PPS - Parking in No Parking area - Uxbridge Industrial Estate

[TheParkingmeister]

This place might ring a bell. I posted on FTLA about one here at the start of last year, and there were a few other posts regarding this location, including one poster who had an unsuccessful POPLA appeal but had an admission from Flexible Resolution Services that it was essentially the wrong decision.

With that in mind, I'm wondering how best to tackle this.

The NtK has no period of parking specified but has a time of 14:47 and the two timestamped images show 14:40:31 and 14:40:41.

On their online portal there were 10 photos with timestamps from 14:40:31 to 14:48:05, but the last one with the vehicle in was timestamped 14:47:02. The two after were photos of some signage. I have included the first and last photos of the vehicle with livery and reg edited out (images inbetween are just more images of the vehicle), and the two photos of signage as well as the NtK at the link below:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1...ayBDn42kik

- The NtK fails to SPECIFY a Period of Parking
- The photos show the vehicle there for 6 mins 32 seconds.
- The signage is purely prohibitory, "No parking, waiting, loading or unloading on roads at any time." Etc. So there is no offer to park under certain terms and so no basis of a contract.
- This prohibition is also not prominent on the signage and can not be read whilst driving. Stopping is certainly required to do so.
- The relevant land is stated to be "UXBRIDGE IND EST, Wallingford Rd, Salisbury Rd, Arundel Rd, UXBRIDGE, UB8 2RZ". The vehicle was stopped outside Tomato Plant Limited UB8 2SR.

As I was typing this I remembered I have the evidence from last time.

Including:
- their contract with "TRADE SALES";
- their signage which I suspect is in breach of section 3 and Annex A of PPSSCOP.
- their signage site map.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1...XHBKjF9N8Y

[b789]

Hi @TheParkingmeister. Can you please do me a favour and fill out the PCN details form here and paste the summary so I have a separate record of this PCN.

Uxbridge Industrial Estate is a very well known entrapment site. The PCN appears seriously flawed. The Notice to Keeper (NtK) does not specify any period of parking, so there is an obvious PoFA 9(2)(a) failure. The location is also not identified with any proper precision, and the signage is prohibitory and therefore incapable of forming any contractual offer in the first place. On paper, those are strong points.

The problem is that this is not really a case that is likely to be killed off at the appeal stage. An initial appeal is still worth doing to set the position down, but POPLA is not a forum I would place any faith in here. Even where the legal defects are obvious, POPLA too often waves these cases through regardless. In reality, this is the sort of charge that would stand the best chance of being defeated only if the matter ever reached a defended court claim.

That, however, is where the Catch-22 comes in. The registered keeper is the employer, and if they have already made clear that they will not tolerate debt recovery letters and will simply pay and pass the cost onto the driver, then the case is likely to be frustrated before it ever reaches the only stage where it could properly be beaten. In other words, there may be a good defence in law, but the employer’s commercial attitude is likely to prevent the matter ever getting to the stage where that defence could be used.

So the realistic advice is this: submit a proper initial appeal to preserve the points and see whether PPS folds, but the driver needs to understand that, unless the employer is willing to hold firm beyond the debt collector stage, this will probably end up being paid regardless of the legal merits.

[TheParkingmeister]

Much appreciated. Obviously not what I wpuld like to do lol, but given the unpredictable nature of POPLA, it is probably the best option

[TheParkingmeister]

I appealed it to POPLA as the driver was collecting waste from a skip site there. 

Today, to my surprise, the appeal was accepted by an assessor called Matthew Woodhouse, who said: "This decision relates to PCN: 1112601330 It is the operator’s responsibility to demonstrate to POPLA that they have issued the PCN correctly. I am allowing this appeal, with my reasoning outlined below: In this case, the appellant has challenged the operator’s authority to manage this site, and then advised in their comments that the operator hasn’t provided a contract or witness statement to rebut that appeal point. On reviewing the operator’s evidence pack, I concur with the appellant that the operator hasn’t provided a witness statement or contract to show that they are authorised to manage, and issue PCNs for, this site. As the operator hasn’t provided evidence to rebut the appellant’s appeal, I am allowing this appeal. I note the appellant has raised further grounds of appeal, however, as I am allowing this appeal I do not need to consider those further grounds."

Earlier in the day he had assessed my four PPM appeals, and he accepted all four. I also had a London Tribunal hearing today against a Hounslow PCN, which was also accepted. So, a good day all-round.

[b789]

@TheParkingmeister, that's good news. There are a few POPLA assessors who appear willing to properly scrutinise the operator's evidence rather than simply assume everything asserted by the operator is correct.

Standing is often a surprisingly effective appeal point. Unfortunately, too many assessors will accept a generic witness statement at face value, without requiring production of the underlying contract, or will reason that because signs and cameras are present, the operator must have authority because no landowner would permit them to operate on their land otherwise.

Of course, neither proposition follows logically. The burden rests with the operator to prove it has the necessary authority. The existence of signs and cameras is not evidence of contractual standing, and a witness statement is only as good as the facts it actually proves.

It sounds as though Matthew Woodhouse correctly recognised that the operator had simply failed to discharge that burden.

[TheParkingmeister]

I just realised that was the assessor decision reasoning for the PPM appeals. All four were pretty much the same. 

The reasoning for this PPS decision wasn't regarding the landowner authority, but the adequacy of signage. The assesor wrote: "This decision relates to PCN: 810897232 It is the operator’s responsibility to demonstrate to POPLA that they have issued the PCN correctly. I am allowing this appeal, with my reasoning outlined below: In this case, the appellant has challenged the signage. There is a sign visible in the warden’s photo, which appears to be a couple of vehicle lengths behind the lorry, and angled slightly away, so the driver wouldn’t necessarily realise that it was something they needed to approach and read. The site map indicates that there are two signs on the other side of the road from where the lorry is parked, though these signs can’t be seen in the warden’s photos, causing doubt as to whether the signs are actually in place. Due to the above, I consider that the operator has not sufficiently rebutted the appellant’s ground and shown that the terms were adequately brought to the motorist’s attention. Therefore I allow this appeal."

[b789]

@TheParkingmeister, so the PPM POPLA decisions based on standing/authority are really a separate issue from this thread.

Am I right in understanding that the POPLA appeal for this PPS case was allowed solely on signage grounds?

If so, that's actually quite refreshing to see. Many assessors simply accept the operator's site plan and stock photographs at face value. This assessor appears to have looked at the actual circumstances from the driver's perspective and recognised that the existence of a sign somewhere on a site map does not prove that the terms were adequately brought to the motorist's attention.

The observation that the visible sign was positioned behind the vehicle and angled away from it, coupled with the lack of evidence that the other signs were actually present, seems a perfectly sensible application of the burden of proof. The operator was required to demonstrate that the terms were sufficiently prominent and failed to do so.

Also, could you start a new thread regarding the PPM case referred to yesterday (no contract/standing/authoriy) so that I can know the location and the details behind that PCN?