Hello All,

Apologies if this has already been covered,

I have tried to read others responses but not sure sure if they apply to my specific case.

I wonder if anyone can please help?

In August 2017 on my first day at my new hospital where I started work (before hospital induction) I accidentally parked in a patient car park rather than a staff carpark. I received a parking charge of 35.00.

The week after i emailed the email address from the ticket (unsure who exactly) defending my case. I never had a response.

Subsequently over the last 9 months i have received various letters about this (which have been going to my old address) and the latest is from Civil Enforcement Ltd. stating the outstanding debt is 206.00 and i have 30 days from the date of this letter until they will issue proceedings with the county court.

I would like this issue resolved as soon as possible obviously without me having to pay, as I do not think it is a fair penalty.

I would very much appreciate if anyone could assist me/advise me in moving forward in terms of responses?

Thanks very much,

Jay

Hi and welcome to CAG

Can you please fill out the relevant parts of this

https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?462118-Have-you-received-a-Parking-Ticket&p=4883055&viewfull=1#post4883055

and make sure we know which hospital as well so we can use google streetview to have a look (if possible)

Thanks so much for the speedy reply!

1 The date of infringement? 4/8/17 at 14.57

2 Have you yet appealed to the parking company yet? yes (i sent a short email the week following the ticket to the email on the ticket. I'm unsure who exactly this was either the hospital car park staff or civil enforcement - i have no way of checking either as it was on a old work email.

if you have then please post up whatever you sent and how you sent it and the date you sent it,

suitably redacted. [as a PDF- follow the upload

It was a short email along the lines of:

Dear Sir/Madame,

I have recently been issued with a parking ticket of 35.00 for parking in the incorrect car park. I am a new doctor to this trust and this was on my first day of work, before the hospital trust induction and I did not know where I was supposed to park. I am therefore emailing you to kindly ask if you could please revoke the charges made please? I have since had a hospital induction and know where to park and can assure you this won't happen again.

has there been a response? No

please post it up as well, suitably redacted. [as a PDF- follow the upload guide]

If you haven't appealed yet - ,.........

have you received a Notice To Keeper? (NTK) [must be received by you between 29-56 days] - as far as I am aware No i did not receive an NTK

what date is on it

Did the NTK provide photographic evidence? No

3 Did the NTK mention Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA) [Y/N?] did not receive

4 If you appealed after receiving the NTK, n/a

did the parking company give you any information regarding the further appeals process?

[it is well known that parking companies will reject any appeal whatever the circumstances]

5 Who is the parking company? civil enforcement ltd

6. where exactly [Carpark name and town] did you park? North manchester general hospital Car Park 2, Delaunays road, Crumpsall, Manchester, M8 5RB

There are two official bodies, the BPA and the IAS. If you are unsure,

please check HERE - sorry I am unsure, i assume the BPA but i'm not exactly sure i can say 100 percent?

I hope this provides you with enough information, please feel free to let me know if you require any more.

update, I have just found a picture of the ticket i took.

It says on it

Representations:

in writing only within 28 days to the address above, stating the PCN number. Our full appeals service can be found at ce-service.co.uk incl. details of POPLA (the independent appeals service)

Jay

Well, you have identified yourself as the driver which is bad but not disastrous. CEL are in business purely to make money, not consider the circumstances around your parking.

When you emailed them, did you use their appeal email address? If so and they didn't respond, that removed your chances of an appeal to the IAS although they would have found for CEL over you, no matter how good your appeal was.

I have looked on Google Streetview and whilst I can follow the roads around the hospital, I can't go down the road to Car Park 2 so I can't see the signs. This is where you come into the picture (pardon the pun) You need to take some pictures of the signs so that the experts can rip it apart.

The images from Streetview show a sign at the main entrance off Delauneys road. This was pictured in 2015 and was for a company called APCOA. We need to see an updated picture of the main entrance showing any signs there.

In the meantime, contact PALS or whomever controls the parking arrangements and see if they can assist in getting this cancelled.

I would expect the next letter from CEL to be court papers and then we can help challenge that as well.

Just realised that CEL are members of the BPA but that makes no difference as you did contact CEL within the 28 days and they didn't respond. Make sure that email is kept safe.

