10-17-2026, 08:32 PM
Just thought I'd post the details of a recent Parking Charge Notice (PCN) I received because it is a good example of why a private parking charge should not simply be looked at in terms of signage, payment or whether the operator has copied the usual Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA) wording onto its Notice to Keeper (NtK). Sometimes the much more important question is whether PoFA can apply to the land at all.
The PCN was issued by Horizon Parking for an alleged "Failure to Pay for Full Duration of Stay" at the Stena Line Holyhead – Terminal Drop Off Car Park on 27 June 2026. I am the registered keeper of the vehicle and received the postal NtK in that capacity. Irrespective of who was actually driving, the driver had gone to Holyhead Port to collect family members from the ferry terminal and the vehicle remained in the terminal pick-up/drop-off area for around 40 minutes.
Horizon NtK (Front)
As the Keeper, I did not identify the driver, nor was there any legal requirement for me to do so. My involvement throughout was solely as the registered keeper. That distinction became fundamental because Horizon could only hold me liable as Keeper if it satisfied the statutory requirements of PoFA.
At first glance this might have looked like a fairly ordinary ANPR parking case. Horizon claimed that payment had not been made for the full duration of the stay and its NtK contained the familiar PoFA wording purporting to transfer liability to me as the registered keeper if the driver was not named/identified. However, the location immediately raised a much more fundamental issue: Holyhead is a statutory harbour and the Port is subject to the Holyhead Harbour Byelaws.
Schedule 4 PoFA only provides a mechanism for transferring an unidentified driver's liability to a registered keeper where the parking took place on "relevant land". Land where parking is subject to statutory control is specifically excluded.
So my initial appeal was deliberately made as the registered keeper and focused on that issue. I told Horizon that the Terminal Drop Off Car Park was within Holyhead Port, that the Harbour Byelaws applied and that Horizon therefore had no right to use PoFA to hold me liable as keeper. I gave them no information about the driver's identity. The burden was on Horizon to establish a lawful basis for pursuing me, not on me to help Horizon identify whoever might have entered into the alleged parking contract.
Initial Appeal Text
Horizon did not answer the relevant-land point. Instead, its rejection simply repeated the usual template assertion that because it had not been provided with the driver's name and address, PoFA Schedule 4 allowed it to pursue me as the registered keeper.
Horizon Initial Appeal Response
That completely missed the point.
Not knowing who was driving does not itself create keeper liability. Before Horizon could rely on any of the keeper-liability machinery in PoFA, it first had to establish that Schedule 4 applied to the land in the first place. If the land was not "relevant land", there was no statutory transfer of liability to me regardless of how perfectly Horizon believed its NtK had been drafted.
The matter therefore eventually went to POPLA. My appeal again led with the same point: no keeper liability because the location was not relevant land for the purposes of PoFA Schedule 4. I uploaded a copy of the official Holyhead Harbour Byelaws with the appeal and put Horizon to strict proof of why it believed this land qualified as relevant land.
POPLA Appeal
I also challenged Horizon to produce its landowner authority, the precise boundary of the land it managed, any provisions dealing with applicable byelaws, the contractual terms it was authorised to impose and the signage actually in place.
Horizon then produced a 38-page evidence pack, and this is where things became particularly interesting. Instead of answering the relevant-land issue, its own evidence actually strengthened my case. Horizon's landowner authority stated:
In other words, Horizon itself confirmed the factual foundation of my appeal. (Duh!)
Horizon's mendacious evidence pack
Yet nowhere in those 38 pages did Horizon explain why this part of Holyhead Port supposedly fell outside the statutory harbour works, why the Holyhead Harbour Byelaws did not apply or why the land nevertheless qualified as "relevant land" for PoFA purposes.
It did not deny that the Byelaws applied. It did not produce a statutory or contractual boundary showing that the drop-off area was excluded. It did not explain why the provisions regulating vehicles within the harbour did not apply. It did not provide any reasoned legal argument whatsoever establishing that this was relevant land.
It simply repeated that the PCN was "PoFA compliant".
That is not an answer. A perfectly drafted PoFA NtK cannot create Keeper liability on land to which PoFA does not apply.
