Ethical parking Windscreen PCN - no Permit - Oaklands Mental Hospital **Resolved by PALS**

[badgirl81]

Hi,

 

Back in December of last year i received a Contractual Breach Charge

(fancy name for parking ticket) in a FREE hospital car park, £100 or £60 if paid within 2 weeks)

 

The conditions of the car park is that you get a permit to put in windscreen,

the first day that was fine,

i collected it from reception and that was that,

 

the second day i visited was the Sunday, reception was closed,

no sign to say where to get permit from, just signs that say you needed one.

I went in (couldn't ask a member of staff what to do for a couple of reasons) went out and bam.. ticket on car.

 

The next day i went to the hospital i asked lady at reception and she said, you are meant to collect permits from the building next door when reception is closed. I appealed the ticket.. refused as expected. I then appealed to POPLA and that was also rejected. Them saying that regardless of the circumstances that i gave for not having a permit, the fact i parked there i entered the contract and so they have to refuse the appeal, they also stated that on the car park sign that stated you needed a permit (but not where to get it from) there is a helpline i should have rung.. That is all well and good but the helpline was closed at the time i parked.

 

Aswell as all this i was also suffering badly from mental illness so wasn't completely thinking straight anyway.

 

 

A couple of weeks ago i got a letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd saying that the debt is now £160

and that failure to pay will result in another letter and an increase in the charge cost.

 

 

I just tried to ring to ask if a freeze could be put on the fine for a couple of reasons,

including that i don't currently work as am off work sick with mental health issues

and the bloke on phone had a go at me, said i shouldn't have parked there

or i should have just paid the initial charge. Which has left me crying and shaking,

 

 

I don't feel i should pay this fine as i feel it is extremely unfair

but i am scared witless about the charge getting bigger

and having people turn up at my mums house to collect the fine.

But i also don't have the money to pay it.

 

Does anyone know for a FACT what will or can happen and what i should do please as i am desperate

[dx100uk]

who the PPC

[i hate bailiffs]

Debt recovery can do nothing they can add as many fees on as they like

 

Do not phone them you have ignored it this long so ignore some More

If anyone did turn up at your door I doubt they will tell them to go away

 

It is not a fine none of the money goes to the NHS the hospital and car park built using tax payers money to let a private company try to con people

 

The loss is zero you owe nothing

[dx100uk]

one last point

its is NOT A FINE

 

 

its a speculative invoice

an no you cant get bailiffs on this either

 

 

is this an Ethical parking breach charge

[silverfox1961]

Hi

To help us help you, can you give us the answers to these questions.

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?462118-Have-you-received-a-Parking-Ticket&p=4883055&viewfull=1#post4883055

 

Are you able to go back and take pictures of the signs then post them up here.

 

Please name the company as we can get information of whether they take court action or not.

 

I would complain to the hospital as well as they didn't advise where to go when reception was closed. I would also remind the hospital of the guidance issued by the government on parking charges.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-patient-visitor-and-staff-car-parking-principles/nhs-patient-visitor-and-staff-car-parking-principles

 

You were there for a legitimate purpose and not for just somewhere to park and as such the hospital must take some responsibility.

[badgirl81]

not sure what PPC stands for but if you are asking what company,

its a company called Ethical parking management

 

It was a ticket on windscreen.

Date was 20/12/15.

The company is Ethical Parking Management (EPM).

The ticket is called a Contractual Breach Charge (CBC)

 

I appealed to them

in the reply from them they sent photos of my car parked in the bay ( i don't dispute that i was parked there)

and them saying that they can't cancel the charge as i was parked there and the parking officer saw no ticket.

 

 

They gave me the website address to appeal to POPLA,

at no time have i been able to see anything mentioned about the schedule 4 thing.

I have photos of the sign they have in the car park.

will try and work out ow to post it up here.

[armadillo71]

Do not engage in any contact with DR+.

 

Which hospital trust was this please?

[dx100uk]

upload

[badgirl81]

I tried ringing DR+ yesterday but the man was just rude and abusive, will that hurt my case? It was Oaklands Mental Hospital in Chichester so pretty sure it is Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

[dx100uk]

no wont hurt

simply ignore the DCA

they are NOT BAILIFFS

no powers at all

 

 

dx

[badgirl81]

How do i post a picture on here?

