30 min overstay

[Tezzy]

This case concerns a Parking Charge Notice (private parking firm) issued by Smart Parking Ltd, relating to an alleged contravention on Sunday, 12 July 2026. The notice itself is dated Tuesday, 28 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 The Embankment-Stratford upon Avon.

A preliminary Protection of Freedoms Act (PoFA) assessment indicates NON_COMPLIANT: Likely outside PoFA paragraph 9 timing window. Route applied: PoFA paragraph 9 (postal NtK, no windscreen NtD). The notice is treated as given on Thursday, 30 July 2026 (18 days after the alleged event). On this basis, keeper liability may not be established.

Current stage:
- Notice responded to: No
- Debt recovery letters: No
- Letter of Claim: No
- County Court claim: No

Additional notes provided:
Charge is for overstay of approx 30 mins. Paid for 2 hours via RingGo 07:52 - 09:52. ANPR time 07:50 - 10:23.  £100 reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days of issue. Letter received today 03/08/26

Please can I have advice on the strongest next steps and defence points for this case.

[Brenda_R2]

A private parking charge (Notice to Keeper under POFA 2012) must be served within 14 days of the alleged contravention for keeper liability to apply.

Yours appears to have been issued 16 days after the alleged contravention.

Ergo, no keeper liability can exist.

@b789 will be along shortly with an excellently worded reply you can use as an appeal.

To manage your expectations though - your appeal will almost certainly fail, not because it lacks merit but because this is all about revenue generation......buckle up, you're in for a ride that might well last a year and will involve all manner of threatening letters telling you your whole world is going to collapse around you if you don't cough up.

If they’re foolish enough to litigate, you win — because POFA is statutory law, not optional guidance.

Stay strong, this is easily winnable so long as you don't blab who the driver was; here, on Facebook, anywhere in fact.

[b789]

Wise words there from @Brenda_R2. @Tezzy, welcome to the forum. You are the proud recipient of a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) in the form of a Notice to Keeper (NtK).

The single most important mantra in this (and any other) case is to NEVER, EVER, identify the driver. The scammers at (not so) Smart Parking have absolutely no idea who the driver is. All they know is that you are the registered keeper. The ONLY way they could ever find out who the driver is, is if YOU tell them.

There is absolutely no legal obligation to identify the driver to an unregulated private parking firm. They are not allowed to assume or infer that because you are the Keeper that you therefore must also be the driver. They will try and intimidate you by saying otherwise, but all you have to remember is this is a firm of scammers who are only interested in your money.

The PCN is nothing but a speculative invoice for an alleged breach of contract by the driver. According to (not so) Smart Parking, the driver entered into a contract with them when they parked at the location. So, ONLY the driver can be liable. They do not know the name and address of the driver and so they have sent the invoice to you in the hope you will just pay it or give them the drivers details so they can pursue that unknown (to them) person.

There is a law in England and Wales called the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA). This law was enacted to give these parasitic parking firms an option to hold the Keeper of the vehicle liable if the driver is not identified. However, in order to be able to do so, they must FULLY comply with ALL the requirements of that Act. If they do, then they can hold the Keeper liable for the actions of the unknown (to them) driver.

In this case, they have not even attempted to try and use the Act. The most glaring failure to do so (to anyone familiar with the Act) is that they failed to serve (give) the NtK within the 14 relevant period. They must issue the NtK so that it can be given by post within 14 days of the alleged contravention. They must allow 2 working days for delivery. So, if the alleged contravention was on 12 July and the NtK was "issued" on Tuesday 28 July, it is deemed "given" on Thursday 30 July. That is 18 days after the alleged contravention and therefore not even close to the "relevant period" as mandated by PoFA.

On top of that, there is a whole host of other requirements that must be met if they intend to try and rely on PoFA to hold the Keeper liable for the charge. (Not so) Smart Parking have not even attempted to even try and rely on PoFA in this case.