The omission was even more remarkable because the Private Parking Sector Single Code of Practice (PPSSCoP) requires an operator's landowner authority to identify the land being managed and any applicable byelaws. Horizon should therefore already have possessed the very information needed to answer my challenge.
Instead, it produced only a one-page 2022 "Agreed Form of Authority/Witness Statement", which itself referred to a separate agreement dated 23 June 2022. The actual agreement was not produced. There was no contractual boundary plan resolving the issue and nothing addressing the Holyhead Harbour Byelaws.
Horizon also stated in its evidence pack:
That was simply false. I had uploaded a copy of the official Holyhead Harbour Byelaws with my POPLA appeal. POPLA subsequently expressly confirmed in its decision that I had provided them.
Holyhead Harbour Byelaws
There were also substantial problems with Horizon's signage evidence. The photographs it relied upon were from 2023, almost three years before the parking event. Most were close-up photographs, which demonstrate what a sign says when somebody deliberately stands in front of it with a camera, but do not establish whether its terms were actually visible or readable from the route taken by the vehicle or from the pick-up point where it waited.
Later Google Street View imagery showed the entrance sign low down on railings and poorly aligned with the direction of travel. After entering, the vehicle turned immediately left into the pick-up area. There was no detailed contractual terms sign in the immediate vicinity and the nearest such sign was approximately 26 metres away.
Horizon's own photographs also appeared to show contradictory terms. One sign stated:
while another stated:
More significantly, the tariff sign upon which Horizon relied was headed:
Yet the PCN alleged:
That left Horizon with the rather obvious problem of establishing what contractual regime actually applied to an ordinary vehicle using the pick-up/drop-off area. Was 20 minutes an absolute maximum stay, or could an ordinary vehicle remain after 20 minutes by paying? Unsurprisingly, their own evidence did not provide a coherent answer.
Horizon then made another revealing mistake in its evidence pack. Although it acknowledged that the driver had not been identified, it asserted that:
There was no evidential basis for that assertion.
I was the appellant because I was the registered keeper. Horizon had no evidence identifying who had entered into any alleged contract with it. Being the registered keeper does not create a legal presumption that I was the driver.
This distinction was critical. Any contractual liability arising from the signage would ordinarily be the liability of the person who entered into that contract — the driver. Horizon could only transfer that liability to me as registered keeper by satisfying PoFA Schedule 4. If PoFA did not apply because this was not relevant land, Horizon could not simply bridge the gap by assuming that I must have been driving.
Rebuttal to Horizon's POPLA evidence
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C
Exhibit D
POPLA issued its decision on 15 October 2026. The assessor correctly identified the central issue. He recorded that my case was that the car park lay within Holyhead Harbour, where byelaws applied, and that Horizon therefore could not use PoFA to hold me liable as the registered keeper. Crucially, he noted:
The assessor also specifically noted that I had supplied the Harbour Byelaws, including Byelaw 39 concerning vehicles. He concluded that Horizon had failed to persuade him that the byelaws were not relevant to general parking at Holyhead Harbour and stated:
POPLA appeal result-successful. So the PCN was cancelled.
POPLA Decision
The important lesson from this case is that receiving an NtK as registered keeper does not mean that the Keeper must explain who was driving. Nor does the absence of an identified driver automatically entitle a parking operator to pursue the Keeper.
The operator first has to earn the statutory right to do so by satisfying PoFA Schedule 4, and one of the most fundamental requirements is that the parking occurred on "relevant land".
In my case Horizon was expressly challenged to prove that the Holyhead Port Terminal Drop Off Car Park was relevant land. Its own evidence confirmed that the site was Holyhead Port and that Stena Line Ports Ltd was the landowner, but Horizon then failed completely to explain why the Harbour Byelaws did not apply.
Once Horizon failed to establish PoFA keeper liability, it had no evidence identifying me as the person who entered into the alleged parking contract. POPLA correctly allowed my appeal.
Result: POPLA appeal successful – PCN cancelled.
