Parkig ticket, Lewes train Station.

[ezmally]

In my rush to get the kids sorted and get to the train i put my car park ticket face down on the dash and on arriving back at Lewes train station car park discovered my £50 fine on the windscreen. Yes i know, my fault, twat etc.
So is there anyone out there who has made the same mistake and if so is there any hope I will be able to produce my valid ticket and get the fine cancelled?

 

[Barrel of Fun]

I did the exact same and appealed to B&H Council and won my case. I'll see if I can dig out the letter I sent.

O/T Parking Ticket

 

[Ninja Elephant]

Appeal, send them a photocopy of your pay and display ticket and make sure your tone isn't "I had a valid ticket, this parking ticket is a shambles". No guarantees you will get off, but you lose nothing for trying. The 50% discount period is frozen during the appeals process, and if they do reject your appeal then you'll still have 2 weeks to pay the reduced amount, instead of the full £50. Before you appeal though, make sure the parking attendant has got the colour and registration of your car right, aswell as the make of vehicle. You might aswell check the location aswell, mistakes like that are made and if anything like that is wrong, the ticket is null and void. On the ticket it will give you a "contravention" code aswell, I think you should have a code 19 printed on your ticket, but I might be wrong. Whatever that code is, post it and I'll tell you if that's in error. A lot of mistakes are made when issuing tickets, you'd be suprised.

 

[Muzzy]

You have been penalised for not displaying a valid ticket, which is fair enough, but if you keep a civilised tone upon an appeal and proof that you did indeed have a valid ticket but made a genuine mistake. I think common sense will prevail on this one... Good luck.

I don't know if the local traffic wardens patrol the station car park or if that is done privately... I'm sure someone on here will know.

 

[ezmally]

Appeal, send them a photocopy of your pay and display ticket and make sure your tone isn't "I had a valid ticket, this parking ticket is a shambles". No guarantees you will get off, but you lose nothing for trying. The 50% discount period is frozen during the appeals process, and if they do reject your appeal then you'll still have 2 weeks to pay the reduced amount, instead of the full £50. Before you appeal though, make sure the parking attendant has got the colour and registration of your car right, aswell as the make of vehicle. You might aswell check the location aswell, mistakes like that are made and if anything like that is wrong, the ticket is null and void. On the ticket it will give you a "contravention" code aswell, I think you should have a code 19 printed on your ticket, but I might be wrong. Whatever that code is, post it and I'll tell you if that's in error. A lot of mistakes are made when issuing tickets, you'd be suprised.

The details on the ticket are sadly all spot on. There isnt a contravention code though it just states "Failing to display a valid ticket or voucher".
Thanks for your help mate, very much appreciated.

 

[ezmally]

I did the exact same and appealed to B&H Council and won my case. I'll see if I can dig out the letter I sent.

O/T Parking Ticket

Thankyou mate much appreciated.

 

[Ninja Elephant]

I know that in Brighton and Hove it is a legal requirement for it to tell you the code, I don't know about Lewes but I would have thought so. It's not that important though, if it's not there it's not there, the description is right unfortunately. Good luck with the appeal, I am only a PM away if you need any advice or opinions. I have worked in the industry, including working for the department that dealt with appeals, so I have a little bit of knowledge I can apply here.

 

[ezmally]

You have been penalised for not displaying a valid ticket, which is fair enough, but if you keep a civilised tone upon an appeal and proof that you did indeed have a valid ticket but made a genuine mistake. I think common sense will prevail on this one... Good luck.

I don't know if the local traffic wardens patrol the station car park or if that is done privately... I'm sure someone on here will know.

Thanks Muzzy. The appeals number and address is for a company called Meteor based in Sevenoaks.

 

[ezmally]

I know that in Brighton and Hove it is a legal requirement for it to tell you the code, I don't know about Lewes but I would have thought so. It's not that important though, if it's not there it's not there, the description is right unfortunately. Good luck with the appeal, I am only a PM away if you need any advice or opinions. I have worked in the industry, including working for the department that dealt with appeals, so I have a little bit of knowledge I can apply here.

