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+--- Thread: Horizon parking (Double dip) (/showthread.php?tid=96)
Horizon parking (Double dip) - Foxy01 - 07-11-2026
This case concerns a Parking Charge Notice (private parking firm) issued by Horizon Parking Ltd, relating to an alleged contravention on Thursday, 25 June 2026. The notice itself is dated Wednesday, 01 July 2026, and I first became aware of it via received initial notice.
The notice appears to have been issued as By post (ANPR/camera). Driver identified status: NO. Equality Act considerations: No. The location is stated as Tesco, Burton on Trent.
A preliminary Protection of Freedoms Act (PoFA) assessment indicates COMPLIANT: Likely PoFA timing compliant for paragraph 9 (postal NtK, no windscreen NtD). Route applied: PoFA paragraph 9 (postal NtK, no windscreen NtD). The notice is treated as given on Friday, 03 July 2026 (8 days after the alleged event).
Current stage:
- Notice responded to: No
- Debt recovery letters: No
- Letter of Claim: No
- County Court claim: No
Additional notes provided:
This is a double dip incident. The vehicle is owned by a sole trader entity. There is tracking data from the day showing the vehicle made several movements to and from sites around Burton.
Please can I have advice on the strongest next steps and defence points for this case.
RE: Horizon parking (Double dip) - b789 - 07-12-2026
Hi @Foxy01. This is a strong ANPR double-dip case. The notice alleges one continuous stay from 09:03:13 until 18:28:43, a purported duration of approximately 9 hours 25 minutes.
The contemporaneous tracking record directly contradicts that allegation. It shows the vehicle:
- travelling 7.3 miles between 09:11 and 09:33;
- travelling another 10.4 miles between 09:55 and 10:40;
- making several further movements around Burton;
- remaining at another location between 11:01 and 18:12; and
- travelling again between 18:12 and 18:28.
The vehicle therefore plainly did not remain parked at Tesco throughout the alleged period. Horizon’s system has apparently paired the first entry of one visit with the final exit of a later visit while failing to record, recognise or correctly match the intervening exit and re-entry.
Submit a registered-keeper appeal to Horizon now. Do not identify the driver. Attach the tracking evidence, but obtain a stronger original export where possible showing:
- the vehicle registration or tracker/device allocation;
- full timestamps and GPS coordinates;
- a map of the journeys;
- the tracker provider’s name;
- any accompanying job sheets, delivery records, invoices or other contemporaneous business records.
The present tracking page is highly persuasive, but it does not visibly identify the vehicle or show the locations on a map. Horizon could attempt to exploit that omission. A provider-generated report directly linking the tracking device to the vehicle would make the evidence extremely difficult to dispute.
A parallel complaint should be made to Tesco, asking the store or its parking-management contact to instruct Horizon to cancel. Describe it specifically as a demonstrably false ANPR double-dip charge and attach the tracker report.
Quote:Dear Horizon Parking,
I appeal as the registered keeper. No admission is made as to the identity of the driver.
This Parking Charge Notice is the result of an obvious ANPR double-dip error. Your system has paired an entry recorded at 09:03:13 with an exit recorded at 18:28:43 and has incorrectly treated those two isolated camera events as evidence of one continuous parking period.
Contemporaneous vehicle-tracking evidence proves that the vehicle left the location shortly after the first visit and travelled extensively throughout the day. Among other movements, it travelled 7.3 miles between 09:11 and 09:33, a further 10.4 miles between 09:55 and 10:40, made several subsequent journeys around Burton-on-Trent, and travelled again between 18:12 and 18:28.
It was therefore physically impossible for the vehicle to have remained parked at Tesco for the period alleged. Your ANPR system has failed to record, recognise or correctly match an intervening exit and re-entry.
The attached tracking evidence conclusively disproves the allegation. The charge must be cancelled.
Before issuing any rejection, you are required to undertake a proper manual examination of all ANPR records relating to this vehicle on 25 June 2026. This must include any unmatched, orphaned, discarded or otherwise unpaired entry and exit images. Please preserve all relevant images, system logs, camera records and audit data.
The Notice to Keeper also fails properly to specify a period of parking as required by paragraph 9(2)(a) of Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. It merely provides two ANPR timestamps showing a vehicle passing cameras. Those timestamps are demonstrably not the beginning and end of one continuous period of parking.
This appeal is also formal notification that the ANPR-derived assertion that the vehicle remained at the site continuously is inaccurate. Horizon must correct that inaccurate record and cease processing the keeper’s data for the purpose of pursuing this false charge.
Please confirm cancellation. Should Horizon nevertheless reject the appeal, it must provide a POPLA verification code together with its complete explanation and evidence concerning the missing exit and re-entry records.
Yours faithfully,
Registered Keeper
Principal defence points if Horizon refuses cancellation
The primary defence is not merely that ANPR systems can make mistakes. It is that this particular allegation is affirmatively disproved by contemporaneous evidence. Horizon’s two photographs establish only that the vehicle passed cameras at two separate times. They do not establish that it remained on the land between those times.
The burden would remain upon Horizon to prove a continuous parking period and contractual breach. Once the tracking record demonstrates that the vehicle was travelling elsewhere, Horizon would have to explain why its system failed to capture or match the intervening movements and produce the underlying ANPR audit trail.
The additional points would be:
1. No continuous period of parking proved. Two isolated camera captures are not proof of continuous presence.
2. Failure of ANPR quality control. A reasonable manual review should have identified the possibility of two visits, particularly before alleging an implausibly long supermarket stay.
3. PoFA paragraph 9(2)(a). The notice gives camera entry and exit timestamps, not an actual period during which the vehicle was parked. This is a secondary argument rather than the main winning point.
4. Inaccurate data processing. Horizon is processing and pursuing an allegation founded upon an inaccurate ANPR interpretation after being supplied with evidence disproving it.
5. Landowner authority, signage and contractual terms. These should be reserved for a full POPLA appeal if necessary, but there is no reason to dilute the initial appeal when the double-dip evidence should dispose of the charge immediately.
Finally, a sole trader is not a separate legal entity from the individual operating the business. The appeal should therefore be made in the exact name shown on the Notice to Keeper—such as the individual’s name or “Name trading as Business”—rather than suggesting that a distinct company owns the vehicle.