The PCN was issued by Horizon Parking for an alleged "Failure to Pay for Full Duration of Stay" at the Stena Line Holyhead – Terminal Drop Off Car Park on 27 June 2026. I am the registered keeper of the vehicle and received the postal NtK in that capacity. Irrespective of who was actually driving, the driver had gone to Holyhead Port to collect family members from the ferry terminal and the vehicle remained in the terminal pick-up/drop-off area for around 40 minutes.
Horizon NtK (Front)
As the Keeper, I did not identify the driver, nor was there any legal requirement for me to do so. My involvement throughout was solely as the registered keeper. That distinction became fundamental because Horizon could only hold me liable as Keeper if it satisfied the statutory requirements of PoFA.
At first glance this might have looked like a fairly ordinary ANPR parking case. Horizon claimed that payment had not been made for the full duration of the stay and its NtK contained the familiar PoFA wording purporting to transfer liability to me as the registered keeper if the driver was not named/identified. However, the location immediately raised a much more fundamental issue: Holyhead is a statutory harbour and the Port is subject to the Holyhead Harbour Byelaws.
Schedule 4 PoFA only provides a mechanism for transferring an unidentified driver's liability to a registered keeper where the parking took place on "relevant land". Land where parking is subject to statutory control is specifically excluded.
So my initial appeal was deliberately made as the registered keeper and focused on that issue. I told Horizon that the Terminal Drop Off Car Park was within Holyhead Port, that the Harbour Byelaws applied and that Horizon therefore had no right to use PoFA to hold me liable as keeper. I gave them no information about the driver's identity. The burden was on Horizon to establish a lawful basis for pursuing me, not on me to help Horizon identify whoever might have entered into the alleged parking contract.
Initial Appeal Text
Horizon did not answer the relevant-land point. Instead, its rejection simply repeated the usual template assertion that because it had not been provided with the driver's name and address, PoFA Schedule 4 allowed it to pursue me as the registered keeper.
Horizon Initial Appeal Response
That completely missed the point.
Not knowing who was driving does not itself create keeper liability. Before Horizon could rely on any of the keeper-liability machinery in PoFA, it first had to establish that Schedule 4 applied to the land in the first place. If the land was not "relevant land", there was no statutory transfer of liability to me regardless of how perfectly Horizon believed its NtK had been drafted.
The matter therefore eventually went to POPLA. My appeal again led with the same point: no keeper liability because the location was not relevant land for the purposes of PoFA Schedule 4. I uploaded a copy of the official Holyhead Harbour Byelaws with the appeal and put Horizon to strict proof of why it believed this land qualified as relevant land.
POPLA Appeal
I also challenged Horizon to produce its landowner authority, the precise boundary of the land it managed, any provisions dealing with applicable byelaws, the contractual terms it was authorised to impose and the signage actually in place.
Horizon then produced a 38-page evidence pack, and this is where things became particularly interesting. Instead of answering the relevant-land issue, its own evidence actually strengthened my case. Horizon's landowner authority stated:
"The site is Holyhead Port" and identified "Stena Line Ports Limited" as "the legal landowner of the Site".
In other words, Horizon itself confirmed the factual foundation of my appeal. (Duh!)
Horizon's mendacious evidence pack
Yet nowhere in those 38 pages did Horizon explain why this part of Holyhead Port supposedly fell outside the statutory harbour works, why the Holyhead Harbour Byelaws did not apply or why the land nevertheless qualified as "relevant land" for PoFA purposes.
It did not deny that the Byelaws applied. It did not produce a statutory or contractual boundary showing that the drop-off area was excluded. It did not explain why the provisions regulating vehicles within the harbour did not apply. It did not provide any reasoned legal argument whatsoever establishing that this was relevant land.
It simply repeated that the PCN was "PoFA compliant".
That is not an answer. A perfectly drafted PoFA NtK cannot create Keeper liability on land to which PoFA does not apply.
The omission was even more remarkable because the Private Parking Sector Single Code of Practice (PPSSCoP) requires an operator's landowner authority to identify the land being managed and any applicable byelaws. Horizon should therefore already have possessed the very information needed to answer my challenge.
Instead, it produced only a one-page 2022 "Agreed Form of Authority/Witness Statement", which itself referred to a separate agreement dated 23 June 2022. The actual agreement was not produced. There was no contractual boundary plan resolving the issue and nothing addressing the Holyhead Harbour Byelaws.
