Free Traffic Legal Advice

As the registered keeper of a car that was issued with a parking charge notice from a private parking company, I would welcome some advice. The notice alleges an overstay in a car park for the Mulberry restaurant in Saundersfoot, SA69 9HG on the 2nd of July 2025 between 14:40 and 16:30 hours. This overstay was allegedly backed up by CCTV.

I am advised the driver parked in a car park adjacent to that location but to the best of their knowledge the only way of accessing the other car park is through a narrow alleyway which also allows access to the Mulberry restaurant car park. The car park where vehicle was parked is the Sands car park in Saundersfoot and this is controlled by a separate company, Parkingeye. The driver has a bank statement showing a payment to parkingeye and having spoken to their bank the bank confirms that that payment was made at 14:42, two minutes after the arrival time. The ticket purchased & issued by the machine on that site is no longer available.

The vehicle was never parked in the Mulberry car park and before formally contesting the matter I would welcome whether any other advice should be taken on board or whether any relevant conditions on the parking company issuing the notice have not been complied with.

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Ymm, contravention 02-07,  issued 15-07, presumed delivery on 17-07, 1 day out to hold the keeper liable.

Doesn't matter. I tis the 'deemed' date of delivery that counts. (not so) Smart Parking are utterly incompetent when it comes to understanding of PoFA.

There is no legal obligation on the known keeper (the recipient of the Notice to Keeper (NtK)) to reveal the identity of the unknown driver and no inference or assumptions can be made.

The NtK is not compliant with all the requirements of PoFA which means that if the unknown driver is not identified, they cannot transfer liability for the charge from the unknown driver to the known keeper.

Use the following as your appeal. No need to embellish or remove anything from it:

I am the keeper of the vehicle and I dispute your 'parking charge'. I deny any liability or contractual agreement and I will be making a complaint about your predatory conduct to your client landowner.

As your Notice to Keeper (NtK) does not fully comply with ALL the requirements of PoFA 2012, you are unable to hold the keeper of the vehicle liable for the charge. Partial or even substantial compliance is not sufficient. There will be no admission as to who was driving and no inference or assumptions can be drawn. Smart Parking has relied on contract law allegations of breach against the driver only.

The registered keeper cannot be presumed or inferred to have been the driver, nor pursued under some twisted interpretation of the law of agency. Your NtK can only hold the driver liable. Smart Parking have no hope should you stupidly try to litigate this matter, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.

Come back when that is rejected for the IAS kangaroo court appeal. That will be rejected too but if you continue to follow the advice you receive here, you will not be paying a penny to (not so) Smart Parking. However, it will be a protracted process and will most likely involve a claim against you which is easily defended before they eventually discontinue or it is struck out.

As they are claiming Keeper liability under PoFA when it is impossible to do so due to their failure to give the notice within the relevant period, you should submit a formal complaint about them to the DVLA and cite their breach of the PPSCoP section 8.1.1(d) and therefore  breach of the KADOE contract. You can search the forum for examples of these DVLA complaints.

Perhaps not surprisingly they have declined my initial appeal.

Clearly, as @DWMB2 stated above, your IAS appeal could start with the fact the driver wasn't parked in the car park in the first place.

Absolutely - technical arguments around PoFA are perfectly valid and should certainly be raised, but the fact that the vehicle wasn't even in the car park alleged is such an obvious appeal point that this should in my view be front and centre.

I appealed at ias with smart parking and they allowed my appeal. Ill post up the outcome in the next with hours.

“This PCN was issued on the basis that the Appellant's VRN was not registered on the exemption list to permit him to park there. The Appellant appeals the PCN on the basis that the Operator is seeking keeper liability under PoFA but has not complied with the requirements of the Act insofar as they did not send the NTK within the correct timescales. The Appellant is correct in this regard; the date of the parking event is 19/5/2025 and the NTK was not issued until 3/6/2025; 15 days after the date of the parking event. The Act requires the NTK to be sent within a timescale that means it is received within 14 days of the date of the parking event (taking account deemed delivery dates). Therefore, I have no option but to allow the appeal.

I have considered all the issues raised by both parties in this Appeal and I am not satisfied that the Operator has established that the Parking Charge Notice was properly issued and therefore this Appeal is allowed.”


That was my result at ias. Just gotta spell out the timescales and date and the peanut heads will just about be able to understand it.

Just gotta spell out the timescales and date and the peanut heads will just about be able to understand it.

If you're lucky... We've seen at least one assessor this year still trotting out Elliott vs Loake (yes, really, the mind boggles). It will be interesting to see if positive decisions become more common.