Thankyou mate. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[Muzzy]

Thanks Muzzy. The appeals number and address is for a company called Meteor based in Sevenoaks.

You could try telling them that it must have got blown upside down when you closed the car door by the breeze and simply failed to notice ;-)

It does happen.

 

[Weststander]

I did the exact same and appealed to B&H Council and won my case. I'll see if I can dig out the letter I sent.

O/T Parking Ticket

In my case, closing car door, draught flicked it over.

I did all that, I was telling the truth, and lost my case against B&HCC.

Apparently this is commonplace, and B&HCC won all the other cases I know of.

 

[Paddy B]

Same happened to me in Horsham. They let me off after I appealed. Basically as long as you don't have a history of appealing you should be fine

 

[Ernest]

Thanks Muzzy. The appeals number and address is for a company called Meteor based in Sevenoaks.

Meteor are the inhouse dept for Go Ahead who own Southern, wouldn't give you much chance of winning any appeal

 

[Ninja Elephant]

In my case, closing car door, draught flicked it over.

I did all that, I was telling the truth, and lost my case against B&HCC.

Apparently this is commonplace, and B&HCC won all the other cases I know of.

I know for a fact that appeals for that reason have been successful, and I know this because I myself processed them. The council has a certain percentage of appeals it will accept for reasons like this, and in truth, you just need to be lucky in your timing and lucky in who handles your appeal.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

I'm assuming this is all about parking at the Station Car Park, where Southern Rail have a contractor who enforces tickets (Meteor - thanks, Ernest). If it was an off-street car-park that is part of the East Sussex County Council / Lewes District Council controlled parking scheme, the procedures will be different. Lewes Station car park isn't part of the local authority scheme.

 

[Ninja Elephant]

Meteor are the inhouse dept for Go Ahead who own Southern, wouldn't give you much chance of winning any appeal

Not sure if I agree with that, I would deffinitely mention the amount of money I've spent on train travel and also the amount spent in carparks. I would even go so far as to invent a job in the City, which requires me to use the train regularly, and to park regularly in their carpark. I would be apologising for this out of character mistake and say that I could send them any number of used tickets. Fight the man, Ernest, fight the man!

 

[Ernest]

Not sure if I agree with that, I would deffinitely mention the amount of money I've spent on train travel and also the amount spent in carparks. I would even go so far as to invent a job in the City, which requires me to use the train regularly, and to park regularly in their carpark. I would be apologising for this out of character mistake and say that I could send them any number of used tickets. Fight the man, Ernest, fight the man!

f*** that, the more in the pot the bigger my Xmas bonus so ALL appeals can get f***ed

 

[Ninja Elephant]

f*** that, the more in the pot the bigger my Xmas bonus so ALL appeals can get f***ed

Magnificent. Not that ticketing companies would issue fines as a way of creating Christmas bonuses for staff.... Best leave that alone.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

Thankyou mate much appreciated.

A pleasure.

My old man wrote the letter for me. I was going to/wanted to, but he is an ex-lawyer/now judge and prefers to get things off immediatly (plus it was a borrowed car from the patents), whereas I am happy to let things drag and send it off at the 11th hour. I'll drop him a line tonight and get a copy of the letter.

Odd that they offer advertising space on the back of a ticket when no-one, including the owner, is really going to look at it, certainly if placed correctly on the dashboard. I wonder what they charge?

I assume the non-adhesive ticket is more expensive to produce.

I really don't see the problem if you can prove that you had a ticket purchased at the time of the 'offence'. Maybe a token fine of £5 to cover the 'work' and postage of a pro-forma letter sent out for the appeal.

 

[Muzzy]

Tell them that the car park was very busy with all the fans coming in to use the same parking area and that you were watching your children closely for their safety (obviously) and you just didn't notice the ticket had been blown over.

It's so easily done.... I must admit that if the ticket hasn't got a sticky to put on the windscreen that I always double check after locking up that the ticket is still in view... Ain't hindsight a wonderful thing?