Highview Parking retail car park - 1st Appeal rejected

[soldier786]

Hi guys... here is my situation...

 

I work for a charity in London

 

 

on a beautiful summer's day (15th July 2015) we had to offload 1,500 cakes to be delivered to donors across the city to raise money for our charitable cause.

Our volunteers are our delivery agents that go door2door personally delivering these cakes.

 

 

We decided to meet at a retail car park, which was dead quiet that afternoon, to quickly unload the cakes from our van onto the volunteers' cars.

However due to severe delays in traffic that day the van arrived 2 hours late.

 

 

However the volunteers that arrived on time stayed in the car park waiting for the van to arrive.

As a result 5 of our volunteer drivers received Parking Charge Notices in the post (ANPR) from Highview Parking for overstaying in the car park.

 

On 5th of August I provided an appeal letter to the drivers to appeal (Attached "Parking-Challenge-Cakes4Syria Drivers_05-08-15.pdf").

All 5 of them sent the appeals.

 

On 20th August they were sent letters rejecting their appeals. Rejection letter attached "IMG-20150824-WA0005_V2.jpg"

 

From researching around the net, the most common advise seems to be to ignore their threats and let it go away.

However, because these are young volunteers, never been on the wrong side of the law,

they are too scared of the alleged consequences and would prefer it to be formally resolved.

 

Help and guidance on the next step would be gratefully appreciated.

[renegadeimp]

The PPC will always reject the appeal. They cant make money otherwise. You just need a popla code so you can appeal to them and get this sorted.

 

You must NEVER ignore it. At all. That is the wrong advice. You wont have to pay a penny though.

[ericsbrother]

your original appeal covers all of the relevant points but it is not surprising that Highview failed to answer any of them when sending out their generic response. It could be argued therefore that they havent considered the appeal properly by not addressing the points but as these people are mostly ex-clampers it is hardly surprising. You should see the group photos of them at their annual bash!

However, they have given the POPLA code so appeal to POPLA using the same grounds but whilst you are at it you can add that you do not believe they have planning permission for their sigange and so a leagl contract caqn never be formed and require strict proof of the PP as well as contract with Landowner etc. You should also write to the press office of the landowner and make your case for them to use their discretion in the matter and make it obvious that their response will be made public via the (social) media or your charity's website (just a notice reminding those who have received a charge notice from Highview should make sure that they appeal using the POPLA code they were given and then a bit of well, we never thought this would happen-charitable deeds, lack of goodwill, feeling abandoned by named store etc) and Highview may well find themselves under pressure to drop the matter when it comes to the POPLA appeal (that will cost them anyway)

[ericsbrother]

What date did you get the NTK's through the post? They have a very limited time to send them out and if they were late then no keeper liability. If they arrived more than 14 days after the date of the event your first line to POPLA should be the demand is not compliant with para 8 or 9 of the PoFA so their demand has been addressed to the wrong people.

[soldier786]

The PPC will always reject the appeal. They cant make money otherwise. You just need a popla code so you can appeal to them and get this sorted.

 

You must NEVER ignore it. At all. That is the wrong advice. You wont have to pay a penny though.

 

Thanks for this. They've given a POPLA code in the rejection letter. Is there a template letter that I can use to take this up with POPLA and get the charges cancelled?

[soldier786]

What date did you get the NTK's through the post? They have a very limited time to send them out and if they were late then no keeper liability. If they arrived more than 14 days after the date of the event your first line to POPLA should be the demand is not compliant with para 8 or 9 of the PoFA so their demand has been addressed to the wrong people.

 

Sorry Ericsbrother I just saw your reply after sending my last message. In terms of NTK they sent it within 14 days to all the drivers. So I don't think there is a case against them there. I've taken onboard your advise on writing to the retail park's owner and the points to cover in my letter to POPLA. So you reckon I should just use the same letter in essence but modify it so that its addressed to POPLA?

[ericsbrother]

Yes, but add the demand to see the planning permission for the signs as most companies dont have it and that is a criminal offence. You cannot agree to a contract based upon criminality, even if you wanted to.

Generally though, the lack of contract is enough as it is usually with a managing co or it is flawed in the extent of what is allowed so they dont like shoing it.