So, whilst @Brenda_R2, is correct when they say that this is going to be a long drawn out affair, they are correct, because scamming firms like (not so) Smart Parking will hope that you are low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree and will eventually just give in and pay them anyway, out of ignorance and fear. The reason it takes so long, with very little effort required by you except patience and trust, is because the initial appeal is almost ALWAYS rejected. That is because there is no money in it for them if they accept the appeal.

Once the initial appeal is rejected, you move on to the secondary appeal with the IAS. The IAS is a kangaroo court. It is owned and operated by the same people that the parking firms pay membership to in order to be able to get DVLA Keeper data, the IPC. The IAS is another scam where adjudicators pretend to be qualified solicitors (they are not) and their sole reason d'être  is to look after their members income by rejecting over 95% of all appeals, irrespective of the argument.

Once that appeal is rejected, there is no legal obligation to pay. Any decision by the IAS is NOT binding on you. They will then start to send useless debt recovery letters. You need to understand that debt collectors are powerless to do anything except to also try and intimidate the low-hanging fruit into paying out of ignorance and fear. You can safely ignore the debt recovery letters. Use them as kindling or to line the bottom of a cat litter tray. Absolutely NOTHING will happen.

Eventually, they are most likely to use a firm of incompetent bulk litigation solicitors to issue a Letter of Claim (LoC) before they issue a county court claim in the small claims track. All this is designed to intimidate the victim into giving up and paying (by then) an increased amount. However, as I have already pointed out, the ONLY person that can be liable for the invoice is the driver. As the Keeper, there can be no liability. They know this but hope that you don't and which is why they will press on up until the very last moment before a hearing before a judge.

At this point, they will discontinue. It's just that the whole process takes a lot of time. WE are here to assist you through this process. You will learn some useful life lessons and why you should nt become that low-hanging fruit that they hope you are.

So, for the initial appeal, you do so ONLY as the Keeper. You only ever refer to the driver in the third person. No "I did this or that". only " the driver did this or that".

Do not select anything on their appeal website that infers that the appellant is the driver. You are ONLY appealing as the Keeper. If available, select "other":

I am the keeper of the vehicle and I dispute your 'parking charge'. I deny any liability or contractual agreement and I will be making a complaint about your predatory conduct to your client landowner.

As your Notice to Keeper (NtK) does not fully comply with ALL the requirements of PoFA 2012, you are unable to hold the keeper of the vehicle liable for the charge. Partial or even substantial compliance is not sufficient. There will be no admission as to who was driving and no inference or assumptions can be drawn. Smart Parking has relied on contract law allegations of breach against the driver only.

The registered keeper cannot be presumed or inferred to have been the driver, nor pursued under some twisted interpretation of the law of agency. Your NtK can only hold the driver liable. Smart Parking have little hope at IAS, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.

[Tezzy]

Thankyou @b789 and @Brenda_R2. You were quite correct and a reply (below) has been received. What would the next course of action be please? 

Thank you for your recent communication.
Having considered your appeal in detail we have decided to uphold the Parking Charge (PC) as we
believe that it was correctly issued in accordance with the terms and conditions advertised within the
area concerned. As your appeal was received within the initial discount period, we have extended the
discount period until 08/09/2026.
The PC was issued because the vehicle was parked in breach of the terms and conditions displayed
on signage at the location. After carefully reviewing the information you have provided, we are satisfied
that the PC was issued correctly and therefore your appeal has been unsuccessful.
You have confirmed that you are the registered keeper of the vehicle but have declined to identify the
driver at the time of the parking event. As the keeper, you were invited to provide the full name and
serviceable address of the driver if you were not the person in control of the vehicle on the date in
question. You have not done so.
While the provisions of Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4 relating to keeper liability do not
apply at this location, this does not prevent us from pursuing the individual who was responsible for the
vehicle at the time of the contravention. In the absence of driver details, and based on the information
available, we are entitled to reasonably infer that the keeper was also the driver. This position has been
supported in case law, including Elliott v Loake, where the court accepted that keeper responsibility
may give rise to a reasonable inference as to the identity of the driver when no alternative explanation
is provided.
You have not produced any evidence to demonstrate that you were not the driver, nor have you provided
the details of the person who was driving. Accordingly, we are satisfied on the balance of probabilities
that you were the driver at the time of the parking event and remain liable for the outstanding charge.
Having noted your comments, we are satisfied that the Parking Charge has been issued correctly and
your appeal is rejected.
We can confirm that the Parking Charge was issued due to insufficient paid time. Our payment system
shows that 120 minutes was purchased against vehicle however, your vehicle remained on site for a
total of 153 minutes. Additional time can be purchased at any point during your stay, before exiting the
car park. As your vehicle was parked in excess of the parking time purchased, the advertised terms and
conditions have been breached.
You have now reached the end of our internal appeals procedure and therefore you now have two
options, you can pay or appeal further with IAS – you cannot do both.

