Penalty parking notice at train station car park Options

[aqu2598]

Hi all,

The driver of the car received a penalty parking notice on their car the other day at a train station car park. The driver believed there was no requirement to pay due to no machines around to actually pay at - seems it may have been phone only?

The penalty was issued by Transpennine Express.

Just wondered if there's any chance of challenging this?

Link to PPN: https://imgur.com/a/pNA9ojz

Many thanks.

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[DWMB2]

The notice has been issued by TransPennine Express, not APCOA

[aqu2598]

"You must inform us immediately if you were not the driver of this vehicle at the time of the offence.

If you were not the driver then you are required under Railway Byelaws to provide the name and address details of the person concerned."

Is that correct?

No, it's complete BS AFAIK (I'll double check).

So there is your first point, you could write and ask them which railway byelaw says they have to do that. When they screw up the reply, then you actually appeal based on the signs not requiring a payment, when they reject you raise the issue of the amount of the penalty notice etc.

Not sure if you found out whether they can actually force the keeper to name the driver, but is it best to write to these guys or email them? Just wondering if letters getting lost could harm things.

[Nosy Parker]

Apcoa is a member of the BPA.

Maybe it’s my eyesight or the device I’m using but I can’t see APCOA on the signage or the NTK. Also, we need to see the back of the NTK

This post has been edited by Nosy Parker: Fri, 31 Mar 2023 - 04:50

[aqu2598]

Apcoa is a member of the BPA.

Maybe it’s my eyesight or the device I’m using but I can’t see APCOA on the signage or the NTK. Also, we need to see the back of the NTK

There's no reference to APCOA anywhere in the ticket or letter.

Page 2 of the NTK is https://imgur.com/a/SSgceEi

This post has been edited by aqu2598: Fri, 31 Mar 2023 - 05:02

[Slapdash]

I haven't replied yet, I'll reply as the keeper and point out that the main sign doesn't actually state payment is required. Should I also include that it says the penalty is £50 with no mention of further charges? Anything else I should include?

Thanks for all the help.

It does mention "additional charges" towards the bottom of the main sign.

That doesn't automatically make them in any way valid of course.

This post has been edited by Slapdash: Fri, 31 Mar 2023 - 06:38

[The Rookie]

"You must inform us immediately if you were not the driver of this vehicle at the time of the offence.

If you were not the driver then you are required under Railway Byelaws to provide the name and address details of the person concerned."

Is that correct?

No, it's complete BS AFAIK (I'll double check).

So there is your first point, you could write and ask them which railway byelaw says they have to do that. When they screw up the reply, then you actually appeal based on the signs not requiring a payment, when they reject you raise the issue of the amount of the penalty notice etc.

Not sure if you found out whether they can actually force the keeper to name the driver, but is it best to write to these guys or email them? Just wondering if letters getting lost could harm things.

There is nothing in the Byelaws at all that I can find, so my first reply would be a simple communication via whatever channel they offer on along the lines of...

I am in receipt of your notice of DD/MM/YY, and note that you state the byelaws require me to name the driver, can you please confirm which section of the byelaws require me to do this as I don't believe this to be the case.



You can check yourself here by the way
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/...railway-byelaws

When they reply you can either continue that discussion or 'appeal' based on the signage not requiring any payment, as I said the aim is to run down the clock by keeping communicating in turn.

[Gary Bloke]

If Apcoa requested the keeper details from the DVLA using their kadoe contract, then passed these details back to the TOC, isn't that a breach of the DPA?

Also the kadoe contract specifies the purpose as recovery of contractual parking charges. This isn't a contractual situation because the are using Byelaws. The charge is actually an offer not to prosecute. Therefore they are using the personal information for a purpose which is not specified in the kadoe contract.

[Nosy Parker]

If Apcoa requested the keeper details from the DVLA using their kadoe contract, then passed these details back to the TOC, isn't that a breach of the DPA?

Gary, what makes you think APCOA is involved?

