Good news, it was worth the POPLA appeal. Both appeals successful. Paste of POPLA findings below. DecisionSuccessful Assessor NamePaul Thompson Assessor summary of operator case The operator states that it issued the Parking Charge Notice (PCN) on the basis of not paying the appropriate parking time or by remaining in the car park for longer than permitted. Assessor summary of your case The appellant disputes that the operator has the relevant authority to operate on the private land. The appellant also considers the signage was inadequate in the dark conditions due to poor lighting and overgrown weeds. Assessor supporting rational for decision The operator has provided footage from the ANPR cameras showing the appellant’s vehicle entering the car park at 07:21 and exiting at 17:21 on 11 November 2015. The total time of the stay was 9 hours and 59 minutes. The appellant disputes that the operator has the relevant authority from the landowner to operate on the land. The appellant also considers the signage inadequate in dark conditions, due to poor lighting and overgrown weeds. Section 7 of the British Parking Association (BPA) code of practice requires operators to own the land or to have written authority from the landowner to operate on the land. As the operator has failed to provide any evidence in response to this ground of appeal, it has failed to prove that it has the required authority to operate on the land in question. I have not considered any other grounds for appeal, as they do not have any bearing on my decision. & DecisionSuccessful Assessor NameSamuel Connop Assessor summary of operator case The operator’s case is that the appellant had not paid for his time at the site. Assessor summary of your case The appellant’s case is that the lighting for the signage was insufficient, the small print is difficult to read, over grown plant obscured the signage, no illumination for the screen and pad and has questioned the landowner authority. Assessor supporting rational for decision While the appellant has raised more than one ground for appeal, my report will focus solely on land owner authority, as this supersedes the other aspects of the appeal. “Section 7 of the British Parking Association (BPA) code of practice requires Operators to own the land or to have written authority from the landowner to operate on the land.” As the Operator has failed to provide any sufficient evidence in response to this ground of appeal, it has failed to prove that it has the required authority to operate on the land in question. As such I have no requirements to take into consideration other points made by the appellant. Thanks for all your help.

Hello everyone, Sorry to be a pain but could you kindly look through the below which I'm going to send to POPLA as additional comments in reply to the evidence pack sent by PE. Apologies for the lateness but the 7 day period is up tomorrow and I held back on this as I was awaiting a response from Manchester city council on whether the PP has definitely expired (still not got it,grrr!) As well as these comments, I'll attach a copy of the aforementioned PP which I attached on here previously. I'd be grateful if you could let me know if there's anything I should remove or add to make the case as strong as possible. 'On further investigation with Manchester City Council it would seem the planning permission given on the 10th December 2010 was in fact only temporary and expired 10th December 2013 with no further permission applied for or accepted. As the planning permission has expired then there is no locus standi for Parking Eye in this matter as they cannot offer and you cannot enter into a lawful contract whilst failing to comply with planning law. The landlord of this property has also failed to comply with the written conditions of the planning permission ie. Conditions 4&5 as stated on the attached copy of the planning permission. 4) Within four weeks of this permission hereby approved, one of the fifteen parking bays approved within the car park shall be appropriately demarcated for the sole use by a disabled driver. Written confirmation that the appropriate surfacing and demarcation have taken place shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the City Council as Local Planning Authority once the works have been carried out. The car park shall then be retained as such thereafter at all times whilst the site is occupied. Reason - To ensure that parking space is allocated for use by a disabled driver pursuant to policy T2.6 of the City Council's Unitary Development Plan. 5) Within four weeks of this permission hereby approved, a scheme for the adequate and uniform lighting of the car park shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the City Council and shall be implemented in accordance with the approved details within 2 months of being approved. If when the lighting units hereby approved are illuminated they cause undue glare or light spillage to the detriment of any nearby properties, baffles and/or cut-offs shall be installed on the units and adjustments shall be made to the angle of the lighting units and the direction of illumination, which shall thereafter be retained in accordance with details which have received the prior written approval of the Local Planning Authority. Reason - In the interests of amenity, crime reduction and the personal safety of those using the proposed development in order to comply with the requirements of government guidance in Policies T1.8, H2.2 and E3.5 of the Unitary Development Plan for the City of Manchester. In addition to condition 5 as above, Greater Manchester Police also stated in 2009 that lighting should be provided to the car park to an adequate and uniform level as defined in BS5489 so as not to allow areas of pooling/shallowing. The complete lack of independent lighting for this car park is a key factor in why I’d misread the ‘Pay by Phone’ identification number on the inadequate signage. What Parking Eye have done is send you images of the signage as visible in clear daylight and not in any way a true representation of the pitch black signage and payment machines I encountered at 07.00am on a pitch black November morning. With no car park lighting and overgrown weeds blocking visibility of signage, the terms & conditions and more importantly the ‘Pay by Phone’ identification number which is over 10ft in the air (almost twice my height) and in a miniscule font size of less than an inch, becomes almost impossible to read, unless of course you are wearing infra red night vision goggles which also provide magnification. It would seem that Parking Eye are looking to make additional money from those with eyesight or mobility issues, as we can also see by the failure to adhere to allocating a disabled bay as requested in the written conditions of the planning permission. I also take great offence to the way Parking Eye have doctored the ANPR images of the entry of the vehicle to make it appear that it appeared in brighter light conditions. As you can see by the photographs I attached in my appeal, it is clearly of a pitch black nature at 07.00am in November. This is tantamount to criminal fraud by Parking Eye. The ANPR has already been proven to be unfit for purpose as I actually parked in this car park 5 times whilst paying bona fides for the SIP car park but only received 2 PCN’s. I would also re-iterate my initial statement , that the appellant does not believe that Parking Eye has a contract with the landowner where the landowner assigns the right to Parking Eye to make claims and take legal action in their own name and demands strict proof by sight of this contract between the landowner and Parking Eye.' Hope you can help please.