The Appellant has the right to appeal to an Independent Appeals Service, (IAS) using the instructions
below. Please note, should you decide to appeal to the IAS, and your appeal is subsequently rejected,
the option to pay a discounted amount will no longer be available and the full amount of the PC will be
due.
If the appellant decides to appeal to the IAS, they will need to visit the website, https://www.theias.org/
where further details of how to appeal can be found. The appellant has 28 days from the date of this
letter to submit an appeal to IAS.
Alternatively, your 3 payment options are:
• By Post: Please send a cheque or postal order (payable to Smart Parking Ltd) to Smart Parking
Ltd, Unit 43, Elmdon Trading Estate, Bickenhill Lane, Marston Green, Birmingham B37
7HE.
• By Web: To make a payment online with a debit or credit card, please visit
www.smartparking.com and have your Parking Charge number to hand.
• By Phone: Pay via our 24 hour automated telephone payment service on 0330 057 6230.
Please have your Parking Charge number to hand. Please note that calls to this number cost
up to 7p per minute, plus your phone company’s access charge.
Yours sincerely,
Smart Parking Limited

[b789]

@Tezzy, this rejection is exactly the sort of nonsense we expected from (not so) Smart Parking. It does not alter your position and it does not create any liability on your part as the Registered Keeper (RK).

The most important sentence in the rejection is this admission:

"The provisions of Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4 relating to keeper liability do not apply at this location."

That admission is fatal to any claim against you as Keeper.

The alleged parking contract could only have been entered into by the driver. The driver therefore remains the only person potentially liable for any alleged breach of that contract unless liability has been lawfully transferred to the Keeper under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA).

PoFA is the only statutory mechanism by which a private parking operator can transfer an unidentified driver's alleged liability to the (RK). It contains detailed and mandatory conditions which the operator must satisfy before that transfer can occur.

Here, (not so) Smart Parking has expressly admitted that Schedule 4 Keeper liability does not apply. In any event, its Notice to Keeper (NtK) was not even issued until 16 days after the alleged event and was not deemed delivered until 18 days afterwards, well outside the 14-day relevant period required for an ANPR postal notice.

Accordingly:

• the driver has not been identified;
  
• you have made no admission that you were driving;
  
• (not so) Smart Parking cannot rely upon PoFA;
  
• the driver's alleged liability has not transferred to you; and
  
• you have no liability merely because you are the registered keeper.
  
• The invented "keeper was probably the driver" argument
  

The invented "keeper was probably the driver”" argument

Having admitted that it cannot use PoFA, (not so) Smart Parking has attempted to manufacture an alternative form of Keeper liability. It says that because you are the Keeper and have declined to identify the driver, it may "reasonably infer" that you were driving.

That is a mendacious sham.

There is no legal presumption that a vehicle's RK was its driver. Nor is an RK legally required to identify the driver to an unregulated private parking company.

Your refusal to provide that information does not:

• identify you as the driver;
  
• make you responsible for the driver;
  
• make you a party to the driver's alleged contract;
  
• transfer the driver's alleged liability to you; or
  
• require you to prove that somebody else was driving.
  

The DVLA record proves only that you were the registered keeper. ANPR photographs showing the vehicle entering and leaving the car park prove only that the vehicle was present. Neither identifies the person driving it.

