Parkingeye PCN: Passey Place Car Park - Ticket Not Purchased!

[Eryobotrya]

HELP!!

1. The car park is attached to the Eltham branch of Sainsburys.

2. The parking tariff is refunded if you spend £10 or more in store.

3. This wasn't a shopping trip. The driver's missus was attending a hospital appt. at the Eltham Community Hospital.

4. She has a 'blue badge', which she believed exempted her from normal parking charges.

5. The driver knew this was nonsense, but unfortunately didn't engage his grey matter sufficiently to challenge her baseless assumptions.

6. Consequently, no ticket was purchased.

7. You now have before you the result of the driver's own stupidity and lack of engagement with his missus' misapprehensions about her parking rights.

8. The driver is painfully aware that the PPC will just laugh at any appeal based on this set of circumstances. He would rather by-pass this stage altogether if legally feasible.

9. Although there must be signs all over the place, none were seen or read. The disabled bays were by the entrance, and the driver had no reason to seek them out.

10. The driver wonders if the invoice might be successfully challenged by arguing, for example, that there is no contract between him and the PPC.

11. Her misapprehensions arose from a tel/con. with Customer Services at Bexley Council, who assured her that no charges applied to her when using council-owned car parks.

12. It was also assumed that this car park was owned by Greenwich Council. Unfortunately:

"No, the Eltham Sainsbury’s car park (Passey Place) is not, and has not been, directly owned by Greenwich Council. It is owned and operated by the Greenwich Enterprise Board (GEB), a social enterprise and independent body, although the Council helped establish the GEB. It is technically private land, though open to the public."

Yes, the driver walked into this one. Any grounds for a defence? Any point in appealing when the driver knows any appeal will be rejected OOH?

Any help/advice greatly appreciated.

https://ibb.co/album/0DJXWq

[b789]

I still need the PCN details, assuming it was a postal Notice to Keeper (NtK).

I have fixed the bug that prevented you from using the PCN details summary form, so I would appreciate it if you could still complete that as it gives me a searchable record of the PCN details and where you are in the process.

[Eryobotrya]

Now having trouble finding the form.

[Eryobotrya]

When I click on your link for the form, I get this:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access this resource.Server unable to read htaccess file, denying access to be safe

Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Apache Server at gullibletree.com Port 443

[b789]

Apologies @Eryobotrya. That was my fault for not setting the correct permissions. I have now corrected the issue and tested that it is definitely now available:

The path is https://gullibletree.com/"Resources/articles"/"Tools & examples"/"PCN details form (beta)"

https://gullibletree.com/tools/pcnform_main.html

[Eryobotrya]

This case concerns a Parking Charge Notice (private parking firm) issued by ParkingEye Ltd, relating to an alleged contravention on Thursday, 12 March 2026. The notice itself is dated Monday, 16 March 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: Yes. The location is stated as Passey Place, Eltham.

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 Wednesday, 18 March 2026 (6 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:
Background summarised in my initial OP, and link to images of signage and PCN provided.

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

[b789]

@Eryobotrya, it would be useful to see both sides of the NtK, but I do know that it will not be fully PoFA compliant.

At this stage, the correct next step is to submit a short keeper appeal to ParkingEye, without identifying the driver.

The main reason to appeal now is not because ParkingEye are likely to cancel at first stage. They usually do not. The real purpose is to put down the keeper-liability point immediately, preserve the position, and force them to issue a POPLA code if they reject. In parallel, if there is a genuine Equality Act issue arising from disability, that should also be raised now in concise terms.

On the material currently described, the strongest point is the same one that succeeded in ParkingEye v Ghansah (2025) [M4FC56Q6], namely that the NtK does not contain the invitation to the keeper to pay required by PoFA paragraph 9(2)(e)(i). That is a county court win on the point, but it is not binding and not even persuasive authority in the strict sense. It is still useful because it shows ParkingEye have already been beaten on this exact defect.

As for likely progression, the realistic position is if ParkingEye reject, the matter may later be passed to DCB Legal. Where DCB Legal issue a single-PCN claim and a proper defence is filed, discontinuance is usual just before trial fee stage. However, in the possible event that ParkingEye litigate in their own name through their own legal team, the case is more likely to run further and may reach a hearing. So the correct approach is to prepare from the outset on the basis that it could ultimately require a defence.