Horizon also stated in its evidence pack:
"Evidence Provided by Appellant – No evidence provided."
That was simply false. I had uploaded a copy of the official Holyhead Harbour Byelaws with my POPLA appeal. POPLA subsequently expressly confirmed in its decision that I had provided them.
Holyhead Harbour Byelaws
There were also substantial problems with Horizon's signage evidence. The photographs it relied upon were from 2023, almost three years before the parking event. Most were close-up photographs, which demonstrate what a sign says when somebody deliberately stands in front of it with a camera, but do not establish whether its terms were actually visible or readable from the route taken by the vehicle or from the pick-up point where it waited.
Later Google Street View imagery showed the entrance sign low down on railings and poorly aligned with the direction of travel. After entering, the vehicle turned immediately left into the pick-up area. There was no detailed contractual terms sign in the immediate vicinity and the nearest such sign was approximately 26 metres away.
Horizon's own photographs also appeared to show contradictory terms. One sign stated:
"Drop Off Pick Up Only – MAX STAY 20 MINUTES"
while another stated:
"20 Minutes Free – Paid Thereafter".
More significantly, the tariff sign upon which Horizon relied was headed:
"Blue Badge Holders and EV Charging Only".
Yet the PCN alleged:
"Failure to Pay for Full Duration of Stay."
That left Horizon with the rather obvious problem of establishing what contractual regime actually applied to an ordinary vehicle using the pick-up/drop-off area. Was 20 minutes an absolute maximum stay, or could an ordinary vehicle remain after 20 minutes by paying? Unsurprisingly, their own evidence did not provide a coherent answer.
Horizon then made another revealing mistake in its evidence pack. Although it acknowledged that the driver had not been identified, it asserted that:
"the appellant entered a valid contract".
There was no evidential basis for that assertion.
I was the appellant because I was the registered keeper. Horizon had no evidence identifying who had entered into any alleged contract with it. Being the registered keeper does not create a legal presumption that I was the driver.
This distinction was critical. Any contractual liability arising from the signage would ordinarily be the liability of the person who entered into that contract — the driver. Horizon could only transfer that liability to me as registered keeper by satisfying PoFA Schedule 4. If PoFA did not apply because this was not relevant land, Horizon could not simply bridge the gap by assuming that I must have been driving.
Rebuttal to Horizon's POPLA evidence
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C
Exhibit D
POPLA issued its decision on 15 October 2026. The assessor correctly identified the central issue. He recorded that my case was that the car park lay within Holyhead Harbour, where byelaws applied, and that Horizon therefore could not use PoFA to hold me liable as the registered keeper. Crucially, he noted:
"I note the operator hasn't discussed this part of the appellant's appeal, only saying that they are using PoFA to hold the appellant liable as the registered keeper."
The assessor also specifically noted that I had supplied the Harbour Byelaws, including Byelaw 39 concerning vehicles. He concluded that Horizon had failed to persuade him that the byelaws were not relevant to general parking at Holyhead Harbour and stated:
"I am not satisfied that the operator can use PoFA to pursue the registered keeper of the vehicle, and therefore I allow this appeal."
POPLA appeal result-successful. So the PCN was cancelled.
POPLA Decision
The important lesson from this case is that receiving an NtK as registered keeper does not mean that the Keeper must explain who was driving. Nor does the absence of an identified driver automatically entitle a parking operator to pursue the Keeper.
The operator first has to earn the statutory right to do so by satisfying PoFA Schedule 4, and one of the most fundamental requirements is that the parking occurred on "relevant land".
In my case Horizon was expressly challenged to prove that the Holyhead Port Terminal Drop Off Car Park was relevant land. Its own evidence confirmed that the site was Holyhead Port and that Stena Line Ports Ltd was the landowner, but Horizon then failed completely to explain why the Harbour Byelaws did not apply.
Once Horizon failed to establish PoFA keeper liability, it had no evidence identifying me as the person who entered into the alleged parking contract. POPLA correctly allowed my appeal.
Result: POPLA appeal successful – PCN cancelled.
Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. - Mark Twain
