The Notice to Keeper landed in the post. £100 charge from a private operator. The photo showed the car briefly stationary at a bay in a retail car park. What the photo didn't show was that the driver never left the vehicle. A passenger opened the door, climbed in, closed the door. Twenty seconds, if that. Then the car drove away.
That is not parking. Under the ordinary and legal meaning of the word, parking requires the vehicle to be left. A brief stop while a passenger boards - engine on, driver at the wheel, no alighting - is stopping, not parking. The distinction matters because the entire private-parking enforcement framework only bites where a parking event took place.
Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA) is what allows a private operator to pursue the registered keeper for the driver's alleged debt. But it only applies where the vehicle was 'parked' on the land. Where no parking took place, there is no basis in POFA and no keeper liability. Contract-law-wise, a driver only accepts an operator's terms by parking under signage that gives a reasonable opportunity to read and enter into the arrangement. A 20-second stop with the driver at the wheel affords no such opportunity - see the general principles applied in Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 on the point that private parking charges must correspond to a genuine parking-related breach.
The appeal to Parking Control Management set both grounds out plainly. It also asked the operator to produce the ANPR or CCTV footage showing the driver's presence at the wheel throughout - the same footage they rely on to say the car was there is what shows the driver never left it.
The case is live. The letter has been sent. If Parking Control Management reject, the next stop is the operator's independent adjudicator - POPLA if they are BPA members, IAS if IPC - both of which are free to the motorist. This page will be updated when the operator responds.