If a parking operator could avoid PoFA merely by saying, "The keeper has not named the driver, so we will treat the keeper as the driver", PoFA would be pointless. Parliament would not have needed to create a detailed statutory scheme governing the transfer of liability from an unknown driver to a known Keeper.

(not so) Smart Parking cannot obtain through an invented inference the precise transfer of liability that PoFA does not permit.

Why Elliott v Loake does not help them

(not so) Smart Parking's reliance upon Elliott v Loake [1982] Crim LR 36 is utterly ridiculous.

That case was not about private parking, Keeper liability or an alleged breach of contract. It was a criminal road-traffic prosecution arising from a collision after which the vehicle left the scene.

The prosecution possessed substantive evidence connecting Mr Elliott and his vehicle with the collision. That included forensic evidence concerning damage to the vehicle, evidence about his possession and control of it, and findings that the account he gave was untrue. The court reached its decision from the particular evidence in that criminal case.

The court did not decide that:

• every registered keeper is presumed to have been driving;
  
• a keeper's silence proves that the keeper was driving;
  
• a keeper must identify somebody else to avoid liability; or
  
• an unidentified driver's contractual liability automatically passes to the keeper.
  

None of the evidence present in Elliott v Loake exists here. There has been no collision, police investigation, forensic examination, demonstrably false account or other evidence identifying you as the driver. There is only a Registered Keeper who has exercised the perfectly lawful right not to identify the driver.

The former Lead Adjudicator of POPLA, barrister Henry Greenslade, explained the position unequivocally:

"There is no 'reasonable presumption' in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver. Operators should never suggest anything of the sort."

He also confirmed that a Keeper's failure to name the driver does not mean that the Keeper has accepted being the driver.

Consequently, Elliott v Loake has absolutely no relevance to this parking charge. (not so) Smart Parking is citing an unrelated criminal case and pretending that it established a rule which it did not establish.

What happens next

The next stage will be an appeal to the IAS, submitted within 28 days of the rejection. We will prepare that appeal separately. You must continue to act only as the Registered Keeper and must not identify the driver.

The IAS may allow the appeal. However, it is more likely to accept (not so) Smart Parking's contrived argument and reject it. The IAS is a kangaroo court and is about as corrupt as you can imagine.

An IAS rejection would not make the charge lawful, transfer liability to you or bind you. An IAS decision is only binding on the operator if the motorist wins but is not binding on the motorist if the operator wins.

If the IAS rejects the appeal, the usual sequence is likely to be:

• (not so) Smart Parking continues demanding payment.
  
• Powerless debt collectors send increasingly threatening debt recovery letters which can be safely ignored.
  
• The amount is artificially increased.
  
• A bulk-litigation solicitor may send a Letter of Claim (LoC).
  
• A county court claim might be issued as a further means of applying pressure.
  
• If properly defended, the claim is overwhelmingly likely to be discontinued before any hearing.
  

Debt collectors cannot determine liability, obtain a judgment, send bailiffs or affect your credit record. Their letters are simply powerless demands for payment designed to intimidate the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree into paying out of ignorance and fear. Just ignore them. Absolutely nothing can or will happen because of them.

A Letter of Claim or an actual county court claim must not be ignored, but we would deal with either if one arrived.

Why this will not reach a claim hearing

(not so) Smart Parking may conceivably issue a speculative claim because issuing claims is relatively cheap and many recipients just panic and pay. Issuing a claim does not mean that (not so) Smart Parking possesses a legally sustainable case or intends to place it before a judge.

To reach a hearing against you, (not so) Smart Parking would have to maintain that you were personally the driver despite having no evidence identifying you as such. Its entire case would rest upon:

• your status as registered keeper;
  
• your lawful refusal to identify the driver; and
  
• its misuse of Elliott v Loake.
  

That does not establish that you entered the alleged parking contract. Nor does it transfer the unknown driver's alleged liability to you.

Once a proper defence makes those defects explicit, (not so) Smart Parking and its solicitors would face the prospect of appearing before a judge and attempting to explain:

• why PoFA does not apply;
  
• why the driver remains unidentified;
  
• what actual evidence identifies you as the driver;
  
• how keeper status supposedly makes you a contracting party;
  
• why your refusal to name the driver supposedly creates liability; and
  
• why an unrelated criminal collision case is said to establish a presumption that does not exist.
  

