PCN Civil Enforcement Spring Hall Medical Practice, Halifax

[b789]

Do not select any of those options if none of them accurately applies. That appeal menu is plainly designed around driver-based excuses and does not provide any proper option for a registered keeper appeal based on PoFA, signage, contract formation, lack of evidence, or no keeper liability.

You should take a screenshot of that page and keep it. It may be useful later at POPLA because it shows that Civil Enforcement’s online appeal process obstructs a proper keeper appeal and tries to funnel appellants into options that either imply driver identity or concede facts.

You should send it by email as part of a formal complaint. Under the PPSCoP, where a complaint concerns the validity or handling of a parking charge, the operator must treat it as an appeal where appropriate.

Subject: Formal complaint and registered keeper appeal – PCN [insert PCN number]

Dear Civil Enforcement Ltd,

I write as the registered keeper.

This is both a formal complaint and a registered keeper appeal against the above Parking Charge Notice.

I attempted to use your online appeal portal. However, your mandatory drop-down menu does not provide any applicable option for a registered keeper appeal disputing keeper liability, PoFA compliance, signage, contract formation, lack of evidence, or failure to specify a period of parking. The available options appear to be designed around driver-based admissions or irrelevant factual excuses. I will not select an inaccurate option or make any statement that may misrepresent my position.

As this complaint directly concerns the issue, validity and enforceability of the Parking Charge Notice, you are required to treat it as an appeal in accordance with the Private Parking Single Code of Practice section 11.2.

Liability is denied. I am not obliged to identify the driver and I will not be doing so.

The Notice to Keeper does not comply with Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. In particular, it fails to specify the “period of parking” required by paragraph 9(2)(a). The notice merely gives “From” and “To” times which appear to be ANPR entry and exit timestamps. Time on site is not the same as a period of parking. ANPR images of a vehicle entering and leaving do not prove when, where, or for how long the vehicle was parked.

The alleged contravention is stated as “Permit Holders Only”. However, the evidence shown on the notice consists only of entry and exit images. That does not prove that the vehicle was parked in breach of any displayed term. It does not show the location of any alleged parking, the signs in place, the visibility of those signs, the terms relied upon, or that any contractual offer was made to and accepted by the driver.

Further, “Permit Holders Only” wording is, on its face, prohibitory. You are put to strict proof that the signage at the material location was capable of creating a contractual offer to a non-permit holder, rather than merely forbidding parking by unauthorised vehicles.

You are also required to explain why your online appeal process does not provide a suitable option for a registered keeper appeal based on PoFA, signage, contract formation or no keeper liability, and why a keeper should be forced to select an inaccurate or irrelevant option in order to access the appeal process.

For the avoidance of doubt, I require you to cancel this Parking Charge Notice.

If you reject this appeal, you must issue a POPLA code.

Yours faithfully,

[Registered keeper’s name]

Email it to complaints@ce-service.co.uk and CC it to office@ce-service.co.uk and yourself.

Civil Enforcement’s own complaints policy says complaints must be made in writing and that a complaint concerning a parking charge can be processed with the complainant’s full name and valid email address. Their site tries to push appeals through the online appeal portal, but that is precisely the problem here because the portal gives no valid keeper appeal option.