POPLA case drags on for 145 days

The Prankster's longest outstanding POPLA case has now been dragging along for 145 days, and concerns The Prankster v Smart Parking at ASDA Bedminster. The Prankster has raised a complaint about the delay and was originally informed this was because the Assessor was waiting for the operator to reply after The Prankster had submitted some new evidence.

After some more prodding from The Prankster, asking the reasonable question 'how long does the operator have to reply?', it was found that the operator had been given 14 days. This started on the 6 August; however the email from POPLA to The Operator had bounced because it was 10M in size. Nobody had apparently told anyone what to do in such situations, so The Prankster's case sat at the bottom of the assessor's pile, waiting forever or for The Prankster to make a complaint. Luckily, following The Pranksters enquiries, POPLA were spurred into immediate action. POPLA sent the email again on the 4th of October, this time overcoming the magic 10M barrier. Smart Parking now have 7 more days to reply so it looks like this case will be dragging on for over 5 months.

The Prankster's new evidence concerned the written right of Smart Parking to charge for parking and to pursue charges to court; these are required by the BPA Ltd code of practice. The Prankster has been asking to see this contract for a long time.

Will Smart Parking finally cough up the contract and sweep the series 3-0, or will the Prankster have a comeback victory?

Will Smart Parking try and hide behind a witness statement, and if so, will the adjudicators be consistent in their treatment of witness statements?

Perhaps we will finally find out next week.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster