Hi,

This is a continuation thread from my original post on FTLA: https://www.ftla.uk/private-parking-tick...rk-london/

Just to recap: my initial appeal and POPLA failed. I then received a LoC letter from DCBLegal and replied with:

Quote:Dear Sirs,

Your Letter Before Claim contains insufficient detail of the claim and fails to provide copies of evidence your client places reliance upon and thus is in complete contravention of the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims.

As a firm of supposed solicitors, one would expect you to be capable of crafting a letter that aligns with paragraphs 3.1(a)–(d), 5.1 and 5.2 of the Protocol, and paragraphs 6(a) and 6(c) of the Practice Direction. These provisions do not exist for decoration—they exist to facilitate informed discussion and proportionate resolution. You might wish to reacquaint yourselves with them.

The Civil Procedure Rules 1998, Pre-Action Conduct and Protocols (Part 3), stipulate that prior to proceedings, parties should have exchanged sufficient information to understand each other’s position. Part 6 helpfully clarifies that this includes disclosure of key documents relevant to the issues in dispute.

Your template letter mentions a “contract”, yet fails to provide one. This would appear to undermine the only foundation upon which your client’s claim allegedly rests. It’s difficult to engage in meaningful pre-litigation dialogue when your side declines to furnish the very document it purports to enforce.

I confirm that, once I am in receipt of a Letter Before Claim that complies with the requirements of para 3.1 (a) of the Pre-Action Protocol, I shall then seek advice and submit a formal response within 30 days, as required by the Protocol. Thus, I require your client to comply with its obligations by sending me the following information/documents:

1. A copy of the original Notice to Keeper (NtK) that confirms any PoFA 2012 liability
2. A copy of the contract (or contracts) you allege exists between your client and the driver, in the form of an actual photograph of the sign you contend was at the location on the material date, not a generic stock image
3. The exact wording of the clause (or clauses) of the terms and conditions of the contract(s) which is (are) relied upon that you allege to have been breached
4. The written agreement between your client and the landowner, establishing authority to enforce
5. A breakdown of the charges claimed, identifying whether the principal sum is claimed as consideration or damages, and whether the £70 “debt recovery” fee includes VAT
6. The full name and role of the person with conduct of this matter and their regulatory status/authorisation to conduct litigation

I am clearly entitled to this information under paragraphs 6(a) and 6(c) of the Practice Direction. I also need it in order to comply with my own obligations under paragraph 6(b).

If your client does not provide me with this information then I put you on notice that I will be relying on the cases of Webb Resolutions Ltd v Waller Needham & Green [2012] EWHC 3529 (Ch), Daejan Investments Limited v The Park West Club Limited (Part 20) Buxton Associates [2003] EWHC 2872, Charles Church Developments Ltd v Stent Foundations Limited & Peter Dann Limited [2007] EWHC 855 in asking the court to impose sanctions on your client and to order a stay of the proceedings, pursuant to paragraphs 13, 15(b) and (c) and 16 of the Practice Direction, as referred to in paragraph 7.2 of the Protocol.

Until your client has complied with its obligations and provided this information, I am unable to respond properly to the alleged claim and to consider my position in relation to it, and it is entirely premature (and a waste of costs and court time) for your client to issue proceedings. Should your client do so, then I will seek an immediate stay pursuant to paragraph 15(b) of the Practice Direction and an order that this information is provided.

Yours faithfully,

Quote:1. The Defendant denies the claim in its entirety. The Defendant asserts that there is no liability to the Claimant and that no debt is owed. The claim is without merit and does not adequately disclose any comprehensible cause of action.

2. There is a lack of precise detail in the Particulars of Claim (PoC) in respect of the factual and legal allegations made against the Defendant such that the PoC do not adequately comply with CPR 16.4.

3. The Defendant is unable to plead properly to the PoC because:

(a) The contract referred to is not detailed or attached to the PoC in accordance with PD 16, para 7.3(1);

(b) The PoC do not state the exact wording of the clause (or clauses) of the terms and conditions of the contract (or contracts) which is/are relied on;

(c) The PoC do not adequately set out the reason (or reasons) why the claimant asserts the defendant has breached the contract (or contracts);

(d) The PoC do not state with sufficient particularity exactly where the breach occurred, the exact time when the breach occurred and how long it is alleged that the vehicle was parked before the parking charge was allegedly incurred;

(e) The PoC do not state precisely how the sum claimed is calculated, including the basis for any statutory interest, damages, or other charges;

(f) The PoC do not state what proportion of the claim is the parking charge and what proportion is damages;

(g) The PoC do not provide clarity on whether the Defendant is sued as the driver or the keeper of the vehicle, as the claimant cannot plead alternative causes of action without specificity.

4. The Defendant submits that courts have previously struck out materially similar claims of their own initiative for failure to adequately comply with CPR 16.4, particularly where the Particulars of Claim failed to specify the contractual terms relied upon or explain the alleged breach with sufficient clarity.

5. In comparable cases involving modest sums, judges have found that requiring further case management steps would be disproportionate and contrary to the overriding objective. Accordingly, strike-out was deemed appropriate. The Defendant submits that the same reasoning applies in this case and invites the court to adopt a similar approach by striking out the claim due to the Claimant’s failure to adequately comply with CPR 16.4, rather than permitting an amendment. The Defendant proposes that the following Order be made:

Draft Order:

Of the Court's own initiative and upon reading the particulars of claim and the defence.

AND the court being of the view that the particulars of claim do not adequately comply with CPR 16.4(1)(a) because: (a) they do not set out the exact wording of the clause (or clauses) of the terms and conditions of the contract which is (or are) relied on; and (b) they do not adequately set out the reason (or reasons) why the claimant asserts that the defendant was in breach of contract.

AND the claimant could have complied with CPR 16.4(1)(a) had it served separate detailed particulars of claim, as it could have done pursuant to PD 7C, para 5.2, but chose not to do so.

AND upon the Court determining, having regard to the overriding objective (CPR 1.1), that it would be disproportionate to direct further pleadings or to allot any further share of the Court’s resources to this claim (for example by ordering further particulars of claim and a further defence, with consequent case management).

ORDER:

1. The claim is struck out.

2. Permission to either party to apply to set aside, vary or stay this order by application on notice, which must be filed at this Court not more than 7 days after service of this order, failing which no such application may be made.

Type of parking ticket: Parking Charge Notice (PCN) or Charge Notice (CN)

Hi, I Got this from Horizon Parking.




[img]https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/v5exx9r2osi7wiyzixx7m/Horizon5.jpeg?rlkey=w57nb0p4ghfxqoru3hriahjj5&st=bivzx1lm&raw=1[/img]









TTThis was my appeal to them

I am the registered keeper. I dispute your parking charge and I am not identifying the driver.

This PCN has been issued for the wrong area and your ANPR images do not prove where the vehicle was parked. The vehicle was parked in the Charles & Wensum House car park, which is clearly signed as permit holders only via the on-site directional signage. In that permit-holder area there are no Horizon contractual terms and no pay or registration instructions. The only sign present there is a legacy clamping warning, which is plainly not your ANPR pay/registration regime.

If the area is permit holders only, there is no contractual offer to non-permit holders and no driver could be contractually bound to pay a parking charge. At most, parking without a permit would be trespass, which only the landowner can pursue and only for nominal loss. You are not the landowner and there was no loss.

Cancel the charge, or provide the following strict proof so the keeper can understand your case.

1. A contemporaneous site plan and boundary map showing that Charles & Wensum House car park is within your enforcement area for this site.
2. A copy of the landowner contract confirming you are authorised to operate and enforce in that specific permit-holder area.
3. Photographs of the signage within Charles & Wensum House car park that you say created any obligation to pay or register, taken from the driver’s route and from the parked location.

If you reject, you must issue a POPLA code.

They rejected with 

Thank you for your recent correspondence concerning the above-referenced Parking Charge.
 
Review of your Appeal
 
The Parking Charge was issued lawfully and in full and proper accordance with the Private Parking Sector Single Code of Practice issued by the British Parking Association (the ‘BPA’).
 
There are signs located at the entrance to, and within the car park, that state the terms and conditions that apply when parking. 
 
As clearly stipulated on signage within the car park, payment or registration for parking must be made for the full duration of the vehicles stay.  Our systems do not show any evidence of payment or registration made against this vehicle on the incident date.
 
The signs throughout the car park are clear and comply fully with the BPA’s prescribed rules and regulations.  When parking on private land, it is the driver’s responsibility to ensure they adhere to the terms and conditions of the car park concerned.
 
As we have not been provided with the name and a serviceable address for the driver/hirer, under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, we do have the right, subject to meeting the requirements of the Act, to recover from the Registered Keeper the amount that remains outstanding. We have obtained the name and address of the registered keeper of the vehicle from the DVLA for the purposes of enforcing this charge.
 
Please note that your vehicle was found to be parked in the designated Premier Inn area of the car park instead of the permit parking area which is situated before our camera capture zone. 
 
If parking cannot be made without breaching the terms and conditions of the car park, alternative parking arrangements must be sought or motorists will be issued with a Parking Charge as per the car park terms stated on the signage on site.
 
Given the above, and whilst we have considered your representations carefully, on this occasion your appeal has been rejected.
 
 
The Charge Amount and Methods of Payment
 
In good faith, Horizon will hold the charge at the current amount of £60 for a further 14 days from the date of this correspondence to allow you further time to pay.
 
Payment of the outstanding charge can be made using our 24-hour payment line: 020 8106 0789 or online at Horizon Parking Portal 
 
Alternatively, payment can be made via cheque made payable to Horizon Parking Ltd and posted to Horizon Parking Ltd, Finitor House, 2 Hanbury Road, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 3AE.
 
Additional Types of Appeal
 
If you have no evidence that you wish to submit to us, then you have now reached the end of our appeals procedure.  Although we have rejected your appeal, the Parking On Private Land Appeals (POPLA) provides an independent appeals service. To use this service, you must appeal to POPLA within 28 days of the date of this correspondence.
 
For full instructions on how to appeal to POPLA, please visit their website at www.popla.co.uk. If you would rather progress this matter by post, please contact our Appeals Office and we will send you the necessary paperwork.
 
Your POPLA reference number is XXXXXXXXXX
 
Please be advised that if you elect for independent arbitration of your case, you will be required to pay the charge at the full amount and, as such, will no longer qualify for payment at the reduced rate. Please also be advised that POPLA will not accept an appeal where payment is made against the Parking Charge in question.
 
We are required by law to inform you that Ombudsman Services (www.ombudsman-services.org/) provides an alternative dispute resolution service that would be competent to deal with your appeal; however, Horizon has not chosen to participate in their alternative dispute resolution service.  As such, should you wish to appeal, then you must do so to POPLA as explained above.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Appeals Department
Horizon Parking Limited

Hi,

I think you were helping me with an ongoing issue regarding ELITE CAR PARKING MANAGEMENT  LTD  where I had a CCJ without ever being notified of the original ticket or the County Court date and you advised me to submit an N244 application.

I received the following letter over the weekend and just checking if there's anything I should do or if its just a matter of waiting?

I'm happy to copy across the details from the other thread on the ftla.uk forum if that helps too.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17Mu3nqs...sp=sharing

thanks

Jim

Type of parking ticket: Parking Charge Notice (PCN) or Charge Notice (CN)

The single most important rule if you receive a PCN from MET at Southgate Park (the McDonald’s/Starbucks site near Stansted) is this: do not identify the driver, under any circumstances. Not directly, not indirectly, and not “just to explain what happened”. If you do, you hand the operator the only thing they need to pursue the charge.

This matters because the law treats the Driver, the registered Keeper, and (where applicable) the Hirer as different legal persons. Only the Driver can ever be liable for an alleged breach of a parking contract unless the operator can use Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA) to transfer liability. If PoFA does not apply, Keeper or Hirer liability does not exist at all.

Southgate Park is not “relevant land” for PoFA purposes because it lies within the boundary of Stansted Airport and is subject to airport byelaws. Land that is subject to statutory control is expressly excluded from PoFA. This has nothing to do with who owns the land, who manages the car park, or whether it looks like an ordinary retail site. Statutory control does not disappear because land is sold, leased, or developed by a private company.

Airport byelaws are a form of law. They apply to land forming part of the airport unless they are formally revoked or disapplied by the state. There is no evidence that the byelaws have been removed from Southgate Park. Because statutory control remains in place, PoFA cannot apply there. That is why the land is not relevant land in law, even if a private parking company operates the site.

The consequence of this is critical. Because PoFA does not apply, MET cannot transfer liability from the unknown driver to the known Keeper or Hirer. The only person who could ever be liable is the Driver. And the operator has no idea who was driving unless the Keeper or Hirer blabs it.

This is where so many motorists become low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree. Out of ignorance and fear, people assume the registered Keeper must be liable, or they panic and start explaining what happened using “I parked” or “I stopped”. Others name the Driver without realising they have just removed their strongest legal protection. That is exactly how these charges are made to stick.

If the Driver is not identified, the burden of proof is entirely on the operator. They must prove that the Keeper or Hirer was the Driver. There is no legal presumption that this is the case, and they cannot do it. Without PoFA and without a named Driver, their claim has nowhere to go.

This is why you must always refer to the driver in the third person only. Never say who was driving. Never use “I” or “we”. Respond only as Keeper or Hirer, deny liability, point out that PoFA does not apply because the land is subject to statutory control, and do not engage with powerless and useless debt collectors.

Handled properly, these cases are easily winnable. They only succeed when people, through ignorance and fear, give the operator the one thing the law says they must prove for themselves.

What follows explains why POPLA is wrong to claim it has lawful authority to adjudicate so-called “Penalty Notices” issued under the Railway Byelaws, and why its continued involvement exposes its operator, Trust Alliance Group Limited, to legal and regulatory risk.

  Byelaws - POPLA Position and DFT Response.pdf (Size: 505.17 KB / Downloads: 0)

POPLA is not a statutory tribunal. It is a private dispute resolution service operated by Trust Alliance Group Limited, trading as POPLA. Its published remit is to consider appeals against civil Parking Charge Notices issued by private parking operators. It has no criminal jurisdiction and no statutory power to determine liability under criminal or quasi-criminal law.

POPLA now asserts that it has authority to adjudicate “Penalty Notices under Railway Byelaws” based on correspondence with the Department for Transport in 2018. That correspondence is often relied upon by POPLA as justification for its role in railway land cases. When examined properly, it does not support POPLA’s position.

The DfT correspondence is not legislation, not a statutory direction, not legal advice and not a delegation of authority. It is a policy letter expressing a departmental view at that time. The key passage relied upon by POPLA states that nothing in the Railway Byelaws prohibits parking operators from offering an appeal process, and that the DfT would encourage operators to reinstate independent appeals. That is all. Encouragement is not authorisation. The letter does not confer jurisdiction, does not empower POPLA to determine liability, does not approve the creation of private penalties and does not permit POPLA to adjudicate criminal matters.

Crucially, the same DfT letter draws a clear distinction between penalties and prosecution. It confirms that prosecution for Railway Byelaw offences is a separate process which can only take place in the magistrates’ court. The letter does not state that a Penalty Notice creates criminal liability, nor does it authorise private companies to threaten criminal prosecution or criminal records as a means of securing payment. Those threats appear in operator notices and POPLA decisions, but they do not appear anywhere in the DfT correspondence.

POPLA went further than the DfT ever did. In its own internal guidance produced in response to the 2018 correspondence, POPLA invented rules that do not exist in law. It decided that it would presume the registered keeper to be the “owner” unless proven otherwise, borrowing concepts from local authority parking regimes. The Railway Byelaws contain no such presumption. DVLA keeper data is not proof of ownership, and nothing in the Byelaws allows a private appeals body to reverse the burden of proof. This was not interpretation of the law; it was policy fabrication.

The problem is compounded by how these Penalty Notices are actually used. Operators such as APCOA issue documents framed as criminal penalties, refer to offences, threaten prosecution and criminal records, yet demand payment to themselves, not to a court or the public purse. POPLA then adjudicates those demands as if they were civil disputes, giving them an appearance of legitimacy. That hybrid approach has no basis in statute.

The situation has become even clearer following the amendment to the Protection of Freedoms Act which took effect on 24 December 2025 and brought railway land within the definition of relevant land for civil parking enforcement. That amendment did not abolish the Railway Byelaws, did not convert Byelaw penalties into civil charges and did not give private companies criminal enforcement powers. What it did do was create a clear civil route for parking enforcement if operators choose to use it. If an operator now wants keeper liability, it must issue a civil Parking Charge Notice and comply strictly with PoFA. If it chooses instead to issue a Penalty Notice under the Railway Byelaws, it is choosing the criminal route, where only a magistrates’ court can determine liability. POPLA cannot sit in the middle and do both.

Against that background, POPLA’s continued reliance on a non-binding 2018 policy letter to justify adjudicating criminally framed Penalty Notices is untenable. It is applying its own invented rules, based on analogy rather than law, in a context involving threats of criminal consequences. That is not within its published remit and not something the DfT ever authorised.

As a private company, Trust Alliance Group Limited is not immune from legal consequences if it misrepresents its authority, misstates the law or facilitates practices that mislead consumers about criminal liability. The publication of the POPLA/DfT correspondence makes clear that POPLA’s authority has been overstated and that its current position rests on interpretation rather than law. Consumers, operators and regulators should understand that POPLA is not a court, does not have criminal jurisdiction, and has no lawful basis to adjudicate Penalty Notices issued for alleged breaches of the Railway Byelaws.

This matters because the use of criminal language and threats of prosecution to coerce payment is a serious issue. Where a private appeals service lends credibility to that practice without lawful authority, it risks crossing from error into unlawfulness.

Here is some media people can use in their submissions, particularly with respect to the IPC and its "independent" appeals service (IAS) as compelling evidence for why nothing short of a truly independent external appeals service with truly impartial qualified adjudicators will suffice.

It also helps to evidence that competing appeals services has created a race to the bottom where the IPC is happy to fill the void and provide a pro-operator model that funnels second stage appeals to a dismissal enabling the debt recovery wheeze and the additional £70 out of thin air to be tacked onto PCNs, all to the detriment of consumers.

First, the laughable ownership structure of the IAS with regards to the IPC, UNITI and Will Hurley:

   

Second, the embarrassing adjudication outcome stats for the IAS vs POPLA (which time and again also makes fundamental errors).  The numbers below are all taken from the respective annual activity reports for those years.  The IAS now actually has all its activity reports online but only the years below actually include the relevant stats for adjudication outcomes for the IAS.  

Important note for these numbers:

For 2018, the IAS only listed the percentage outcome and not the absolute numbers so the ones shown here were back-calculated and may differ slightly from the true value (whatever they might be).

   

Also something else to include is the embarrassing IPC corporate slide deck from 2016 likely made to woo operators over to the IPC from the BPA.  Of particular note is slide 7 where the IPC slide deck proudly states how the IAS has a 95% average "success" rate for operators vs POPLA's lower "success" rate in adjudicating PCN appeals.  

   

The slideshow is available at:
https://www.imperial.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/IPC-membership-benefits.pptx

If that link magically stops working, I've made sure it is logged on the wayback machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250805234205/https://www.imperial.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/IPC-membership-benefits.pptx

You might note the slide deck's author is John Davies of Gladstones.

Type of parking ticket: Parking Charge Notice (PCN) or Charge Notice (CN)

Have you received a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) for an alleged contravention at an airport? Perhaps you were caught out by a barrierless pick-up or drop-off zone, forgot to pay an excessive fee, or later received a Notice to Keeper (NtK), or if the vehicle is leased or hired, a Notice to Hirer (NtH).

You are far from alone. Thousands of motorists are being caught by these schemes. What many do not realise is that airport PCNs issued by private parking companies are, in practice, unenforceable against the registered keeper, provided the driver is not identified.

There is no legal obligation to identify the driver. None.

In most cases, the NtK is sent to the registered keeper. If the vehicle is leased or hired, the hire company will usually transfer liability to the hirer, after which a fresh NtH is issued. At that point, the operator still does not know who the driver was. The only way they ever find out is if the recipient tells them.

Unfortunately, many people do exactly that, often unintentionally, by using “I” instead of referring to “the driver”. Once the driver is identified, the parking company finally has someone they can pursue.

This is a critical point: the only potentially liable party under contract law is the driver. There is no presumption in law that the registered keeper or hirer was the driver. That position has been clearly supported by persuasive authority. In VCS Ltd v Edward (2023) [H0KF6C9C], HHJ Gargan stated:

“…it is consistent with the appropriate probability analysis whereby simply because somebody is a registered keeper, it does not mean on balance of probability they were driving on this occasion, because one simply cannot tell.”

So how do private parking companies usually attempt to bypass this problem? Through the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA). Under PoFA, and only if strict statutory conditions are met, liability for an alleged contractual breach may be transferred from an unidentified driver to the registered keeper.

However, PoFA does not apply to land that is subject to statutory control. Airports fall squarely into that category, as they are governed by airport byelaws. As a result, airport land is not “relevant land” for the purposes of PoFA.

The consequence is straightforward: where an alleged contravention occurs at an airport, a private parking company has no lawful mechanism to pursue the registered keeper if the driver is not identified. They can only pursue the driver, whose identity they do not know.

Most motorists are unaware of this and either pay out of fear or inadvertently identify the driver, handing the operator exactly what it needs. If the driver is not identified, the operator is stuck.

I have a 100% success rate in appeals against airport PCNs on this basis alone. A simple appeal along the following lines is sufficient:

Quote:“I am the registered keeper. [Operator] cannot hold a registered keeper liable for any alleged contravention on land subject to statutory control. [Airport name] is not relevant land for the purposes of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.

If the airport wished to pursue liability under its byelaws, that would be a matter for the airport authority and would involve a statutory penalty payable to the public purse. That is not what is alleged here. Your charge is a private contractual claim pursued for your own commercial benefit, and can only ever attach to the driver.

The registered keeper cannot be presumed or inferred to have been the driver, nor pursued under any theory of agency. Your Notice to Keeper / Notice to Hirer is therefore incapable of establishing keeper liability. You have no realistic prospect of success at appeal and are invited to cancel the charge.”