Hello peeps,
Lead Adjudicator here, with our second annual report. We released our first annual report after six months. This one follows on a mere one month later so I hope you are all impressed with the striking increases in efficiency thus achieved. In future, we may even get out annual reports on a weekly basis.
On the subject of efficiency I'd like to scotch all the rumours about delays getting out of hand. All delays are accounted for and on plan. Currently we are processing appeals from April, which means we are only 2 months behind schedule - a commendable delay for such an early stage in the organisation's life. Our plan is to reach our target of being 6 months behind schedule in the near future. We aim to hit this by burying our heads in the sand and ignoring the fact that appeals are coming in faster than we can process them. As the graph (helpfully provided by The Parking Prankster) shows, if the number of appeals per month remains constant and our rate of processing appeals does not improve, we should hit our target around August.
With regard to hitting our other targets, the Secretary of State imposed several requirements upon us. One of those was to report all breaches of the code of conduct to the British Parking Association (BPA) Ltd. Each appeal upheld means that the Operator is more than likely doing something wrong. After 1058 upheld appeals upheld we can therefore proudly report that we have referred a total of one case to the BPA Ltd. Impressive huh? We hope to double or even treble that number soon!
As an independent organisation we should really be half on the side of the motorist and half on the side of the parking organisations. However, pretty much all well crafted motorist appeals will succeed if they ask the parking company to supply a contract with the landowner and to justify any pre-estimate of loss charges. In my previous report, I tried to redress the balance on the side of the parking companies by hiding this fact. However, I fear the cat is now out of the bag. I'm not sure what I can do now to help the parking companies win cases (they do after all indirectly pay my wages), but I will have a jolly good sleep on it.
I see that the BPA Ltd, in issue 321 of parking news, have been trying to put a positive spin on the number of appeals upheld.
They point out only 0.2 percent of tickets have been overturned. I hope they can continue to pull the wool over the parking companies' eyes for as long as possible. The sad truth is that almost 100% of tickets are invalid and so will be overturned with a good appeal. We must therefore try and keep as low a profile as possible and try and keep motorists ignorant of POPLA.
In that respect I applaud their recognition of my efforts in this area as they quote me in their article.
I fear they got the wrong end of the stick though. Most of the internet information is quite frankly, not helpful at all to the parking companies as detailed instructions on how to win at POPLA are easily available from sites such as parkingcowboys, pepipoo and moneysavingexpert.
Luckily for us some information is wrong; some posters still advise motorists to ignore parking charges which means they won't get to bag an easy win and get the charge overturned at POPLA.
Lastly, with a new game in town, I would like to reiterate my commitment to helping the parking organisations find a way to win at POPLA. Please bear with us and don't desert to the dark side. I know who pays my salary and am doing my best to help you.
Simples,
Lead Adjudicator.
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