I couldn't work out from your initial post as to whether this was a ticket stuck your car or whether it came in the post

yes sorry it was a ticket stuck to my car. The email is on my work email which i don't have access to anymore as it is onsite only accessible and I have left. Guess i could always go back and log in if it came to it.

why £35>?

that's not a usual PCN figure.

just a quick ref to your first post

go read the letter CAREFULLY it does NOT say WILL do court

every other word bar that.

original charge of 70 + additional costs (in total 206).

The letter states

'if we do not receive a reply within 30 days of this letter, we will be left with no alternative but to issue proceedings in the country court' - which basically means they will take me to court surely..

Thanks,

Jay

no it doesnt

as they dont respond they are in trouble procedurally should they issue a claim.

Also they cant magic a £35 charge up to £200+ even though they always say this kind of thing,

the law disagrees with them so they use your ignorance as a method of extorting money because people think that they had better pay up now even though it is robbery because it might go higher than that!

We need to see the wording on the signage and also a decent pictue of the entrance to the car park so we can see the relationship between the sihn and the entrance layout. having loads of signs scattered behind wheelie bins doesnt make an offer of a contract.

I hope you havent moved house as well as changing email addy.

In the future you NEVER use email to resolve these matters, paper letters only as that creates a proper trail of evidence.

CEL are masters at inventing electronic communications and even signs that dont exist other than on their computer.

Thanks so much for your reply.

i'm pretty sure the sign says something like MRI scanner patients only (which i'm not) and i'm also quite sure it is at the entrance to the car park and not obscured..

But I can go and take pictures of the wording on the sign tomorrow and also a pic showing the relationship between the sign and the entrance, if this is definitely needed?

p.s. I am going on holiday this sunday for 1 week. the last letter said they will issue proceedings with county court if no reply within 30 days, would you worry about missing this? it has been going on for 9 months..

Jay

a county court claim takes a while to rumble though its stages so you will have at least an extra couple of weeks to respond even if they do start in a month's time.

Get the piccies and then we can recommend a response to their threat. that may well be enough to stop them in their tracks.

ask yourself why we need to see pictures of the entrance to the land from the public highway?

If you cnat see that something is being offered as soon as you approach the place where that offer applies then there isnt an offer.

CEL are particularly poor at this necessity so show nothing offered and they cant say you broke an imaginary contract.

Thanks so much for your reply.

 

i'm pretty sure the sign says something like MRI scanner patients only (which i'm not) and i'm also quite sure it is at the entrance to the car park and not obscured..

 

But I can go and take pictures of the wording on the sign tomorrow and also a pic showing the relationship between the sign and the entrance, if this is definitely needed?

 

p.s. I am going on holiday this sunday for 1 week. the last letter said they will issue proceedings with county court if no reply within 30 days, would you worry about missing this? it has been going on for 9 months..

 

Jay

go read the letter PROPERLY

it doesn't say WILL anything

as for the signage, no not the entrance to the hospital from the carpark [MRI only]

from the PUBLIC HIGHWAY into the Main Entrance to the HOSPITAL

even a sign saying MRI scanner patients only isnt a genuine offer of a contract to park if it prohibits or penalises anyone who isnt.

If I ran a shop and offered to sell you a bar of chocolate and you said, no thanks I am on a diet do you think I can sue you for not buying it? Same applies here.

It is not about parking, it is about contracts.

yes true i just wanted to clarify.

I have been to the hospital this morning and taken pictures.

Pictures 1-4 are from the public highway to the front entrance of the hospital.

and pictures 5-11 are pictures from inside the hospital road to the entrance of the car park.

Just to note on picture 6, the sign says:

Car park for:

MR scanner

AandE

Voluntary services

post graduate medical centre

It might be worth noting that I was actually on induction on the date of the ticket which was actually in the post graduate medical centre, so surely it could be forgiven for following this sign.. however the subsequent pictures 7-11 for the car park I parked in there is no mention of post graduate medical centre

thanks,

Jay

convert-jpg-to.pdf

you have missed the most important sign of the lot, the tariff board on the pay and display machine. All the other signs arent contracts, the meter blurb is.