I've done a little digging around on the Manchester council website and found details of the planning permission and some other interesting stuff. Temporary permission given in Dec 2010 and permission expired Dec 2013. There are no further 'planning permission' details after the 2010 one. Key thing is that a number of the set out conditions have not been met, eg: 4) Within four weeks of this permission hereby approved, one of the fifteen parking bays approved within the car park shall be appropriately demarcated for the sole use by a disabled driver. Written confirmation that the appropriate surfacing and demarcation have taken place shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the City Council as Local Planning Authority once the works have been carried out. The car park shall then be retained as such thereafter at all times whilst the site is occupied. Reason - To ensure that parking space is allocated for use by a disabled driver pursuant to policy T2.6 of the City Council's Unitary Development Plan. 5) Within four weeks of this permission hereby approved, a scheme for the adequate and uniform lighting of the car park shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the City Council and shall be implemented in accordance with the approved details within 2 months of being approved. If when the lighting units hereby approved are illuminated they cause undue glare or light spillage to the detriment of any nearby properties, baffles and/or cut-offs shall be installed on the units and adjustments shall be made to the angle of the lighting units and the direction of illumination, which shall thereafter be retained in accordance with details which have received the prior written approval of the Local Planning Authority. Reason - In the interests of amenity, crime reduction and the personal safety of those using the proposed development in order to comply with the requirements of government guidance in Policies T1.8, H2.2 and E3.5 of the Unitary Development Plan for the City of Manchester. Also Greater Manchester Police also stated in 2009 that lighting should be provided to the car park to an adequate and uniform level as defined in BS5489 so as not to allow areas of pooling/shallowing. I've attached a few of the docs, please have a look through and see what you can find. Cheers. 73 Rochdale Rd plans on Manchester Council.pdf More Rochdale Rd info.pdf 73 Rochdale Rd planning permission consent.pdf 73 Rochdale Rd planning application.pdf

I believe the address to be: 73 Rochdale Road Manchester M4 4HY This address is also that of the Marble Arch Public House which is adjoining the car park. On the PE evidence it is given as the following Hallmark Developments Ltd Rochdale Road Car Park 73 Rochdale Road Manchester M4 4HY I previously found under the Manchester council list of properties getting small business relief rate dated 1st Dec 2015 (after the date), this address is under Euro Car Park (Euro Car Parks were the previously parking company that ran this car park about 2 years ago). Will try the council under the planning permission route but any more help you can give would be much appreciated. Cheers.

OK, finally got to grips with amending the PDF (great free tool on pdfbuddy, no doubt I'll end up with a load of spam though). Images from PE show the signage in clear daylight and also shows the sign that is obscured by weeds miraculously clear of them (even though it's still obscured by weeds). No evidence of a contract. Doctored photo. No picture of the ticketing machine. Evidence that I'd paid for the SIP car park in error instead of theirs, what do they car though (magic car can be in 2 places at once). See if you can pick out anything else and then we can plan the additional retort to POPLA. Thanks Erics Brother/DX/Mr.Dillo. PE_POPLA_appeal_1.pdf

I also love the way the PE clampits have artificially lightened up the ANPR photo of my cars arrival to make it look like it was clear daylight and not pitch black as was the case (and shown in the departure photo's).

Hello, Just working on blanking the PDF now. Here is a copy of what they stated re. contracts. Authority ParkingEye can confirm that the above site is on private land, is not council owned and that we have written authority to operate and issue Parking Charge Notices at this site from the landowner (or landowner’s agent). It must also be noted that any person who makes a contract in his own name without disclosing the existence of a principal, or who, though disclosing the fact that he is acting as an agent on behalf of a principal, renders himself personally liable on the contract, is entitled to enforce it against the other contracting party. (Fairlie v Fenton (1870) LR 5 Exch 169). It follows that a lawful contract between ParkingEye and the motorist will be enforceable by ParkingEye as a party to that contract. Looks like waffle to me but can someone more knowledgeable decipher. No actual evidence of any written authority within the pack. Cheers.

