Hello Everyone,
My father received a NTK in the post recently from Athena for parking his car in our local LIDL's car park for nearly 2 hours (1 hour and 57 minutes to be exact) exceeding the 90 minute free stay period. As most people do he parked his car and went off on some errands then finished by doing his weekly shop in LIDL and Iceland which shares the car park with LIDL. Unfortunately both shops had unusually long queues that day and the quick ten minute dash he was hoping for turned into a 35 minute slow queue shuffle. He's been shopping there for years and always assumed LIDL's customers could park there for free while they shopped and was not aware of the 90 minutes time limit.
When he told me I advised him to ignore it, having had a similar notice sent to me a few years ago from a McDonald's car park and never heard anything more after but I thought I had better check to be sure which I am so glad I did as I can see the rules have changed now.
I read advice from Manxred to a poster here on this forum and sent the template Manxred supplied word for word appealing to Athena (see below).
"Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing as registered keeper of the vehicle XXXX XXX, in reference to your Notice to Keeper (Ref: xxxxxxxxxx).
I do not feel that I am liable for this charge, no financial loss has been incurred by the landowner as a result of this incident and hence I feel that the sum you are seeking amounts to an unenforceable penalty.
Please cancel the ticket forthwith and confirm this by return. Alternatively please send me a POPLA code so that I may submit an appeal to the independent appeals service.
Yours,
XXXX XXXXX"
However, they have ignored my request for a POPLA code and replied with:
"Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for your email in regards to the above parking charge.
Can you please forward the grounds of your appeal.
We will then be able to adjudicate further.
Please do feel free to contact us with any other questions/queries you may have.
Regards
Athena ANPR Ltd"
Can someone advise whether I should give my reasons directly in reply to the above email from Athena or insist on the POPLA code first as I have my draft POPLA Appeal ready to go.
My father does not have any particular grounds for not paying only that he does not see why he should pay even the reduced extortionate fee of £45 for the privilege of shopping at LIDL for an extra 27 minutes plus he knows he does not have to pay after reading these forums himself.
I have attached a copy of the front and back of the NTK:
Front:
Back:
Any advice would be most appreciated.
Regards
KitKatKen