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+--- Thread: Received a PCN from MET at Stansted (or Gatwick)? (/showthread.php?tid=28)
Received a PCN from MET at Stansted (or Gatwick)? - b789 - 01-22-2026
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.