They will have no satisfactory answers.

The commercial purpose of pursuing the charge is to frighten you into paying before judicial scrutiny becomes unavoidable. Once it becomes clear that you understand the distinction between driver and Keeper liability and will defend any claim properly, the commercial value of continuing disappears.

For that reason, although threatening debt recovery letters, a Letter of Claim or even a speculative county court claim are possible, this is not realistically going to reach a contested hearing. The highly likely endpoint, if (not so) Smart Parking persists that far, is discontinuance after a defence has been filed.

For now, there is nothing to worry about and nothing to pay. The immediate next step is the IAS appeal, which we will deal with separately.

[b789]

@Tezzy, use the following as your IAS appeal. You will need to create a PDF file which you will upload to the IAS appeal website. DO NOT select anything that identifies who was driving. Anything selectable that says "I was..." or I did..." must not be used. If possible, only select exclusive options that stay the appellant is the Keeper.

The biggest mistake people make when appealing is blabbing the drivers identity, inadvertently or otherwise. Never use "I did this or that", only "the driver did this or that".

In the appeal text box, simply say "See the attached/uploaded PDF file with my IAS appeal".

I appeal solely as the registered keeper of the vehicle. The driver has not been identified, and no admission is made concerning the driver's identity.

This appeal turns upon a single dispositive issue: the Operator has no lawful basis upon which to hold the registered keeper liable.

1. The Operator expressly disclaims keeper liability under PoFA

In its rejection letter, the Operator expressly states:

   "The provisions of Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4 relating to keeper liability do not apply at this location."

That admission is fatal to its case against the Appellant.

Any alleged parking contract was necessarily formed, if at all, by the conduct of the driver. Liability for any alleged breach therefore rests with that driver unless it has been lawfully transferred to the keeper under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 ("PoFA").

Schedule 4 is the statutory mechanism enacted by Parliament to permit recovery from a vehicle's keeper where the driver remains unidentified. That statutory transfer is conditional upon the Operator satisfying every one of the applicable mandatory requirements.

The Operator expressly admits that Schedule 4 keeper liability does not apply. The alleged liability therefore remains that of the unidentified driver and has not transferred to the Appellant.

The Operator cannot achieve through assertion, inference or evidential sleight of hand the very transfer of liability which Schedule 4 does not permit.

2. The Notice to Keeper was, in any event, served out of time

The alleged parking event occurred on 12 July 2026. The Notice to Keeper was dated 28 July 2026 and is deemed to have been delivered on 30 July 2026.

Paragraph 9(4) of Schedule 4 requires a postal Notice to Keeper to be delivered within the relevant period of 14 days beginning with the day after the specified period of parking ended. Paragraph 9(6) provides that a notice sent by post is presumed delivered on the second working day after posting.

The Notice was therefore delivered 18 days after the alleged event and outside the mandatory relevant period.

Accordingly, even if the location were relevant land for the purposes of Schedule 4—which the Operator expressly to denies—the Notice could not create keeper liability.

The position is therefore the same on either possible construction:

1. if Schedule 4 does not apply at the location, there can be no statutory keeper liability; or
   
2. if Schedule 4 could apply at the location, the Operator failed to deliver the Notice within the mandatory period and there can be no statutory keeper liability.
   

There is no third route by which the unidentified driver's alleged liability may be transferred to the keeper.

3. Keeper status is not evidence of driver identity

The Operator knows only that the Appellant is the registered keeper. That establishes nothing about the identity of the driver on 12 July 2026.

The DVLA keeper record identifies the person registered as keeping the vehicle. It does not identify who drove it on any particular occasion. Likewise, ANPR images identify a vehicle and its registration mark; they do not identify its driver.

There is no legal presumption that the registered keeper was the driver. Nor is the keeper subject to any statutory obligation to identify the driver to a private parking operator.