 

I am hoping these pictures will come out big enough

 

The reply i got from POPLA which refused my appeal states

 

''Even if a motorist presents mitigating circumstances setting out exceptional reasons why they did not keep to the parking conditions, POPLA cannot allow an appeal if a contract was formed and the motorist did not keep to the parking conditions. Accordingly, I must refuse the appeal''

 

Which to me is crazy because there are a couple of reasons i didn''t have a permit showing.

 

Here are the photos of the car park signs.

Which does state that you need a permit, but does NOT state where you get them from.

 

There is one sign INSIDE the hospital which states where to get a permit from when reception is shut, however i didn't see this sign as the Dr opened the door for me before i got there and quickly put me in a side room so he could get back on to the ward.

 

As i said before, POPLA said in their appeal refused letter that i should have called the general helpline on the sign which at the time of me parking (on a Sunday) was closed.

 

 

ticket.pdf

[armadillo71]

The pictures of the signage need to be converted to PDF so that we can read them.

 

I have had a good look at the trust website and can find nothing regarding their car parking policy so I suspect ethical parking will not have a worthwhile contract with the trust.

You are in the debt collection letter chain, which means various threatening letters from toothless companies who can only do just that. Send letters. Ignore them.

You do not ignore a LBA or real court papers though, which you will not get anyway I'm pretty sure.

 

Your best course of action now is to complain vigorously to PALS about the harassment you are receiving from agents of the trust. You were entitled to be there and the trusts/their agents permit systems were inadequate and not fit for purpose from what you say.

 

http://www.sussexpartnership.nhs.uk/patient-advice-and-liason-service-pals

[badgirl81]

Ok great thank you, I will have a good look and i will attempt to convert photos to pdf.

[dx100uk]

follow the guide I posted you in post 8

pop ALL the pictures into ONE multi page word doc

then file

save as

.pdf

in word

 

 

dx

[badgirl81]

ok sorry will do.

[ericsbrother]

It is unfortunate you appealed this without taking advice as the parking co's are obliged to give a grace period to allow you to get a permit, study signage etc and it is clear thet the ticket was slapped on your car whilst you were in the process of doing this.

 

You cannot now appeal further raising this important point

but if the parking co takes you to court to attempt to enforce the payment

then you can raise this as one of your arguments.

 

A very successful method of beating these charges is to challenge the lawfulness of the signage

so ask the local council planning dept if Ethical Parking have planning permission for their signs

under the advertising hoardings reg of the Town and Country Planning Act.

 

If they dont they are committing a criminal offence and you cannot enter into a contract based on illegal activity,

even if you want to.

 

Dont tell the parking co that you have made this enquiry but hit them with it if they send you a lba or start court proceedings.

 

If you write to them now they will just claim they dont need it,

say that as it is a hospital then they are not responsible etc and then scurry about to try

and get permission on the sly and then lie to the court (yes, these companies do sink that low).

 

DR+ have no say in anything so ignore them and if they write, phone etc ignore them some more.

As said, complain like hell to the hospital about the failure of their system to work on a sunday,

let them know that this is not the end of the matter but dont say what you are doing

( the planning bit will make them look incompetent as it is their land and agent after all).

 

In short, dont give up and pay just because the cure to this problem is not a quick one.

[badgirl81]

Ok, This time i am hoping it is correct,

 

First two pictures are of the car park sign,

the last picture of the door, is where the sign stating where to get permit from outside of office hours,

 

i know you cant read the writing,

however it was just for me to see where the sign was,

 

when i approached the door t was being held open for me.

 

I will get on to the other things mentioned above aswell.

sign.pdf

 

i have sent an email to find out about the signs/planning permission to the council

and i have printed off ready to send out tomorrow a letter of complaint to the hospital trust and also to PALS

 

, so will see what replies i get from any of them.

 

Thanks all for the advice up till now

[badgirl81]

Hi, I just wanted to say Thank you so much for this bit of advice.

 

I sent a letter to PALS and to the NHS trust involved,

 

i got a letter back from the NHS trust quickly saying they were unhappy that i was unhappy..

 

long story short

they were unhappy that the signage wasn't good enough,

 

THey have settled my charge with the company and are sorting out signage etc..

. So result for me..

 

I am so glad i came on to this site as you all gave excellent advice

and thanks to you i didn't have to pay.

 

. so once again THANK YOU

[silverfox1961]

Good for you and good for the NHS trust as well. It always pays to challenge. I will mark this thread sorted.

[dx100uk]

fine

what fine?

 

 

dx

[ericsbrother]

saves them from possible problems but I would bet that the parking co were happy to cancel 1 ticket so they can continue to rake in money where they dont actually have a legal claim against anyone.