@lidluk Athena anpr PCN - overstay - Lidl Car Park, Peel Street, Barnsley.

[jaycee113]

Hi,

 

I have received a Civil Parking Charge Notice from Athena ANPR Ltd for exceeding the parking time limit in a Lidl car park in Barnsley.

 

I registered my VRN in the store to validate my stay - I did not realise there was a one hour limit.

 

There are signs around the car park but I did not park near one of them and I did not read them.

The signs were not big enough to be read from a distance.

How do I proceed with this?

[brassnecked]

Do not contact Athena for the moment, how long was the overstay?

There should be a minimum 10 minute grace period to allow someone to exit the car park if there is a queue etc to get out to the road, similarly it might take some time to park after entering the car park and being logged by the Mickey Mouse ANPR these muppets tend to use.

 

Others will be along soon, but 1 hour seems a trifle mean and insufficient time to do a proper shop and clear the checkout, load the car and depart.

 

These enter registration number terminals are another issue and are diabolical, as well as causing delays as shoppers rush to enter their reg no, often making mistakes and getting an unenforceable charge for a wrong entry.

[jaycee113]

Hi Brassnecked,

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

The overstay, according to their notice, was 30 minutes and 9 seconds long.

Some of this time was certainly spent driving round the car park waiting for a space to become available and, as you rightly guessed, there was a queue to leave the car park.

 

I am not in any hurry to contact these muppets so I will see what other advice I get from you guys first.

[brassnecked]

Probably best to wait until they send a NTK and avoid risk of identifying the driver

 

can you please complete this:

 

https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.u...-Viewing)-nbsp

[jaycee113]

Hi Brassnecked,

 

 

The information asked for on the page your link refers to is for the details of a court claim. Is this correct?

[brassnecked]

OOPS wrong link but DX will sort the correct one, could you scan the notice and post it as pdf please

[jaycee113]

Please find scanned notice saved as PDF here:

Jaycee113 - Athena PCN.pdf

[dx100uk]

try this one

https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?462118-Have-you-received-a-Parking-Ticket-(3-Viewing)-nbsp

 

go look at the originally granted planning permission on the local councils website

VERY rarely is there anything under 3 hrs free stated.

and no PPC can change that.

 

dx

[jaycee113]

1 Date of the infringement 06/12/2018

 

2 Date on the NTK [this must have been received within 14 days from the 'offence' date] 10/12/2018

 

3 Date received 12/10/2018

 

4 Does the NTK mention schedule 4 of The Protections of Freedoms Act 2012? [y/n?] No.

 

5 Is there any photographic evidence of the event? Yes

 

6 Have you appealed? {y/n?] post up your appeal] No

Have you had a response? [Y/N?] post it up

 

7 Who is the parking company? Athena ANPR Ltd

 

8. Where exactly [carpark name and town] Lidl Car Park, Peel Street, Barnsley.

 

For either option, does it say which appeals body they operate under. IAS

[ericsbrother]

First approach should be to Lidl. Letnthem know about how long it took you to shop and get in and out of the car park and let them know that you wish to return all of the goods purchased as paying £100 to collect them wasnt part of the deal explained to you in the store. You will happily hand the stuff over in the presence of the local paper reporter who wants to make a story of this.

 

If they have any sense they will then tell Athena to cancel. have your receipt handy so they can check it against their computer that stores every bit of customer information they can grab.

 

If they dont agree to cancel tell them you wnat the CCTV images of you from the day so you can use it as evidence in the court case Athena will inevitably bring when you refuse to pay their "spending money at lidl" tax.

 

Also chase up the planning permission aspects, I bet Athena doesnt have PP for thei cameras and signs, a criminal offence

Edited December 17, 2018 by honeybee13
Paras

[jaycee113]

Hi EB,

 

I am chasing this up with Barnsley MBC. Condition 5 of their planning consent charges Lidl with the development of a final management plan for the car park which must be agreed with the council. Amongst the items to be agreed is the charging regime. That should make interesting reading!

[ericsbrother]

so waht did LIdl say? the longetr yu leave approaching them the less chance they will do anything as it will appear that you arent really that upset by it all.

 

By all menas mention what you have got on them and try suggesting that you will ask teh council to shut the store due to the breach of planning whilst the whole lot is investigated. However, the CS person you speak to will be very low down in the pile so getting the ticket cancelled may be just about within their powers so save that argument for when you get to talk to someone higher up.

Edited December 19, 2018 by honeybee13
Paras

[jaycee113]

I have tried to get in touch with someone at Lidl who can help me, but I seem to be going round in a circle and getting nowhere. I am going back to the store when it is nice and busy, (tomorrow or Saturday should do nicely), to discuss the matter in a loud voice with their manager.

[ericsbrother]

get on to head office, you can look up the email address of the UK boss at ceoemail dot com. Look up UK head office telephone number, if you get their switchboard that is better than a customer service bod who has little access to information and no power.

 

and read up about all of this. Start off with reading a load of threads about Lidl and them follow to wherever you are lead. Get to understand things so you dont get fobbed off by the first person you speak to.

[honeybee13]

Hi.

 

I see you're back posting. Could you let us know what happened with this please?

 

HB

[jaycee113]

Having got nowhere with Lidl and Barnsley MBC I decided to pursue another strategy. This led to me invoicing Athena ANPR for a total of £380 over five invoices. When they threatened me with action if I didn't pay I threatened them right back. They went away.

[honeybee13]

Interesting. Thank you for the update.

 

HB

[dx100uk]

urm..that smells of freemen of the land twaddlto me, be careful....

they've 6yrs from the date of the PCN so don't move without telling them.

[jaycee113]

They have six years from the date of their speculative invoice. I have six years from the date of mine. Point taken about moving though!

[honeybee13]

Make sure you keep the paperwork.

 

HB

[jaycee113]

I have that filed away and saved electronically on a cloud server.

[dx100uk]

12 minutes ago, jaycee113 said:

They have six years from the date of their speculative invoice. I have six years from the date of mine. Point taken about moving though!

 

doesn't work like that sadly..

 

as i say be very careful, these fMoTl ideas have a nasty habit of encouraging PPC's/DCA's to target those that use them as they know by doing so, the sender sometimes doesn't have a clue what they are actually doing ...

 

dx

 

[jaycee113]

Point taken.