ParkingEye appeal: ANPR, POFA and POPLA

A ParkingEye appeal is a private parking challenge against one of the largest ANPR operators in the country. The notice is a Parking Charge Notice. ParkingEye is a British Parking Association operator, so the independent stage after a rejection is POPLA, Parking on Private Land Appeals, not the IAS. The first letter still goes to ParkingEye.

Select ParkingEye on the form and the closing paragraph asks for a POPLA code. Start a ParkingEye appeal for £3.99. 75% success rate for the PCN.

What the Notice to Keeper is doing

On a typical camera site there is no windscreen ticket. ParkingEye obtains the keeper’s details and posts a Notice to Keeper. If they want keeper liability under Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, paragraph 9 requires that notice to be given within 14 days beginning with the day after the specified period of parking ended. The notice should identify the creditor, the land, the vehicle, the period of parking, the amount, and the prescribed warning about keeper liability. Check the issue date against the date of the stay. Keep the envelope if you still have it.

You may appeal as registered keeper. You are not required to name the driver. If you were the driver and the facts favour saying so, because you paid or because you saw the machine fail, you can say so. Choose the version that is true.

ANPR timestamps are the start of the argument, not the end

ParkingEye will often show an entry image and an exit image. Those images prove that the vehicle registration mark passed the cameras. They do not, by themselves, describe how long the vehicle was parked, how long the driver spent reading the entrance signs, or whether a payment session covers the middle of the visit. A proper ParkingEye appeal asks for the period of parking they rely on, the payment report for that vehicle registration mark, and the way the consideration period and grace period were applied.

Short overruns are where this matters. Codes of practice expect a driver to have time to read the offer and time to exit at the end of a permitted stay. If you were a few minutes over a free retail-park stay, give the times honestly and ask ParkingEye to show why those minutes are a contravention rather than consideration or grace. Do not invent a queue or a breakdown to fill the gap. If there was a queue, describe it. If there was not, do not.

Beavis does not decide every ParkingEye case

ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 is the case operators cite for the idea that a parking charge can be commercially justified and is not automatically an unenforceable penalty. The Supreme Court was looking at clear signs, a free car park, a two-hour limit, and an overstay. If your signs were clear and you simply overstayed a published limit, Beavis is likely to be raised against you, and a letter that pretends the signs did not exist will not survive the photographs. If the signs were ambiguous, the tariff was buried, the machine failed, or the Notice to Keeper does not meet Schedule 4, Beavis does not close the appeal. Say which of those is actually your case.

Landholder authority and the code

ParkingEye manages land for other people. At POPLA, operators are regularly put to proof of a chain of authority from the landholder to pursue charges in their own name. Ask for it at the first stage as well: the contemporaneous contract, the site plan, and the signage schedule for the date of the alleged stay. Ask them to hold debt recovery while the appeal is determined. A rejection should then provide the POPLA verification code.

How to send it

Use the ParkingEye appeal route printed on the notice, quote the reference exactly, and attach your evidence rather than promising to send it later. Keep the submission receipt. If the rejection arrives, start POPLA inside the code’s life. Do not treat a later debt letter as POPLA. And do not ignore a court claim if one is issued after the appeal route has finished.

The drafter on this site writes that structure in the first person, using your account. Buy the ParkingEye letter for £3.99 after you submit the evidence. For the wider picture, read PCN appeal, appeal a PCN, and PCN help.

Official resources

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