[Gary Bloke]

Er, because their name is on the sign, a photo of which was uploaded by the OP earlier in this thread.
Also because Selby is listed on the Apcoa website as being a car park they manage.

[Redx]

Hi all,

The driver of the car received a penalty parking notice on their car the other day at a train station car park. The driver believed there was no requirement to pay due to no machines around to actually pay at - seems it may have been phone only?

The penalty was issued by Transpennine Express.

Just wondered if there's any chance of challenging this?

Link to PPN: https://imgur.com/a/pNA9ojz

Many thanks.

If Apcoa requested the keeper details from the DVLA using their kadoe contract, then passed these details back to the TOC, isn't that a breach of the DPA?

Gary, what makes you think APCOA is involved?

Er, because their name is on the sign, a photo of which was uploaded by the OP earlier in this thread.
Also because Selby is listed on the Apcoa website as being a car park they manage.

. But the first post tells us that it's from Transpennine, not APCOA

[Sheffield Dave]

OP, this is a bit of background to the current state of the law on railway parking tickets. Most of the regulars on this forum (including me) are fairly gung-ho about fighting tickets rather than paying up, but I think it is only fair to make you aware of the risks, even if they are low.

Parking in normal (non-byelaw) private car parks is governed by contract law. The site operator (via the signs) offers a parking contract to the driver, who indicates their acceptance of the contract by the act of parking. The T&Cs of the contract can say things like "you agree to pay us £100 if you overstay or don't park in a marked bay". If the driver falls foul of this, the private parking company (PPC) can take the driver to the small-claims track of the county court, where a district judge decides, on balance of probabilities, whether the money is owed. A law, POFA 2012, allows the PPC to transfer liability to the car's keeeper under some circumstances, in particular if they haven't named the driver. This is handy, as they generally only know who the keeper is but not the driver. A Supreme Court judgement (Beavis 2015) agreed that £85 wasn't an unlawful penalty under contract law.

At a railway station it gets more complex, because bylaws are involved.

The railway byelaws are very badly drafted, but they (in principle) provide other ways to punish people for misusing a car park.

The main ones are 14(2) and 14(3) which make it a criminal offence to park without paying, or to park in the wrong way/place. In order to use this, the train operating company (TOC) - Trains Pennine express (TPE) in this case - would have to bring a private prosecution at a magistrates court within 6 months, and make their case beyond reasonable doubt. If you lost, you could end up paying a fine to the tune of hundreds of pounds, plus a similar amount in costs. In practice, TOCs very rarely do this, as the fine goes to the state, not to them. But this is why, for station tickets, we always advise to string out communications for as long as possible, to take you over over the 6 month deadline. So if they give you 28 days to respond, you reply around day 25 with a further question or whatever. Note that such a prosecution can only ever be against the driver.

The last time we on this forum saw a successful byelaws prosecution was in 2019, against forum user AnonymousMouse for two non-payments. They were fined £140 and had to pay £740 costs - but this has to be compared against the TOC's £6,800 costs claim, so the judge mostly wasn't "having it". But that case was a bit special, as I'll explain next.

The second part of the byelaws, 14(4)(i) says:

The owner of any motor vehicle, bicycle or other conveyance used, left or placed in breach of Byelaw 14(1) to 14(3) may be liable to pay a penalty as displayed in that area.

I (and others on this forum) think this clause is gibberish and unenforceable, and (to my knowledge) has never been tested in court. It doesn't make it clear whether this is a criminal or civil matter, it appears to allow the TOC to make up whatever penalty value they like, and penalises the owner, who may not even have been on the railway lands at the time, and so is ultra vires, i.e. exceeding the powers granted to it by the Railways Act. Govier ThamesLink initially tried to get money out of AnonymousMouse via this route (or so we speculate - they never made it clear on what basis they were chasing a civil claim in a magistrates court), then about a week before the hearing, they bottled out and switched to a standard criminal prosecution - why is probably why both they accrued such heavy costs, and why the judge refused to let them have most of it.