The Appellant's lawful refusal to identify the driver:

• is not an admission of driving;
  
• is not evidence of driving;
  
• does not make the Appellant a party to the alleged contract;
  
• does not reverse the burden of proof; and
  
• does not transfer the driver's alleged liability to the keeper.
  

The Operator's suggestion that the keeper must either identify the driver or produce evidence showing that the keeper was not driving is a reversal of the proper legal position. The Appellant is not required to disprove an unsupported allegation. It is for the Operator to establish a lawful cause of action against the person pursued.

The Operator has produced no evidence identifying the Appellant as the driver. It is instead attempting to convert the absence of driver information into evidence that the keeper was driving. Silence is not evidence, and the absence of information identifying another person does not identify the Appellant.

4. Elliott v Loake is wholly inapplicable

The Operator relies upon Elliott v Loake [1983] Crim LR 36. That reliance is legally misconceived.

Elliott v Loake was not a private parking case, a contractual dispute or a case concerning statutory keeper liability. It arose from a criminal road-traffic prosecution following a collision from which a vehicle had left the scene.

The prosecution in that case possessed substantive evidence connecting Mr Elliott and his vehicle with the collision. In particular:

• forensic evidence demonstrated that debris recovered from the scene matched Mr Elliott's damaged vehicle;
  
• the evidence established that his vehicle had been involved in the collision;
  
• Mr Elliott had possession and control of the vehicle;
  
• he stated that nobody else had permission to use it; and
  
• his explanation concerning the damage was found to be untrue.
  

The court held that there was ample evidence upon which the justices were entitled to conclude that Mr Elliott had been driving. The conclusion arose from the particular and compelling evidence in that criminal prosecution.

The case did not establish any general proposition that:

• the registered keeper of a vehicle is presumed to be its driver;
  
• keeper status constitutes evidence of driver identity;
  
• a keeper's refusal to name the driver permits the keeper to be treated as the driver;
  
• the keeper must prove that another person was driving; or
  
• liability under a private contract may be transferred from an unidentified driver to the keeper without compliance with PoFA.
  

None of the evidence present in Elliott v Loake exists here. There has been no collision, police investigation, forensic examination, demonstrably false account or evidence concerning exclusive possession of the vehicle. The Operator has merely obtained the Appellant's registered keeper details from the DVLA and is attempting to use those details as a substitute for evidence of driver identity.

That is not what Elliott v Loake decided.

The Operator has cited an unrelated criminal case and attributed to it a legal presumption which it does not establish. Its reliance upon that authority is therefore entirely misplaced.

5. The Operator's construction would render Schedule 4 redundant

The Operator's argument is also inconsistent with the existence and purpose of Schedule 4 itself.

Parliament enacted a detailed statutory scheme permitting an operator, subject to strict conditions, to recover an unpaid parking charge from a keeper where the driver is not identified.

If an operator could disregard those conditions and obtain the same result simply by asserting that the keeper must have been the driver unless the keeper identified somebody else, Schedule 4 would serve no purpose. Every operator could circumvent Parliament's requirements by declining to rely upon PoFA and substituting an allegation that the keeper was driving.

That cannot be correct.

Schedule 4 does not merely provide one optional evidential argument among several equivalent methods of imposing liability upon a keeper. It provides the statutory means by which an unidentified driver's alleged parking liability may be transferred to the keeper.

The Operator has admitted that the statutory mechanism does not apply. It cannot reproduce the same transfer by inventing a presumption of driver identity.

6. No cause of action has been established against the Appellant

The Operator's case amounts to the following:

1. an unidentified person allegedly entered into a parking contract as driver;
   
2. the Operator obtained the Appellant's details because the Appellant was the registered keeper;
   
3. the Operator cannot rely upon Schedule 4 to transfer the driver's alleged liability to the Appellant;
   
4. the Appellant lawfully declined to identify the driver; and
   
5. the Operator has therefore chosen to assert that the Appellant was driving.
   

That final assertion does not follow from the preceding facts. It is unsupported by evidence and is plainly intended to circumvent the absence of keeper liability.

