Highview Parking want another go ***Success***

[DragonFly1967]

I've had yet another PCN from Highview... This time though, I'm going to poke them (and others) with a stick and see what happens.

 

Here's the letter that will be posted tomorrow.

 

I think that should concentrate their minds one way or another

 

As this ticket is for 1st April (It might be a April Fool )

 

I'm expecting another two PCN's for 7th and 8th April as the vehicle was parked there all day on both occasions.

 

They're already chasing another one from 31st December 2016 that I didn't even bother posting about.

 

There's something springing to mind about not being able to organise a party in a brewery in respect of Highview

Highview Parking (redacted) 11-04-17.pdf

[ericsbrother]

just plain greedy and stupid. It will be difficult to get through to them exactly how ridiculous their behaviour is because they employ people on a minimum wage and offer target led bonuses so there is no incentive for anyone to actually think.

[honeybee13]

Good luck with this, Dragonfly, I look forward to reading the updates.

 

HB

[DragonFly1967]

Well, bombs away

 

Let's see what they make of that

[DragonFly1967]

Well, more or less as expected, the untrained chimps at Highview have treated my letter, clearly marked "THIS IS NOT AN APPEAL" as an appeal, rejected it saying that it is a "customer only car park" (despite the fact that there are clearly marked 'staff parking' spaces) and issued me with a HOOPLA code. Although the letter is generic and doesn't mention any of the actual points that were in my letter to them.

 

I'm not going to appeal to POPLA, as this wasn't an appeal in the first place, or may appeal with a simple one liner along the lines of "the operator had no right to ticket this vehicle" just so that it costs them some extra money.

 

So far, Highview are the only ones to reply, so I shall wait and see what else, if anything, I get in the post next week before considering my next move.

[ericsbrother]

You are well aware they cant consider an appeal honestly because they know all of their income stream would dry up. By replying as they have they can claim they are following their ATA guidelens when they arent as they are supposed to consider appeals individually and this is clearly a generic response to a different question. However, thye wont get any bother from POPLA or the BPA for this, the latter wont upset its members by enforcing their own CoP as they might bugger off to the IPC where dishonest priactice is seemingly welcome

[DragonFly1967]

Hmm, I've been doing a little 'background' research on Highview Parking.

 

Highview Parking Limited disclose on their stationary and to Companies House, a registered office address of... Ranger House, Queens Road, Barnet. EN5 4DJ, which is all well and good. Except their website (at least as of the time of posting) shows a completely different registered office address. I'll be bringing that one up with Companies House in the morning They show another, completely different, PO Box address on their signage, which is not the same one as on their letterheads, online or on the NTK.

 

Now, Highview Parking Limited has four directors...

 

Elliot David MORRIS. Ian Stewart LANGDON. Tamsin Jane RICKEARD & Grahame Harold David ROSE.

 

It's funny how with the exception of Elliot David MORRIS (who's only a Director of Highview Parking Limited and Ranger (Holdings) Limited), the other three directors, LANGDON, RICKEARD & ROSE, collectively or individually and with or without a few others, are tied in (as directors) to various parking companies including CP Plus Limtied, CP Plus (International) Limited, CP Plus (Trading) Limited, CP Plus Investments Limited, Ranger Services, Ranger Plus Limited, Fairer Parking Scheme Limited, Target Parking Limited, British Parking Association Limited.

 

There are in fact, too many links to list, it'd take me a fortnight to list them all.

 

Oh what a tangled web indeed.

 

Now then, back to references to my original letter to HPL.

 

HPL seem to be insisting that this car park is for patrons only, so, I've had someone take some pictures for me. Anyone else confused by their claim, I am

 

 

And as for exactly who you're 'supposed' to be entering in to a contract with when you park your car, is frankly, anyone's guess.

 

 

And finally, Highview now don't get a mention at all...

 

 

So... To sum up, the person that was driving the car parked in the STAFF ONLY area of the PATRONS ONLY car park. And even if there was a contract formed by the act of parking the car (yeah, right!) would have no idea which company that that contract would have been formed with.

 

You couldn't make this stuff up

 

HighviewPics.pdf

[ericsbrother]

if you disobeyed the staff only signs the landlord could sue you for damages relating to trespass. Now calculate the amount of extra wear and tear your vehicle has caused to their tarmac ( I reckon the tarmac will last 10 years, cost £10k to replace and let us say 200 vehicle movements a day. This means your share will be less than 10p in total if you trespassed every day for the rest of your life) and offer to pay the landowner this. F*** me, where can you rent a parking spot for that sort of money?

[DragonFly1967]

As I'm bored, I decided to submit a full appeal to POPLA and waste HPL's time and money (and the BPA's money). I think they're going to have their work cut out on this one unless they decide to throw the towel in and withdraw.

