO NOT redact so much of that Notice to Keeper (NtK). The ONLY thing you must redact is your personal details. You have redacted the date of the PCN (not the date of the alleged contravention).

Do not FUBAR this any more than you already have by blabbing the drivers identity. The fact you are a/the "policyholder" is irrelevant to anything except, maybe the price of eggs in China.

We need to know precisely the wording in your initial appeal. Why on earth are you admitting liability? What is the point of coming here for advice on how to deal with a PCN if you admit you are liable for it?

It is NOT a "fine" and you are under no legal obligation to pay a speculative invoice from an unregulated private parking firm for an alleged breach of contract by the driver.

Everything you have mentioned and shown so far is so wrong on every level, I only hope we can try and extricate you from the massive hole you have dug for yourself. In the vast majority of cases we advise on here, no one pays a penny to the scamming parking firm if that advice is followed.

You have come late in the process and ruined many of the points that would easily get this defeated. So, if you are prepared to follow the advice and don't want to pay this scam, please show us the full PCN, both sides, the exact wording you used in your initial appeal and anything else we require, such as photo of the wording on the signs that form the contract allegedly breached:

READ THIS FIRST - Private Parking Charges Forum guide

Posting Images

OK. We need to clarify whether the driver has been identified to the operator in the initial appeal. You clearly identified yourself as the driver on the forum, which leads us to presuppose that you did the same in your appeal. Maybe you didn't, but without knowing the precise wording you used, it is not clear at this point.

Can you remember if you only referred to the driver in the third party when you appealed or tried to speak to them? If you said things like "I did this or that" instead of "the driver did this or that", then you have likely identified the Keeper as being the driver, which means you cannot use the PoFA defence to deny Keeper liability. There is a technical issue with the NtK that would allow a PoFA failure argument.

The reason you cannot now access your case on their portal is because they have passed it to a useless debt recovery firm. the good thing is that you can safely ignore all debt collectors and their letters. They are a third party with no standing and are not a party to the contract the driver allegedly breached. The only power they have is to try and intimidate the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree into paying out of ignorance and fear. You can use their letters as emergency toilet paper or shred them and them as hamster bedding for all anyone cares.

Can you go back to the location and get some of your own contemporaneous photos of the entrance sign, if any, and one of the terms and conditions signs from inside the car park. The latest GSV views are from September 2024 before this new firm firm were operating there. At that time it was PCM. The vehicle appears to be parked at the Shell garage within Royale Leisure Park. At that time, there were no entrance sign or any obvious term sign if you entered the petrol station area from off Dukes Rd.

So, we need an up to date photo of the signs that are visible to the driver as they turn off Dukes Road into the location where the vehicle is observed parked. Ideally, we also could do with some photos of the signage taken in the dark, without flash or headlights or night enhancement., but the main thing is that we need to know whether there is a compliant entrance sign warning drivers that they are entering controlled private land that informs them that they need to seek the term and conditions signs within the car perk.

Without that entrance sign or if the terms signs are not prominent and obvious and also if the wording in them contains any restrictions that invalidate contract formation, then you have a very good chance of this being successful if it were to ever go to court. However, the odds of it ever getting that far are very slim.

You should also send the BPM Data Protection Officer a Subject Access Request (SAR). That will force them to provide you with all the data they hold on you and the vehicle. Send the following email with a copy of the front of your V5C document attached as proof that you are the data subject to dpo@blazeparkingmanagement.co.uk and also CC yourself:

Subject: Subject Access Request – [PCN ref] – [VRM]

Dear Sir/Madam,

RE: SUBJECT ACCESS REQUEST

I write to make a formal Subject Access Request in respect of my personal information. I am entitled to make this request under data protection laws. The request is made in accordance with section 45 of the Data Protection Act 2018 and Article 15 of the retained EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (UK GDPR). You can identify my records using the information which is listed below.

Requester (data subject) information

(a). Full name:
(b). Address:
(c). Email address:
(d). PCN number:
(e). VRM:

I attach a copy of the front page of my V5C solely as reasonable proof of identity and address for the purpose of this Subject Access Request.

Requested information

In accordance with my right of access under data protection law, I request the following:

(a) Copies of my personal data

I request that I am provided with full copies of all personal data relating to me which is held by Blaze Parking Management Ltd, including but not limited to:

(i) all photographs taken of my vehicle and/or occupants;
(ii) all ANPR images and ANPR logs/entries relating to the VRM on the material date, including raw data records and any synchronisation or processing logs used to generate timestamps;
(iii) all correspondence, notices, letters, emails and communications sent to or received from me, including any appeal submissions and responses;
(iv) all internal notes, call logs, case notes, decision notes and records of actions taken;
(v) all data obtained from the DVLA, including the date and time of each KADOE request, the reason relied upon, and the response data supplied;
(vi) details of any third parties with whom my personal data has been shared, together with copies of the data shared and received.

I would prefer to receive an electronic copy of the requested information.

(b) Purpose of the processing

Please confirm within your response the purpose or purposes for which my personal data was collected by Blaze Parking Management Ltd and the purpose or purposes for which it has been used to date.

(c) Categories of the data

Please confirm within your response which categories of my personal data have been collected by Blaze Parking Management Ltd.

(d) Sharing of the data

Please confirm within your response which recipients my personal data has been or will be disclosed to. Please also confirm whether my data has been shared outside of the United Kingdom and, if so, what safeguards are in place.

(e) Storage of the data

Please confirm within your response the retention periods for the storage of my personal data or the criteria used to determine those periods.

(f) Source of the data

Please confirm within your response the sources from which my personal data was obtained.

