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#Post#: 103905--------------------------------------------------
Euro Car Parks / Exceeded 3hr time / Peel Centre - Bracknell
By: htatla Date: December 28, 2025, 11:57 am
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Hi all,
I have received a PCN Letter from Euro Car Parks demanding £100
due to the driver allegedly overstaying the 3hr allotted time
limit by 26 minutes when parked in "The Peel Centre" Bracknell
Shopping Centre Carpark
I am the registered keeper of the vehicle and have its V5C doc
Date of Event: 13/12/25
Date of Letter: 18/12/25
40% Discounted Rate Deadline: 01/01/26
Link to PCN Letter (Dropbox link)
HTML https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/fd934cugc6nhxdsijai59/ECP-PCN.pdf?rlkey=985vvalq307kwkzqn9jz1he34&dl=0
Google Maps Location
HTML https://maps.app.goo.gl/ifoJeRPQ52FnWNie7
Parking Signage
HTML https://ibb.co/spSZ7cFC
I appreciate your advice in this matter
#Post#: 103907--------------------------------------------------
Re: Euro Car Parks / Exceeded 3hr time / Peel Centre - Bracknell
By: Brenda_R2 Date: December 28, 2025, 12:23 pm
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Wait for others more knowledgeable than me but the PCN looks
defective in so far as, at least, it doesn't invite the RK to
pay the invoice.
#Post#: 103922--------------------------------------------------
Re: Euro Car Parks / Exceeded 3hr time / Peel Centre - Bracknell
By: b789 Date: December 28, 2025, 2:32 pm
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Any ECP PCN is easily defeated if you follow the advice you
receive here. However, you first have to get the low-hanging
fruit on the gullible tree notion that the 40% mugs discount is
anything you should even be considering. That is precisely what
they hope for, someone who is ignorant enough to think they are
getting a bargain because of the discount!
This is simply a speculative invoice from an unregulated private
larking firm and if you think you must pay it, especially
because they are offering a discount, please give us your
address as I could flood you with speculative invoices and offer
you even grater discounts and I could profit from that.
As a matter of interest, was the driver a customer at the Peel
Centre? I ask because if they weren't, there is no contract
formed if they weren't. The sign you have shown us is capable of
forming a contract, but only in a limited and fact-dependent
way.
For someone who is a Peel Centre customer, the sign reads as an
offer of parking on stated terms. It identifies the operator,
states the conditions for parking, and states the charge that
will be issued if those conditions are not complied with. A
driver who parks and remains can be said to accept those terms
by conduct, so a contract is capable of being formed with a
customer.
However, the sign also uses “CUSTOMERS ONLY” language that is
arguably prohibitive. If the driver is not a customer, the
wording can be read as not offering parking to them at all. On
that reading, there is no contractual offer for a non-customer
to accept, so no contract is formed. The position then looks
more like an allegation of trespass, which a parking company
cannot pursue in its own name unless it has specific landholder
rights to do so (it will not have that). In trespass, only
damages for loss can be claimed and in this case, there is no
loss.
Even where a contract is theoretically possible, the sign can
still be challenged on enforceability in the usual ways, such as
whether the parking charge term is sufficiently prominent (it
isn't) compared to the large maximum stay wording, whether the
meaning of “customer” is clear and objectively verifiable, and
whether the full terms were properly brought to the driver’s
attention at the point they were deciding whether to park.
Any initial appeal is never going to be accepted. Even a POPLA
appeal is unlikely to succeed. If it does, great, all done but
if it doesn't, it isn't binding on the Keeper and this would
99.9% for sure be won after they issue a county court claim and
it is defended with our template defence. I can tell you that
any claim issued by DCB Legal on behalf of ECP will either be
struck out or discontinued before they are required to pay the
£27 trial fee. However, that is many months down the line.
I repeat, as long as you follow the advice you receive here, you
will not be paying a penny to ECP.
First step is to submit a minimal initial appeal which will get
you a POPLA code once it is rejected. You can try and go to town
with POPLA, for what it's worth, but as I said, there is not
much chance that that would be successful.
There is no legal obligation on the known keeper (the recipient
of the Notice to Keeper (NtK)) to reveal the identity of the
unknown driver and no inference or assumptions can be made.
The NtK is not compliant with all the requirements of PoFA which
means that if the unknown driver is not identified, they cannot
transfer liability for the charge from the unknown driver to the
known keeper.
Use the following as your appeal. No need to embellish or remove
anything from it:
[quote]I am the keeper of the vehicle and I dispute your
'parking charge'. I deny any liability or contractual agreement
and I will be making a complaint about your predatory conduct to
your client landowner.
As your Notice to Keeper (NtK) does not fully comply with ALL
the requirements of PoFA 2012, you are unable to hold the keeper
of the vehicle liable for the charge. Partial or even
substantial compliance is not sufficient. There will be no
admission as to who was driving and no inference or assumptions
can be drawn. ECP has relied on contract law allegations of
breach against the driver only.
