Safe Speed Forums

Hi All

I know its nothing to do with speeding but would like some advice if anyone can help.

bit long winded so bear with me

Was going to see a customer in stanford le hope (king street) and pulled into the land behind the shops and went into my customers, had a brief look around, no pay and display signs or warning signs etc.

After 10 mins or so my customer asked where i was parked and said i had better move it as they have been having some issues. I moved the car and on leaving noticed a camera on the wall at the entrance went and parked my car and was happy it wasnt clamped.

However on entering the land again (about 50 feet after the camera) there was a sign saying £170 entrance fee reduced to £85 if paid in five days or so with various blurb and a telephone number at the bottom.

One is this legal i would assume as its private land it will be, but my main issue would be that there was no signs at the entrance and only once you passed the camera and hence busted. Surely if they took me to the small claims court the court would throw it out ?????

Not going to pay the robbing so and so's as it is taking the micheal. Wish i realised the car park was opposite and even more that the car park was free.

Going back tomorrow with my digi camera to get some evidence and then await for them to write to my firm.

Any help in the meantime would be much appreciated.

Thx

Peter

Is the sign clearly visible before you enter the land? If not, they have no case.

My guess is that you only pay the fee if you're clamped.

The camera may be just a regular CCTV because it is unlikely they have the authorisation to check your number plate.

As with most civil parking penalty notices - it has to be clearly seen on entering but specifically MUST be clearly visible on LEAVING the area (on foot). Also, the notices have to be worded very specifically & generally defer all penalties issued & payments to be made to a collection agency, or local authority. For it to be valid you should have to be manually ticketed, not just appear on CCTV. For the CCTV to be used (and it's not a criminal matter - only civil) and not being illegally operated you MUST be advised in plain sight that 'Images are being recorded...blah, blah, blah' otherwise you can have the camera owner in trouble for illegally recording images without the statutory notices in place. Private land or not, you have to tell people (the public) they are being recorded.

I suspect it's just scare tactics.

Hi guys

thx for your replies, the problem i think i may face is that the £170 fee is not intended for parking the sign clearly states that the charge is for an entrance fee rather than a parking fee.

The camera is a regular cctv unit by the looks of it and i assume it is just recording a number plate and time and date etc. The sign says that they do contact the dvla to get the details.

The sign is visible on the way out providing you turn round as its facing the entrance which is about 50 feet or so away.

My guess is that they will persue it but how far it would go is anyones guess. I will go back there today and get some pics and post them on here later.

Regards

Peter

If you weren't aware of the "charge" until it was too late to avoid incurring it then I don't think you'd have any problem getting any civil claim against you chucked out.

It might help to clarify the issue if you consider how your actions might have differed had the sign been prominently displayed at the point of entrance; would you have driven in and parked had this been the case?

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

I'd be interested to hear Zamzara's input but there is, it appears to me, another difficulty with this type of contract based parking charge.

In order for a contract to be formed, there must be offer, acceptance and consideration. There must alo be an intention to create legal relations. In a typical car parking scenario, a car driver will usually be under no doubt that he is entering a car park and can reasonably be deemed to have accepted, and intended to be bound by, the owner's offer of making available a parking facility by the act of parking his car. However, if a driver takes his car onto land owned by another and did not (as a matter of fact) notice a sign (that could constitute an 'offer') giving terms for entry and/or parking, and it is reasonable to believe that he did not notice that sign then, in contract, he could not have formed the intention to enter into a contract so he cannot be bound by one.

If the sign and the attention to the charge wasn’t made clear when you first entered, could this not be seen as "entrapment".

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Definitely, this is from Contract in a Nutshell:



This isn't quite the same, since in that case there was a valid contract and it was only the terms on the ticket which were not incorporated, but I can't see why the general principle shouldn't apply here where there is no intention to form a contract at all.

Hi folks

Thx for your replies i have uploaded some pics which should make things a bit clearer.

The pics can be found here http://mrstella.bravehost.com/

A brief on each picture is below.

1st) Picture of left hand side of the road showing no sign at the entrance and the camera on the wall.

2nd) Picture showing the entrance the camera and the white sign in the distance telling you about the charges etc.

3rd) Ignore as its pic 1 again

4th) Picture showuing the actual entrance to the road and then to the private area. Again the warning is after the camera and no real way of turning round until you get to the sign and are on the property.

5th and 6th) showing pictures of the right of the entrance again showing no warnings etc

7th) The sign

8th) The camera

9th) picture from the sign back down the road to the main road.

Hope this helps.

Thanks again for all your replies.

Regards

Peter

I wouldn't worry about it for now. If you hear something from them then post it here. I doubt if you will: they have no case whatsoever.

ok cool, thx for your quick replies and the help and input from everyone so far.

Regards

Peter

edited

the main problem with a cloned car defence would be that we have our firms name on the number plates so that would not be a good argument

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=369177&in_page_id=1770&expand=true#StartComments

Thats an interesting read might be part of the same firm.

edited