With Kingston the provision is this one:
Subject to Articles 11 and 19, if at any time during which a vehicle is left in a payment parking place or bus (paid-for) parking place, or in a shared-use parking place without having had in respect of it registered a virtual visitors voucher or granted a permit or without displaying a valid hard-copy visitors voucher, during the permitted hours and no indication appears on a hand-held device that payment of the parking charge has been made in accordance with the provisions of Article 18(1), it shall be presumed that the parking charge has not been duly paid in respect of that vehicle.
A rebuttable presumption IMO. THE HHC is an indication which allows a PCN to be issued, but if it emerges subsequently that a permit was obtained then IMO this must be considered by an enforcement authority. Simply saying 'wrong VRM, tango sierra' is IMO improper.
A view.
But one shared it seems in the private sector with the following issued by POPLA(Parking on Private Land Appeals), the British Parking Association's 'independent' appeals service:
POPLA said...
If a motorist has made a simple error, such as transposing 0 for an O, parking operators are expected to identify this and not issue parking charges. If an operator does issue a parking charge, they should cancel it in full when a motorist appeals.
Do we now say nice things about POPLA or even worse things about councils??