Free Traffic Legal Advice

Easily dealt with if you follow the advice. This will probably go all the way to a court claim which will be discontinued once they are required to pay the hearing fee. They will persist all the way because they hope that you are low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree and will eventually pay up out of ignorance and fear.

What you need to understand is that this is not a "penalty" as you referred to it but simply a speculative invoice from an unregulated private parking company for an alleged breach of contract by the driver. However, for there to have been a contract in the first place, there must have been an offer which the driver could accept in return for the consideration.

That sign is not a contractual offer. It is simply a prohibition. There is nothing on offer. Besides that point, even if it were a contractual sign, it could not form a valid contract because the charge is hidden in tiny text.

There are so many issues with UKPC signs and their breaches of the BPA/IPC Private Parking Single Code of Practice (CoP) that they could never make a valid case in court. However, that does not stop them from trying anyway, because, unfortunately, the vast majority of Sheeple have no idea of how these unregulated private parking companies operate and their rights and the law.

Additionally, that Parking Charge Notice (PCN) that has been issued as a windscreen Notice to Driver (NtD) is not compliant with all the requirements of PoFA and so, the Keeper of the vehicle cannot be liable and they have no idea of the drivers identity, unless you blab it, inadvertently or otherwise (like you have done in your post). As the Keeper and the driver are two separate legal entities and there is no legal obligation on the Keeper to identify the driver to an unregulated private company, the only way UKPC can know the drivers identity is if you give it to them. Always refer to the driver in the third person.

No one who is here and following gate advice we provide ever pays a penny to UKPC.

For now, do nothing. Wait until Thursday 27th March and then appeal the PCN, ONLY as the Keeper of the vehicle, with the following:

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. UKPC 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. UKPC have no hope at POPLA, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.

The delay in appealing is because there is a chance that they will reject the appeal without issuing a postal Notice to Keeper (NtK) which further strengthens your case at POPLA.

Even if they do issue an NtK, you will still have many valid defence points if POPLA do not uphold any appeal. They would never try and actually take this all the way to a hearing because they know they wouldn't have a chance in front of a truly independent judge.

Do not appeal before or after the date I have provided above. Use their online appeals option making sure you do not select anything that identifies you as the driver. You are ONLY appealing as the Keeper, who cannot be liable because of the PoFA breaches.

It doesn't "negate the ticket" but it does make any case for appeal to POPLA or the court better. For now, just go through the motions.

They have until 25th April to issue a Notice to Keeper (NtK). If they don't, there is nothing they can do. So, for now, just wait. If/when you receive either a response to your appeal or an NtK, let us know.

Respond after 25th April with the following making sure that you CC in yourself:

Subject: Response to Appeal Request – Parking Charge [xxxx xxxx xxxx]

Dear UK Parking Control Ltd,

Thank you for your letter dated [insert date].

As the registered Keeper, I am under no legal obligation to identify the driver to an unregulated private parking company. I decline to do so.

I refer you to the response given in Arkell v Pressdram (1971).

Yours faithfully,

[Name of the Keeper]

Perfect. No Notice to Keeper (NtK) ever issued, therefore no Keeper liability. Whilst there are multiple other points of appeal such as no contact formed due to prohibitive signage, delivery (loading and unloading) is not parking, no period of parking recorded which is another PoFA breach and more, the single fact that PoFA has not been complied with, means that there is no case to answer for the Keeper.

The POPLA appeal should concentrate on the fact that UKPC have failed to issue an NtK within the relevant period and so cannot hold the Keeper liable.

I would simply put the following in as the POPLA appeal:

This is a Keeper-only appeal. The appellant has not identified the driver at any stage and is under no legal obligation to do so.

A Notice to Driver (NtD) was issued on 28th February 2025. The Keeper appealed within 28 days, on 27th March 2025. The operator then rejected the appeal and issued a POPLA code on 17th May 2025, without ever issuing a Notice to Keeper (NtK).

As the operator has not issued a NtK in accordance with Paragraph 8 of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, they have failed to establish any right to hold the Keeper liable. Without compliance with PoFA, there is no lawful basis to pursue the Keeper. The identity of the driver has not been disclosed, and the operator may not rely on assumption or inference.

The appeal must therefore be upheld because the person being pursued cannot be liable for the charge in law.

Should the operator choose not to withdraw at this stage, the appellant reserves the right to rebut any further claims in their evidence pack, including but not limited to:

1. The NtD is not PoFA compliant as it fails to state a period of parking. A single observation timestamp is not sufficient, per Brennan v PPS (2023) [H6DP632H].

2. The signage fails to meet PoFA 2(2) and 2(3) as it does not *ADEQUATELY* bring to the driver's attention any specific charge for breach of terms. As can be seen in the photo below, minuscule text with any mention of a charge is, for all intents and purposes, invisible.



3. The sign is prohibitory only, saying "No Parking", and thus incapable of forming a contract. There is no offer which is the most basic requirement in any contractual relationship.



4. The NtD does not show that the vehicle remained onsite beyond the minimum consideration period, so there is no evidence that any contract was formed.


5. The vehicle was being used for loading/unloading, which is not “parking” under the persuasive authority of Jopson v Homeguard (2016) [B9GF0A9E].

The core issue is that the person being pursued cannot be held liable, and the appeal must succeed on that basis alone.

Excellent result, well done!