The registered keeper cannot be presumed or inferred to have
been the driver, nor pursued under some twisted interpretation
of the law of agency. Your NtK can only hold the driver liable.
ECP have no hope at POPLA, so you are urged to save us both a
complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.[/quote]
#Post#: 103931--------------------------------------------------
Re: Euro Car Parks / Exceeded 3hr time / Peel Centre - Bracknell
By: htatla Date: December 28, 2025, 4:49 pm
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Thanks so much - will send the verbatim appeal in the morrow
#Post#: 103966--------------------------------------------------
Re: Euro Car Parks / Exceeded 3hr time / Peel Centre - Bracknell
By: htatla Date: December 29, 2025, 6:31 am
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Appeal sent
FYI the ECP online appeal form had reached its max characters,
cutting off at the last paragraph, so had to cut down wordings
where possible (but retained the overall jist etc)
Just for keeping in mind when helping the next poor soul! :)
Let’s see what comes. I am just a worried as the last time this
happened to me Horizons sent me 100 odd letters in the post,
from them/debt agency asking for money and with trumped up
charges.
That then went to court - which I won. But it was a stressful
ordeal. Happy to head to Court this time, just don’t want them
bothering me at home by post or other!
However that time I 100% ignored and did not make an appeal, so
hopefully different this time
#Post#: 103967--------------------------------------------------
Re: Euro Car Parks / Exceeded 3hr time / Peel Centre - Bracknell
By: ixxy Date: December 29, 2025, 6:43 am
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You will get bombarded with debt collectors letters, that's how
this works. They won't accept arguments over whether the detail
of the PCN is allegedly compliant or not, with POFA (except if
the 14 days hasn't been adhered to) and it's unlikely POPLA or
IAS would adjudicate in favour of the motorist based on such
nuanced appeal criteria. Once appeals are exhausted debt
collector letters start, followed by a letter of claim and court
proceedings. Usually they give up when they have to pay the
court fee but that's months away.
Advice on here basically boils down to:
1. Try to get the land owner to cancel it.
2. Appeal to the PPC, if the PPC is BPA and you have a decent
appeal reason, e.g. genuine customer, keying error, breakdown it
might get cancelled but depends on the PPC.
3. Tough it out through the debt collectors letters.
4. Engage with the court process and hope they discontinue.
5. If they don't then you can try and unpick the wording of the
PCN in court.
#Post#: 103968--------------------------------------------------
Re: Euro Car Parks / Exceeded 3hr time / Peel Centre - Bracknell
By: jfollows Date: December 29, 2025, 6:45 am
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Search the forum for ECP cases.
ECP usually uses DCB Legal, who discontinue cases before they
are required to pay the court fee, and in the interim you just
play the paperwork game, for which you will get advice here.
#Post#: 103988--------------------------------------------------
Re: Euro Car Parks / Exceeded 3hr time / Peel Centre - Bracknell
By: b789 Date: December 29, 2025, 10:24 am
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[quote author=htatla link=topic=9294.msg103966#msg103966
date=1767011482]
Appeal sent
FYI the ECP online appeal form had reached its max characters,
cutting off at the last paragraph, so had to cut down wordings
where possible (but retained the overall jist etc)
[/quote]
Are you telling me there is no option to upload a file? All you
had to do was upload the appeal, as is, as a pdf and just say in
the text box: "See attached pdf file". Or, you can use their
"Contact Us" webform and select the "General Enquiry" option and
upload the file there.
As for the inevitable, eventual flow of some debt recovery
letters, so what? Feel free to use them as hamster bedding or
kindling or whatever. Even if. it was 100's of letters, which I
seriously doubt it was anything even close to 10% of that
number, they mean nothing. Debt recovery letters are
meaningless. Debt collectors are powerless to do anything as
they are not a party to any contract allegedly breached by the
driver. They are a powerless third party and all they can do is
try and intimidate the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree
into paying out of ignorance and fear.
With ECP you will likely get 2-4 from DCBL before they pass it
to their sister company DCB Legal and you will receive a Letter
of Claim (LoC0 from them before they eventually issue the N1SDT
Claim Form through MCOL.
Nobody who follows the advice given here pays a penny to ECP and
all we ask is that you show us the N279 Notice of Discontinuance
when it arrives.
#Post#: 106280--------------------------------------------------
Re: Euro Car Parks / Exceeded 3hr time / Peel Centre - Bracknell
By: htatla Date: January 17, 2026, 9:26 am
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Have received their standard appeal rejection. Please advise on
the next steps, assume this is would be a POPLA appeal?
#Post#: 106303--------------------------------------------------
Re: Euro Car Parks / Exceeded 3hr time / Peel Centre - Bracknell
By: ixxy Date: January 17, 2026, 12:54 pm
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Yep.
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