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Driver entered the car park, they did not notice any signs to say about parking fine.
Recieved this PCN today are there any grounds to appeal this?


https://ibb.co/LDHwvjgH
https://ibb.co/SjjygP9

Hello,

I am the registered keeper of vehicle [VRM] and dispute your invoice / Parking Charge Notice.

Your Notice to Keeper fails to comply with the mandatory requirements of Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, and you have therefore not established keeper liability.

In particular (but not limited to) you have failed to specify the required period of parking as required by Schedule 4 paragraph 9(2)(a). Merely stating observation times is insufficient.

Parliament enacted the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA) to create a precise statutory route by which a claimant may hold a vehicle’s keeper liable. Even if the Notice to Keeper contains elements that resemble POFA, the Claimant has not complied with all of the mandatory statutory requirements and thus has not invoked the POFA scheme. Having declined the only mechanism Parliament provided, the Claimant cannot rely on any presumption of keeper liability or invite an inference of driver identity. Parliament deliberately withheld such a presumption, and it cannot be supplied by implication where the statute does not provide it.

For the avoidance of doubt - the driver has not been identified; I am under no obligation to name the driver and will not be doing so.

You now have two options available:

(i) Cancel the Parking Charge Notice; or
(ii) Provide an IAS referral code

Ive just had this response back from my appeal. Can i have any advice how to respond or next steps, Thanks.

Thank you for your appeal.

Having noted your comments, and checking the evidence gathered when issuing the Parking Charge, we are satisfied that the Parking Charge has been issued correctly and your appeal is rejected.

There are clear signs informing all drivers parking on this site is strictly prohibited between the hours of 12am and 6am. It is the drivers sole responsibility to ensure they are familiarising themselves with the signs and adhering to the terms and conditions stated within them. As you can see from the photographic evidence the vehicle had been parked onsite from 00 34 until 00 49. As the vehicle had been parked outside of permitted hours, this parking charge has been issued correctly.

All of our signage is fully compliant with the guidelines set out within The Single Code of Practice and we reject the notion that it is in any way unclear or ambiguous. The signage is printed on reflective material and is clearly illuminated in vehicle headlights within hours of darkness.

Unlikely, the PPC is an IPC member. So unless keroppi is lucky enough to join the IAS 4% club which with the above appeal grounds is extremely unlikely, it's time to either rethink the strategy or wait for the debt collectors letters. Time to question the lack of of a period of parking on the PCN?

From the SSCoP

NOTE 2: The consideration period may end earlier than the times prescribed in Annex B
where there is evidence that the driver has, accepted the terms and conditions applying
(whether or not they have chosen to read them) which may for example be evidenced by
the driver parking the vehicle and leaving the premises, paying the applicable parking
tariff, or remaining on the controlled land for more than 5 minutes. See Annex B Table B.1

So I would challenge them as to why they are assuming the driver accepted the terms and conditions, do they have proof the driver left site? All they have provided is a single observation of the vehicle clearly moving on the site. The two images don't match and the plate from the first image isn't even visible in the image you've uploaded.

So to summarise

The vehicle is clearly not parked in the image on the PCN.
There's no specified period of parking (so can't infer the driver accepted the terms and conditions by staying longer than the 5 minute consideration period).
There's no evidence the driver had accepted the terms and conditions so no contract can have been entered into.
No contract entered into no liability for the driver or the keeper.

Personally I'd steer clear of arguing the semantics of whether the PCN wording is POFA compliant, it never seems to work for first or second stage appeals, in fact I don't think we seen it work at any point in the process yet.