 

POPLA appeal...

 

No authority to enter in to contracts or impose charges in their own name.

 

I would contend that the operator does not have a clear, contemporaneous, signed & dated contract with the landowner (or a chain of contracts between the Landowner, Managing agent and the operator) that gives them the right to issue charges in their own name.

 

Whilst it is accepted that they may have a contract which is signed by the Managing agents of the land, I would call upon the operator to prove that the Managing agents had the right to issue such a contract on behalf of the landowner.

 

As the adjudicator will no doubt already be aware of, contracts are complicated things, so a witness statement signed by someone is not good enough, neither is a statement that a person has seen it. A copy of the original contracts between the landowner and the operator or the landowner and Managing agent and then subsequently the contract between the Managing agent and the operator, showing the points above is the only acceptable item as evidence that those contracts exist and authorise the operator the rights to issue and subsequently pursue parking charge notices in their own name, write numerous letters to an appellant chasing monies without taking them to Court, to retain any monies received from appellants and ultimately to threaten to (or actually) pursue them through to Court.

 

If the operator insists that sufficient contracts are in place to allow them to issue charges and/or make claims in their own name, then I pit the operator to strict proof that such contracts exist by way of their production as part of their evidence.

 

 

No Contract with this operator.

 

Irrespective of the above, the driver of the vehicle has not at any point entered in to a contract with the operator in this case. As per the section below, the vehicle displays a staff parking permit in the windscreen.

 

As this would be of little or no use in regards to an ANPR capture and the signs on site state that ‘warden patrols’ are carried out by UKPC Ltd, if any contract existed at all it would be with UKPC Ltd, who’s warden would have seen the clearly displayed staff parking permit and not issued a parking charge notice via a NTD and not the operator in this case.

 

 

Supremacy of Contract.

 

It is argued that as the driver of the vehicle is employed at Yate Shopping Centre they therefore have either an expressed or implied right to park in the Yate Shopping Centre car park without becoming subject to the operators terms and conditions.

 

The operators signage on site states that the car park is for “Patrons Only” and yet parking spaces are supplied and marked out for staff use only, including signage to that effect.

 

As the staff rights to park are not included in the operators terms and conditions and staff, by definition, are not patrons, the only possible conclusion is that the operators terms and conditions that are aimed clearly at patrons alone and therefore do not and cannot apply to members of staff.

 

The driver has also been issued with and the vehicle is displaying a “Yate Shopping Centre Staff Parking Permit” which specifically allows the driver of the vehicle to park in the staff parking spaces.

 

The driver of the vehicle has, at any relevant time, updated their employer of the vehicle registration which I am told is a requirement of the right to park in the car park as a member of staff employed at the site without being subject to a time limit.

 

Therefore, as the vehicle was parked on site with the express or implied permission of the landowner or their Managing agent, this overrides any contract that the operator could ever hope to form with the driver in question and/or with myself as the vehicle keeper.

 

 

Confusing Signage.

 

As has been shown above, the signage on site is confusing almost to the extreme.

 

As can be seen in the following photographs, if a contract exists at all it is unclear as to who the operator is and therefore who any contract would be formed with as the entrance sign includes both UK Parking Control Ltd (UKPC) and Highview Parking Limited (HPL), and a sign immediately adjacent to the “Staff Parking” bays indicates only UKPC.

 

Also, referring the adjudicator back to the very first photograph, where signs placed immediately above and below one another indicate both “Staff Parking” and “Patrons Only”. It cannot be both.

 

This is without any references to the fact that the operators claimed entrance sign breaches a number of other regulations as well as the BPA Code of Practice regarding signage which do not form part of this appeal to POPLA.

 

As well as a few other grounds that for some reason, didn't appear during copy/paste (above). Also added in all the photos as in the thread above, as well as pictures of the vehicle 'wearing' its "Staff Parking Permit" and a close up of the permit.

 

 

If nothing else, it'll give HPL a headache

[DragonFly1967]

Just a small update to this...

 

Yesterday I was contacted by the previous keeper of my vehicle. It seems that Highview and DRP have also been writing to him and telling him that he's liable for parking charges incurred AFTER he sold me the vehicle, and DRP doing their usual trick of bluff & bluster and even going so far as sending a letter marked "Notice of intended court proceedings for multiple unpaid parking charges £449.97". Yet of course, going on to say that that is what they would be 'reporting back to my client' that they should take legal action. Yada Yada, heard it all before.

 

So, I set up a donotreply@ email address and emailed them...

