Parked outside the OPC carp park

[Iridescent]

Hi all, I have just read the guide and several threads about this, but I could not see whether they have the rights to charge for parking outside their car park. I did not realise you couldn't park somewhere that didn't have any yellow lines until I recieved the notice, I didn't even have a ticket on my car (although the back window had been smashed by the wonderful youths of Romford!). So all in all a quite night in round my friends turned into a reasonably expensive £160 experience.

I just wondered if anyone can tell me if I am actually in the wrong and have to pay.

Thanks.

[Conniff]

When you say "outside their car park" do you mean on the road or highway?

[Iridescent]

Hi Conniff, thanks for your reply.

I was parked several meters from the entrance to the private car park. Admittedly I was partially on the pavement which I have also recently learned is an offence! but the condition they have suggested I did not conform to was 'The vehicle was found to be parked/stopped in direct contravention of the terms and conditions of the OPC area which may have inlcuded any of the following: failure to display clearly valid OPC permit, failure to park/stop in a bay, obstruction, parking/stopping a vehicle on a hatched or emergency access area.'

Perhaps they mean that by being on the pavement I was causing an obstruction?

It would have been better if they could specifiy explicitly which out of those I did wrong, the most likely seems to be obstruction or emergency access area, but I wasn't obstructing and I did not see anything that looked like it was an emergency access. I will need to go back and look at the area to see, but from this it is not obvious to me if I was in the wrong, or if they are hoping I will pay without question.

[Conniff]

So public highway. They have no authority over any public area, they are not the police or council wardens.

It doesn't matter if you were completely on the pavement and blocking it entirely or parked upside down, if it was on a public road tell him where to shove his ticket.

P.S. your also younger than me as I would have been parked 'several yards' from the entrance.

[Iridescent]

Nicely put. I'm not sure if they own the road though, but I didn't see it say private road on the sign...I'll check tomorrow.

Thanks again for your help.

[GuidoT]

Notwithstanding that OPC have no business giving you a ticket for being on a public highway, they are likely to write a few letters to you, pass the matter over the Windsor-Smythe (debt collection) and write a few more letters and then issue you with a unsealed claim form and you will probably never hear from them again. All this takes about a year and they ignore every letter you send them.

I have about fifty of these tickets now as here and will never pay them.