The Operator cannot hold the Appellant liable as keeper because it has expressly disclaimed Schedule 4. It has not identified the Appellant as the driver and has produced no evidence that the Appellant entered into the alleged parking contract.

The Operator has therefore failed to establish any lawful basis upon which the Appellant could be liable.

The appeal must be allowed and the Parking Charge cancelled.

Further and alternative grounds

Without prejudice to the primary and dispositive ground that the Appellant cannot be held liable as keeper, the Operator is put to strict proof of the following matters.

1. Status and control of the land

The location adjoins the council-owned Recreation Ground Car Park and Swans Nest Lane Car Park, both of which are governed by the Stratford-on-Avon District Council (Off-Street Parking Places) Order 2023, made under section 35 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.

The Operator's express statement that Schedule 4 PoFA does not apply "at this location" strongly suggests that the land is subject to statutory control and is not relevant land.

The Operator must produce a precise boundary plan identifying the land monitored by its ANPR system and explain:

• who owned and controlled that land on 12 July 2026;
  
• whether it formed part of either council car park;
  
• whether it was governed by the 2023 Order or any other statutory provision; and
  
• why the Operator expressly states that Schedule 4 does not apply there.
  

2. Standing and authority

The Operator is put to strict proof of its standing to offer parking contracts and recover parking charges in its own name.

It must produce the contemporaneous, unredacted landowner or occupier agreement showing:

• the identity of the contracting landowner or lawful occupier;
  
• the precise land covered by the agreement;
  
• the duration of the agreement;
  
• the restrictions and tariffs it was authorised to impose; and
  
• its authority to issue and litigate parking charges in its own name.
  

The existence of signs, payment equipment or an assertion that authority exists is not evidence of the required standing.

3. Signage and contractual terms

The Operator must produce contemporaneous evidence of every sign relied upon, including:

• the entrance sign;
  
• the complete wording of every contractual sign;
  
• the tariff and RingGo instructions displayed;
  
• the location, height and orientation of each sign;
  
• a site plan showing the signs in relation to the parking spaces and ANPR cameras; and
  
• evidence that the material terms were sufficiently prominent to be read before any alleged contract was formed.
  

Undated close-up photographs of isolated signs would not establish what signs were present, where they were positioned or whether their terms were visible to the driver on the material date.

4. No proven period of parking

The ANPR timestamps record only when the vehicle passed the entrance and exit cameras. They do not establish when the vehicle was parked, when any terms were read and accepted, or when the vehicle left its parking space.

The Operator cannot simply treat the entire 153-minute camera-to-camera interval as a period of parking. It must establish the actual period parked and the contractual basis upon which that period is calculated.

5. Consideration and grace periods

The Operator must demonstrate that it allowed the applicable consideration and grace periods, including reasonable time to:

• enter the site and locate a space;
  
• park and read the contractual terms;
  
• complete payment through RingGo;
  
• return to the vehicle after the paid period; and
  
• leave the car park.
  

The Operator must not include those non-parking activities within the alleged overstay merely because the vehicle remained somewhere within the camera-controlled boundary.

6. Proof of the alleged breach

The Operator must produce the complete RingGo transaction record and the contractual terms applying at the location on 12 July 2026. It must establish:

• when the contractual parking period commenced;
  
• whether it commenced upon entry, parking or payment;
  
• when it expired;
  
• how additional time could allegedly be purchased;
  
• how that facility was communicated to the driver; and
  
• the precise contractual term said to entitle the Operator to demand £100.
  

These additional grounds are advanced without identifying the driver, admitting that the Appellant was driving, or conceding that any contract was formed.

[Tezzy]

@b789 That is Awesome, thank you. The appeal via the IAS website has been started but the website is awful! So many hoops to jump thru & so many terms and conditions to accept etc. There is an email address  "adr@theias.org" would you advise against sending the PDF directly there? Many thanks

[b789]

I would advise that you just jump through the hoops and submit the appeal through their website. As long as you don’t fall into any of the traps that try to get the appellant to admit to driving. Also, don’t give them your phone number. Just an email address. You can put a fake phone number in to get past the requirement to put something in that box.