The initial appeal should therefore be brief and controlled. It should say that the appellant is the registered keeper, that the driver will not be identified, that ParkingEye cannot transfer liability because the NtK does not comply with PoFA Schedule 4 paragraph 9(2)(e)(i), that any disability-related circumstances requiring reasonable adjustments must be considered if applicable, and that the charge must be cancelled or a POPLA code issued.

Use this:

PCN Ref: [pcn ref]
Vehicle VRM [VRM]

I am the registered keeper of the above vehicle. I am not obliged to identify the driver and decline to do so.

You cannot hold me liable as keeper because your Notice to Keeper does not satisfy the mandatory requirements for keeper liability under Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. In particular, it does not include the invitation to the keeper to pay required by paragraph 9(2)(e)(i).

You are well aware of this defect, it being the basis on which you lost ParkingEye Ltd v Ghansah, claim number M4FC56Q6, in December 2025. In those circumstances, this charge is denied.

If you contend otherwise, then please reject this appeal formally and provide a POPLA verification code. If you accept that you cannot rely on PoFA, then you should now cancel the charge.

Further, if this matter engages any duties under the Equality Act 2010, you are required to consider reasonable adjustments and review the charge accordingly.

Yours faithfully,

Do not embellish it. Do not identify who was driving. Do not give a narrative of what happened unless there is a very clear Equality Act point that positively helps and can be stated without identifying the driver.

After that, the likely sequence is rejection, then POPLA, then useless debt recovery letters, then possibly a Letter of Claim (LoC), then possibly a county court claim. Debt recovery letters can be safely ignored. An LoC must not be ignored. A claim must be defended.

The tactical position for this case at present is straightforward: submit the short keeper appeal now, preserve the PoFA point, reserve Equality Act matters if genuinely engaged, and expect that cancellation at first stage is unlikely.

[Eryobotrya]

Thx for the detailed advice and draft appeal.

it would be useful to see both sides of the NtK

Both sides are included in the link to ImgBB at the bottom of my OP, where I uploaded all the relevant docs. Just scroll down to the bottom of the document, and click on the two images at the very end. They are the two sides of the NtK. No other docs have been received to date.

[Eryobotrya]

... the NtK does not contain the invitation to the keeper to pay required by PoFA paragraph 9(2)(e)(i).

and

You cannot hold me liable as keeper because your Notice to Keeper does not satisfy the mandatory requirements for keeper liability under Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. In particular, it does not include the invitation to the keeper to pay required by paragraph 9(2)(e)(i).

Isn't that ground covered by the 2nd para. of the PoFA section on p.2 of their NtK, wherein they threaten to go after the keeper if they can't recover the charge from the driver?

[b789]

No. That is the wrong paragraph.

What they are pointing to is the warning under PoFA paragraph 9(2)(f), namely the warning that if the charge remains unpaid and the driver is not identified, the creditor may seek to recover it from the Keeper.

That is not the same as paragraph 9(2)(e), which is a separate mandatory requirement. Paragraph 9(2)(e) requires the notice to state that the creditor does not know both the driver’s name and current address for service, and then to invite the Keeper either to pay the charge or, if they were not the driver, to provide the driver’s name and address and pass the notice to the driver.

PoFA Schedule 4 paragraph 9(2) sets out a series of mandatory conditions in sub-paragraphs (a) to (i). Every one of them must be complied with if the operator wishes to transfer liability from the unknown driver to the Keeper. The operator cannot pick and choose which gateways to use and which to ignore. The NtK must be fully compliant with PoFA. Partial compliance is not enough. Mostly compliant is not enough. It is binary. Either the notice complies and Keeper liability can arise, or it does not comply and Keeper liability cannot arise.

To put it bluntly, it is like pregnancy. One cannot be partially or mostly pregnant. One either is or is not. The same applies here. A Notice to Keeper is either PoFA compliant or it is not. If even one of the mandatory requirements in paragraph 9(2)(a) to (i) is missing or defective, then Keeper liability fails.

So the answer is no: a paragraph 9(2)(f) warning does not cure the absence of the separate paragraph 9(2)(e) invitation. Both are required.

See why the judge threw out ParkingEye's case because of that failure here:

   

Here is a link to PoFA Schedule 4 if you are interested in the law behind it, have a careful read of paragraph 9(2):

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/201.../4/enacted