(g) Automated decision-making

Please confirm whether any automated decision-making using my personal data is taking place and, if so, provide details of the logic involved and the consequences of such processing.

(h) Existence of my rights

Please acknowledge and confirm my right to request rectification or erasure of my personal data and the right to object to or restrict processing.

Responding to my request

The above contains all necessary information for you to process this request. Any delay will not absolve you from your obligation to respond without undue delay and in any event within one month of receipt. This request is being sent by email.

I believe the information requested should be readily available and that this request is neither excessive nor manifestly unfounded. No processing fee should therefore apply.

Yours faithfully,

[your full name]

In the meantime you can ignore all useless debt recovery letters. We only need to know if you receive a Letter of Claim (LoC) in the meantime.

1) I appealed within the original deadline, and I'm positive I definitely wrote it. I use a grammar app that hates "I's", so maybe it wasn't written in first person. However, I never received any confirmation, so now I'm starting to doubt whether I appealed or not.

2) Can you explain PoFA and NtK?

3) I will go back to the site from the entry to the parking space to get pictures of the journey. not far from me.

4) For the email, whose email is this being sent from, the keeper or the driver (me)? And if I cc myself, doesn't that imply I'm the one driving?

5) What is the Letter of Claim (LoC)? What are the chances, and in which situations am I most likely to receive it?

6) All debt collectors' notices will be ignored.

To answer your questions:

1) Only the SAR response will confirm whether you identified the drive or not. If you're not sure, then we should work on the assumption that the driver is identified but without any further confirmation, just in case.

2) PoFA is the only legislation that allows a private parking operator to hold a registered keeper liable when they do not know who the driver was. That right only exists if the operator strictly complies with every mandatory condition set out in Schedule 4. If any one condition is not met, keeper liability does not arise.

One of those mandatory conditions is paragraph 9(2)(a). Parliament did not draft the Act to say that a Notice to Keeper must state observation times, photo times, or evidence timestamps. It specifically said the notice "MUST specify the period of parking to which the notice relates". That wording is deliberate. Because PoFA allows an operator to pursue someone who may not have been the contracting party, Parliament required clarity and certainty about what parking period is actually being alleged.

This Notice to Keeper does not specify any period of parking. It merely lists “observation time(s)”. It does not say the vehicle was parked between those times, it does not say the vehicle was observed continuously, and it does not say those times represent the start and end of the parking period. Observation times are simply evidential moments when an attendant noted or photographed the vehicle. They are not, and are not described as, a "period of parking". A vehicle could have been parked before observation began and still parked after observation ended, or it may not have been parked throughout at all. That uncertainty is exactly what paragraph 9(2)(a) is designed to prevent.

To comply with PoFA, the operator only needed to clearly state the alleged period of parking on the face of the Notice to Keeper. For example, they could have said: “The period of parking to which this notice relates was from [21:59] to [22:15]”, or “The vehicle was parked in breach of the terms from [21:59] to [22:15]”. Even if those times were based on attendant observations, the notice needed to explicitly identify them as the "period of parking" relied upon.

Because the operator did not do that, and instead relied on undefined “observation times”, the Notice to Keeper fails to meet the strict requirement of PoFA Schedule 4 paragraph 9(2)(a). As PoFA compliance is 100% mandatory, liability cannot be transferred to the Keeper. The operator is therefore limited to pursuing the driver only and must be put to strict proof of driver identity. Which is why the driver must never be identified in private parking invoice cases.

4) Use your own email address. You are writing as the registered keeper.

The keeper is under no legal obligation to identify the driver, and the email address you use does not prove who was driving. It is simply a contact method. As long as you do not write anything that identifies the driver (no “I parked”, “I didn’t see the signs”, “when I returned to the car”, etc.), there is nothing about an email address that turns a keeper into the driver.

CCing yourself does not imply you were the driver either. People CC themselves for record-keeping all the time. It is no different in principle from keeping a copy of a posted letter. It does not evidence driving, it evidences that you sent an email and kept a copy.

The only thing that matters is the wording. Write strictly in the third person: “the driver”, “the vehicle”, “the operator”, “the site”. Do not describe the driver’s actions as your own, and do not use “I” in a way that could be read as “I was driving”. If you keep to that, your email address and CC are irrelevant.

5) A Letter of Claim (LoC) is a formal pre-court letter sent by a parking operator or, more commonly, their bulk litigation solicitors. It states that they intend to issue a county court claim if payment is not made within 30 days (not the usual 14 days in useless debt recovery letters) and should include reply forms and information required under the pre-action protocol. It is not a court claim and it does not affect your credit record. Nothing we advise on will affect your credit record, even if you were one of the 0.1% that were unsuccessful. It is simply the step that comes immediately before a claim might be issued.

In this case, the operator is a relatively new entrant and this is the first PCN I have seen from them. New operators typically follow the same industry model as the established firms, including using bulk litigation solicitors if matters are escalated.

In practice, an LoC is very often just an extension of the debt recovery process rather than a genuine intention to go to trial. The legal language is used to intimidate recipients into paying out of fear or lack of understanding, not because the case is strong.

The reality is that the vast majority of private parking claims never reach a hearing. Many are struck out for procedural or legal defects, or more likely, discontinued once the defendant responds properly and demonstrates an understanding of the process. Of the extremely small number that do reach a hearing, defendants win a significant proportion of them.

The business model is not built around taking cases to trial. It relies on volume. The operator hopes that the recipient will either not respond at all (resulting in a default judgment) or will capitulate and pay. Once it becomes clear that the keeper or defendant is engaged, informed, and prepared to defend, the commercial incentive to pursue the claim usually falls away.