Premier Park/PP Legal PCN salford court Claimform - No ticket - Wright Street Car park Southport ***Claim Dismissed***

[dx100uk]

usual total garbage then..

 

no to mediation.

1 wit him

 

3 copies

1 to the court

1 to their sols [minus email/phone/sig]

1 for his file

[Browneyes1929]

dx as always. short, sweet and really helpful. thanks.

[Browneyes1929]

my friends case is on the 3rd of April and we've not served a witness statement yet.  

in fact not received one from them.  

 

Weirdly they sent an offer after the notice of allocation to the small claims for £125 in the spirit of the Judge asking to "try and settle the case" and before the "trial fee" became payable.  Then when my friend didn't pay they sent a letter with a copy of the cheque sent to the court which I thought was strange. Is that usual?

 

I'm uploading a redacted copy of the witness statement.

Does he need to enclose any copies of correspondence as evidence? 

I'm also enclosing a redacted copy of the cpr response not including letters already uploaded as they sent very little new info.

 

Can someone confirm the case law quoted is ok and also if law needs to be quoted re planning for Signage.  

Where they say about not coming under planning because it is Private land seems weird as there is planning permission granted by sefton for use as a carpark (Albeit retrospectively after operating for 5 years after the expiration of a temporary planning permission).  There is no mention of signage on any of the council Planning application  documentation. 

Witness Statement.pdf Premier_Park_CPR_Response_redacted.pdf

btw like the new website

 

also if he loses what is the maximum he will have to pay? 

The original parking notice was £100 and the court fee is £25. will there be anything else.

 

Hah found it.  

Town & country planning act regulation 30? (Will double check wording) they’re advertising a contract easily visible from the street.

 

If my friend wins, I’m going to force Sefton Council to get the landowner/parking company to refund all the clients they fleeced to date.

 

At the very least I’m going to get them to cover up the signs until planning permission is obtained.  

 

Here’s hoping we get away with serving the statement by email.  

[Browneyes1929]

Just seen their witness statement served today and they have copied government guidelines that give the impression that as carparks are on enclosed land the signage is exempt from planning.  Is there case law to disprove this and what situations (if any) does this apply?

[dx100uk]

utter rubbish!!

[Browneyes1929]

Oh and they’ve finally sent a print out from the machine showing people apparently paid around the time my friend was there.  

[ericsbrother]

youNEVER wait for them tio do their bit, you always keep to the deadlines imposed by the courts. If they were late in sending their WS you could have it chucked out as inadmissable and if your mate is late with his they can do the same to him so he has to pull his finger out

 

Yes you quote the planning law, read the article that is found via a link in the parking pranksters blog of dec 16th 2017 at the bottom of the article the great private car park planning approval [problem].

copy the article and the paper written that is found via the link.

 

you wont get the council to enforce a refund, only a successful prosecution by trading standards can do that and the cowbiys will just claim incompetence and ignorance.

 

if the land is enclosed land how do the public get there? That particular exemption is for advertising around the edge of football grounds and none of them offer you a contract to stay there or force you to leave before the 90 minutes is up. Just a permutation of the usual "deemed consent" garbage.

Edited March 20, 2019 by ericsbrother

[Browneyes1929]

Thank you for that info. The witness statement will be served by email in the next hour. As the claimant has put copious amounts of photos and maps as well as exhaustive copies of every correspondence in evidence does my friend need to? 

[ericsbrother]

not if it duplicates their but have a careful look at the photos as many parking co's use stock images rather then the ones actually at the site.

 

I know of cases where the parking co used pictures from another site with totally different buildings in the background to claim the signs were prominent when they were really hidden behind a tree.

 

He can claim the money back for his copying costs when he beats the claim.

[Browneyes1929]

An update for you folks. We went to court last week and......my friend Won!!!!!!! Yay!!

 

Some interesting points the Judge raised that I hadn’t even noticed.  

 

1. The sign was situated a good 3-4 foot from the machine.

This meant my friend was forced to move away from the machine to read it.  

 

2. The sign made only two methods of payment prominent cash or by phone.

This meant paying by debit or credit card was not obvious.

Ergo she said the sign was misleading. 

 

3. On the print out that supposedly showed people had paid either side of the times my friend was in the car park (I noticed nobody paid while my friend was there), it did not say how they paid (cash, phone or card) so this was not an indication that the machine could accept coins. 

 

At the very end the solicitor asked for leave to appeal.

The judge asked incredulously “on what grounds?”

he pointed out the “very small writing” under the photograph that said you could pay by debit or credit card with a surcharge. 