Further, where byelaws apply, POFA 2012 doesn't apply, so the keeper can't be made liable. So it's only the ever the driver, or (in theory, but untested in court), the owner.

So what happens in practice at railway stations? Many train companies rely on a PPC such as APCOA to manage their station car parks. These companies will bluster a lot about byelaws in their correspondence, and will refer to a Penalty Charge Notice (rather than parking charge notice), but they will always be extremely vague as to why you actually owe them money. If pressed, they may concede that the charge is an offer to avoid prosecution (i.e. "pay us £100 and we promise not to to prosecute you under the byelaws"). Since this is just an offer, you are under no obligation to accept it, and you don't owe them anything if you don't pay. In practice, PPCs aren't going to bring a private prosecution against you - that's more the realm of the TOCs - and they are not allowed anyway by their KADOE contract with the DVLA to pass your details onto the TOC (I think - I could be wrong about that). So what PPCs tend to do is to decide magically after a few months that this is actually a contractual matter like normal private parking tickets, and threaten to take you to the county court. There are a number of issues with this, not least that, due to byelaws, they can't make the RK liable, only the driver, and they don't know whether you're the driver. There are also issues with requesting the RK's details for one thing then using it for another. In the last few years we're always seen PPCs bottle out early in the court stage.

However, this ticket is direct from TPE (a TOC) rather than from a PPC (even though the signs in the car park appear to be by ACPOA, a PPC). This is potentially more serious, as TOC companies have a department dedicated to bringing private prosecutions under byelaws (albeit mainly against fare dodgers), and so they have a well-oiled machine which can handle such matters. So although we haven't seen a parking byelaws prosecution in four years, there's no guarantee that it couldn't happen. Every now and again a TOC might want to try dipping their toe in again. There's also the possibility that that they might try to make use of 14(4)(i), although personally I think this is unlikely.

So what you are facing is a TOC who are mostly full of bluster and will likely give up eventually, but there is always the small risk of of prosecution, or a very small risk of civil liability. Whether you want to risk that is your choice. As I've said, we haven't seen anything but buster for four years. If you want to risk it, our advise always is to try to string it out beyond the 6 months with letters querying where in the byelaws you have to name the driver, whether this is an offer to avoid prosecution, and other such questions.

Oh, and when they say the byelaws require you to name the driver, that is a brazen lie.

[localdriver]

Looking on street view and earlier pictures of the signs, the car park on one side of the road (Station Road Car Park) is controlled by APCOA. The car park on the other (Station) side controlled by Transpennine Express & Bylaws, with payment for parking on that side via APCOA on behalf of Transpennine Express, which may be causing the confusion.

[Gary Bloke]

Further, where byelaws apply, POFA 2012 doesn't apply

No, where byelaws apply, it is Schedule 4 of POFA that does not apply. The rest of POFA outside of Schedule 4 does indeed still apply. But Schedule 4 is the part that enables liability to be transfered from driver to keeper.

But the first post tells us that it's from Transpennine, not APCOA

Agree. But you have to be a member of the BPA to request keeper details from the DVLA for pursuit of parking charges, don't you? I don't think TPE is in the BPA? Not listed as a member on the BPA website. Not listed by IPC either.

This post has been edited by Gary Bloke: Sat, 1 Apr 2023 - 21:35

[Redx]

Perhaps the TOC used the paper option to access keeper details.? Maybe the OP should request that information directly from the dvla, to see who accessed the details, when, and the reason why

But the invoice is from Trans Pennine Express, so the OP is dealing with TPE, not APCOA. regardless of any signs, because at the moment it's TPE chasing them for money under Bylaws, meaning that for now the OP must follow the delaying advice being given

But there is no detriment if the OP makes a request to the dvla to extract the information on who did what and how, especially if it turned out to be an incorrect method of access, a possible data breach? The OP could then complain about the lack of being a trade body member, if it was required, but they should still follow the delaying tactics advice to drag it out regardless of the semantics