Hello Everybody, Back again unfortunately. Just had back the PE evidence for the POPLA appeals. As expected they've sent images of the images in full daylight glory and nothing of the sign with the plants in front of it or the unlit ticketing machines or signs. They also attached my original appeal on the basis that I'd paid the wrong car park (and strangely evidence that this was the case)??? How do I blank out info on a PDF? I've managed to do it on some text but where they've attached copied of docs I can't do it. I'd like to attach but obviously there's some personal data that you usually advise to blank out. Please advise so I can get this posted and hopefully we can pick some holes in it. Cheers.

Thanks for your help ericsbrother. POPLA appeal has now been submitted, fingers crossed. Will update on the outcome.

Thanks ericsbrother. So for point 2 just demand sight of contract as stated by yourself below and keep the other stuff out. Any help with a strong statement would be great. Do you think it's then good to go or does it need some fluffing out? Hoping all on CAG have a good new year.

Hello, So a basic trial run would be. 1. I believe the signage and overall keep of the aforementioned car park to be inadequate and misleading for a number of key reasons. a) The car park has no independent lighting and is reliant on illumination given by public highway lighting which faces away from the land. This means that in levels of extremely poor natural light eg. the time when my vehicle entered the car park that the signage is impossible to see clearly. A number of these signs are at particularly high levels and difficult to see even in clear daylight. Some of the 'small print' on these signs you need a magnifying device to see. For anyone who is visually or physically impaired this would be an even greater challenge. Images are provided as evidence of this. b) The growth of wild weeds on the car park, which I believe to be Japanese Knotweed has inhibited the view of some of the signage and made clear reading of the sign impossible. Images are provided as evidence of this. c) Illumination of the payment machine screen and keypad is non-existant outside daylight hours and therefore is actively encouraging the incorrect entering of registration numbers which of course benefits PE who will issue PCN's based on this. Images are provided as evidence of this. d) The car park is constantly contains rubbish which obscures the bay markings and obstructs the bays and again potentially provides a way of PE issuing PCN's. On these points alone I would expect to PCN to be cancelled with immediate effect. 2.I also have concerns that PE have a legal contract with the owner of this land to allow them to make civil claims in their own name. The only register on the Manchester City Council list of properties dated 1st Dec 2015 for this address, 73 Rochdale Road Manchester M4 4HY is for Euro Car Park adj 73 Rochdale Road Manchester M4 4HY. This I believe was the previous car park tenant for this property therefore giving reason that PE haven't correctly registered the usage of this land. Please provide proof through sight of contract that PE have lawful authority from the landowner to issue and pursue parking charge notices at this site. Please also provide proof that PE are also registered at this address under the correct business title as a small business and therefore able to trade accordingly. I would expect if PE are unable to provide the above that the PCN's are cancelled forthwith. Do I mention anything about my original reasons for appeal (paid incorrect car park on 'paybyphone')? Do I mention anything about the ANPR being unfit for purpose as it only twice out of 5 days. Which images do I attach? Trying to attach of the small business rate thingy. Hope you can help. [ATTACH]60720[/ATTACH]

Another 5 pics.

I just needed a bit of a steer to see am I flogging a dead horse or got a valid reason. Apologies for the shortness but the 14 day period is up today. 5 photo's attached, further 15 if you want to see them. Found the following under the Manchester council list of properties getting small business relief rate, this would relate to the parking eye car park. Address given as Euro car park?

The silence is deafening. Got to be honest, not a great deal of help from you.

Hello, Finally got some photo's of the car park. Please have a look through see if you can spot anything. Things to note. Car Park has no actual lighting of it's own. It's relying on public street lighting which is facing away from the car park. This means early morning/late night many of the signs are barely readable and the displays at the pay machine have no illumination so it's extremely difficult to read, impossible if you're visually impaired. One of the signs is part blocked by overgrown weeds, unable to read clearly. One of the signs part covers a vent from the adjoining pub. i asked at the adjoining pub and they had no idea who owned the land. I've dug around a bit and the post code which the car park is located on is M4 4HY. The Marble Arch pub on the adjoining left of the car park is no 73 Rochdale Rd, the Nip Inn convenience store on the adjoining right is no 85 Rochdale Rd. 75 Rochdale Road comes up on Parkopedia as an unknown pay and display car park, I've attached a map. However 75/77/79/81/83 doesn't seem to be registered as a car park under the Manchester City Council list of occupied business rate properties or it's local authority list. OK enough of the waffle, have I got anything to go on please.