 

The judge looked at the photo and said she couldn’t read it so was refusing but he was welcome to fill out the form and see how far he got.  

 

Couple of questions 

1. if they are given leave to appeal does it get taken out of small claims track and could it then get expensive for my friend?

 

2. When applying for advertising planning permission does the fact that the signs are misleading get taken into account?

Is that why parking companies have not bothered to apply until their hand is forced?  

 

This company applied for retrospective planning permission to use the land as a car park a few years ago 2015 (original permission expired in 2010 as it was only temporary), but never bothered with Advertising planning, you would have thought they would have done the whole lot at the same time.  

 

One final thing, somebody told me it is now unlawful to put a surcharge on card payments.  Is this true?

[dx100uk]

1. they wont bother and the cost would be theirs anyway. they never do.

 

2.they don't ever bother as 99% of mugs cough up..why spend extra money correcting signs etc when people blindly pay..

 

3.yes surcharges were outlawed a few years back.

 

thread title updated

 

please consider a donation to keep us here to help others like we helped your friend

[Browneyes1929]

Done.  It’s not much but every little helps.   

 

Thanks for your help.  This forum is fab.  

[ericsbrother]

the appeal will go to the same court and the same judge at first and if the judge doesnt change their mind it goes to a higher court.

 

Now the appeal has to be based on the judge getting the matters of fact wrong ( they didnt, they just decided that the small print was too small so not a contract) or matter of law ( they havent even suggested that) or finally the judge made a perverse decision.

If the judge gets sectioned under the mental health act tomorrow they have a slim chance with the appeal.

 

now to addrss the other points.

the regs for advertising is for the SITING of adverts, not their content so no it wont be taken into account.

 

Plaaning consent for advertising hoardings cannot alter the applicable law retrospectively so if they had no PP on the 1st of the month and them got retrospective permission for the sign backdated to then the law was still broken at the time so no lawful offer of a contract.

 

PE are favourites for lying about this as not many people have bothered to look at the exact wording of the law.

Generally the law is not retrospective so if murder was suddenly made legal all the people imprisoned in the past are still guilty of the offence.

 

the surcharge for card payments was disallowed for debit cards several years ago. as ther parking bandits get all of their money for nothing it galls me that they think it necesary to chisel the gullible for an extra £1.50 but that is them all over I suppose.

[Browneyes1929]

Hi All 

last week, my friend received and letter from PP legal for unpaid parking again for the same original notice!!!! It beggars belief that they think this is fair.   They quote Parking Eye v Beavis, no idea why as it has been to court, they lost and the district judge refused leave to appeal.   Is it worth his sending a letter asking them not to write again.  

 

What is the usual response to this harassment?

 

Thank you

Edited September 22, 2019 by Browneyes1929

[brassnecked]

Write back and tell them they have no claim as it has already been thrown out at Court. Tell them Beavis has no bearing  in this matter as they lost the case; send them the judgment reference, and mention that as the case is concluded, they have no right nor permission to be processing your data further, so are reporting them to ICO for breach of GDPR.

 

Think ericsbrother, and DX100 will offer some other salient advice also.

[lookinforinfo]

First congratulations on the result in Court. Before you complain to PP just make sure that their letter does not refer to another

alleged infringement on a different day.

[brassnecked]

@lookedinforinfo,  good point best to make sure.

[Browneyes1929]

I've checked and it's exactly the same day and same PCN number.

[ericsbrother]

They write in the most scathing of terms mentioning unlawful processing of data, VEX etc and copy the letter to the CE of the BPA and ask what sanction will be applied to this member when they are clearly in breach of the code of practice and also clearly utterly stupid.

Demand frok the BPA that they intercede and at least try to persuade their member to undergo soem sort of traininmg to rectify this shortfall in knowledge and sense

[Browneyes1929]

Just a quick update on this.

 

 Within days of me posting on here about the last letter, my friend received a grovelling letter apologising profusely for an admin error in sending out the demand they also made sure to point out all the reasons why it wasn't harassment etc.  

 

I'm presuming that he wasn't the only one to receive one and others had already pointed out to them the error of their wayshhe

 

he was very happy with that and with all the advice received from the CAG community.

[ericsbrother]

get your friend to demand £250 for the bother, citing VCS v Phillip, Liverpool CC dec 2016.

Thye might not pay up but they will ow be worried that he will sue them and they dont ahve a leg to stand on as far as a defence goes.

Admin error? tough, it is still unlawful

Edited December 6, 2019 by ericsbrother