On the plus side none of the signs apply to your circumstance so no charges apply either. CEL are too stupid to know this but they are also greedy liars as well.

Next time you are there get photos of the signage at the payment meter and also all of the other car park signs where they differ to the ones already shown.

From waht I canr ead on the tariff sign it says "we employ a company, CEL who enforce parking charges......" That is also damning as it means they have no right to enter nto contracts themselves, just act on behalf of the hospital trust.

This menas that you can sue the trust for the breach of the DPA when CEL obtain your keeper details as they have no authority to use CEL's KADOE contract for their business and CEL have no authority to get the detaisl for anyone else and the sign makes it clear that they are doing so. In short, the twit who signed up CEL and ordered these signs doesnt know one end of their alimentary canal from their humerus.

i believe there is a picture of the tariff board from the car park that i sent? perhaps its too blurry you can't read? do you mean the black meter shown? i'm sure i can make out what it says just about regarding the prices..

what other pictures do you require? Any other different car park signs within that exact car park or within the hospital?

that's reassuring though you think that no charges should apply

All means all so anywhere in the hospital grounds. You werent offered a contract when entering so if the signs vary then they cant be said to be other than confusing at best.

The main reason parking co's lose court claims is on the contractual conditions so you must read things carefully. For example a no parking sign doesnt attract a breach of contract claim because it isnt an offer to park but a prohibitive sign. If where you prked offers parking for a particular dept on a big sign with no small print then the next sign saying the public park here and pay £x isnt an offer to a person working in that dept. Same applies to their letters and anything given as advice, meanings of words are paramount and are taken to eb their most common use in english so the word wanting for example doesnt mean lacking knowledge, the old english meaning.

My ruminations on authority to make contracts is of secondary importance to you because any argument shouldnt get that far, I was pointing out that your employer is as stupid as CEL and you could punish them for that if you wanted to. Not always a good idea to start a fight but if they go after you then that is another matter.

Ok great cheers:

So you want me to go back and take pictures? That’s fine. Will this help you with what to say in the letter of reply I guess?

Anything else you want me to take a pic of while I’m there so I don’t have to go back? The black meter box and various other car park signs around the hospital?

Thanks,

Jay

Hi all,

More pictures in a pdf as requested. Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Jay

jpg.pdf

brilliant pic, that sign is damning as it isnt an offer of a contract to park so how can they ask for £70 for parking? That has been covered many times before and loses the parking co's court claims.

As you identified yourself as the driver there is no point writing to them again, let them spend money chasing you. When it gets to threats of court actuion by them or their solicitor then you respond but not to a threatogram from a dca

Is your post being forwarded? If not then you should write to CEL and give them your new address but deny that any contract was formed so no breach could have possibly occurred. Let them know that you will vigourlously defend any civil claim and seek costs and possible damages for ther breach of the DPA. Leave it at that for now

Thanks very much ericsbrother, that’s really positive how you think I could possibly win this. I’m glad you sent a second post advising to send them a letter, as I would feel uneasy continuing to ignore from what I’ve read from other people.

I have devised the below letter from your recommendations and I just wanted to ask you guys if you think this is acceptable and appropriate. Please feel free to add any or reword sentences, I have to admit I am quite clueless regarding breach of contract/DPA so you may be able to word it slightly better.

Dear Sir/Madame,

I am writing to give you an update of my current address as I believe you are sending correspondence regarding a parking charge to my previous address.

I emailed you in August 2017 within a few days of receiving the parking charge, to defend my case which I still stand by. In addition, as no contract was formed no breach of contract could have possibly occurred. I received no reply to this correspondence and instead have recently came across a letter charging 206.00.

I will vigorously defend any civil claim and seek costs and possible damages for your breach of the DPA.

Yours sincerely

I wouldnt be so nice, Just say that diar sirs, Ref: (their ref no) I am informing you of my current addfress in case you decide to abuse the civil procedure and try and obtain a CCJ at my old one by default. Any debt is still denied and thus any claim will be vigourously defended and a full costs recovery order sought.

Now this goes through the post, not as an email. You block their email addy and set it to bounce back anything they send. You dont mention what has been said alrerady, they either know that or they have lost it and eitrher waymentioning it only harms you and not helps you.