 

Dear Jenni

 

Ref: Vehicle Index

 

 

I have been asked by Mr Previous Keeper to contact you regarding your claimed "unpaid parking charges" and your groundless threats of "Intended Court Proceedings" when we both know that Debt Recovery Plus do not 'own' any alleged debt and therefore have no cause of action. However, regardless of that...

 

Mr Previous Keeper has told me that he informed your client, on the reverse of their Notice to Keeper, that he was not (at the time of the alleged parking infringement) the keeper of the vehicle. In fact, he had sold the vehicle to me the previous day, as the V5 shows.

 

Now, bearing in mind that the Civil Court deals solely with the balance of probability, and I have absolutely no reason to disbelieve Mr Previous Keeper when he tells me that he informed your client of this fact, and I would wager, neither would the Court, both yourselves and your client still continue to harass Mr Previous Keeper claiming that he owned the vehicle at the time that these alleged parking infringements occurred.

 

He did not. I did.

 

As you would have known had you been bothered to carry out your own due diligence when the matter was passed to you by your client instead of taking your usual shoddy approach and not carrying out any of your own checks.

 

As you are no doubt well aware by now, the vehicle is driven (and parked on site) by someone who has a staff car parking pass (displayed in the vehicle) and therefore has supremacy of contract. I have contacted Debt Recovery Plus in writing, both to your PO Box address and your Registered Office regarding this and what will happen if you continue to make your threats and groundless claims.

 

However, if your client would like to continue along this course of action and take me to court, I will be absolutely delighted to have a day out at their expense. As I will be making an application for a full costs order as well as a counterclaim.

 

Please find attached a scan of the relevant section of the V5 relating to this vehicle and be sure to take careful note of the date of my acquisition of this vehicle, to help you with this I have underlined it in red. As I will be relying on this (among other things) should your client wish to proceed to Court.

 

Neither of your quoted cases, ParkingEye and Beavis or Vehicle Control Services and Mackie (or as you refer to it, the 'Dundee case') have any bearing or relevance in this matter as, as stated, the driver has supremacy of contract regarding parking at the site. If you're going to threaten people by quoting previous cases, you should at least have the common sense to ensure that they are relevant to the facts of this matter. Persuasive cases and/or case law is not a catch all for any situation. Which is something that the their Lords Justice in the ParkingEye and Beavis case went to some length to point out.

 

Perhaps DRPL need to read the full transcript of the case. I have.

 

 

Finally, Mr Previous Keeper should not be contacted again regarding this matter except once, by letter, with a full apology for having bothered him in the first place.

 

Any other reply to this email, and you should reply stating that you fully accept the above should be made by letter to the actual recorded keeper (full details on the V5 image) and not the previous keeper as you have been doing.

 

Please advise your client to issue new NTK's to the correct Recorded Keeper.

 

They may as well include relevant POPLA codes as I will be appealing to POPLA (at your clients cost) for each NTK received.

 

Regards

 

Recorded Keeper.

 

--

IMPORTANT: Please note that this is an unmonitored email address. Replies to this address will be returned to you unread and with very large attachments.

 

The saga continues

[DragonFly1967]

LOL

 

Email this morning from POPLA...

 

Dear Keeper

 

Thank you for submitting your parking charge Appeal to POPLA.

 

An Appeal has been opened with the reference 2921087046.

 

Highview Parking have told us they do not wish to contest the Appeal. This means that your Appeal is successful and you do not need to pay the parking charge.

 

Yours sincerely

 

POPLA Team

 

This does rather scupper their chances of being able to submit any more of their Micky Mouse tickets, at a cost of £27+VAT for each HOOPLA code they send me, I'll just appeal on the same grounds every single time. That'll get expensive for them.

 

However, this now opens the door for me, as Highview by deciding not to contest, more or less admit that they had no grounds to issue in the first place. Breach of KADOE and the DPA anyone

 

 

Edited to add:

 

Just checked the HOOPLA website...

 

Withdrawal reasons

 

After further investigation we have decided to cancel this Notice.

 

Perhaps they finally "investigated" what I've been telling them since last September and have realised that they knew all along

[ericsbrother]

why not if you want a day out at their expense.

I would see if they respond to any more of your soft appeals with a POPLA code rather than a "we are right but are going to let you off this time" response. If you get another dropped claim at POPLA you can then go for double the amount on a single claim ( why not add all of them together to save on costs).

I am wondering whether part of the new POPLA contract means they dont get charged if they drop hands at the first notification of your appeal, you can see why the parking co's would favour such a deal and it would also massage the POPLA success figures.

[DragonFly1967]

I thought they were charged to issue the HOOPLA code. But maybe, though it'll be a bit disappointing if it's not costing them more than wasted postage

[ericsbrother]

Not sure but I belive that it was something they wanted