Parking Collection Services – Appeal Guide

So you have received a letter of demand from Parking Collection Services?  This pages explains who they are and your rights and options relating to the demand.

The first thing to understand about Parking Collection Services is that it is not a parking company and does not provide parking management or services.  What it does is send out follow up letters for a number of parking companies such as:

- Searchlight Security and Parking Solutions
- Minster Baywatch
- UKPS (NW) Ltd
- ANPR Parking Services
- JAS Parking Solutions
- Park Direct UK Ltd
- CP Plus Ltd
- AM Parking Services Ltd
- Wing Parking Ltd

So for example, ANPR Parking Services manage a certain car park and place a notice on your windscreen and the driver doesn’t  pay the notice within 28 days.  Normally the parking company would get the details of the keeper from the DVLA and send the keeper a letter of demand.  However, in the case of ANPR Parking Services and the others listed above, instead of writing to the keeper  themselves, they engage Parking Collection Services to write to the keeper.

Parking Collection Services actually  is a trading name of Debt Recovery Plus. Ltd (which is a debt collection company).   You should see  “Debt Recovery Plus Ltd” in small writing somewhere near the bottom of the letter from Parking Collection Services.

Following is a “Searchlight Security and Parking Solutions” example.  Here is the windscreen notice - front and back that makes it very clear the notices was issued by “Searchlight Security and Parking Solutions”.    Now here is the notice to keeper – front and back.   In large print at the top of the front of the notices you see “Parking Collection Services” and “Notice to Keeper or Hire Company”.  It is only at the bottom of the first paragraph that you learn Parking Collection Service’s client is “Searchlight” and then the bottom of the third paragraph they say that Parking Collection Services is acting on behalf of Searchlight.  They also mention the Protection of Freedom Act 2012 meaning that they are legally holding the keeper liable for the parking charge (or attempting to anyway).

Now let’s look at a UKPS (North West) example.   Here is the windscreen notice - front and back that shows the notice was issued by “UKPS (North West) “.    Here is the notice to keeper – front and back.   In large print at the top of the front of the notices you see “PCS Parking Collection Services” and “Notice to Owner”.   At the bottom of the first paragraph it says “your vehicle was parked on private land managed by our client UKPS (NW) Ltd”.

You notice there are differences between the two notices to keeper.  The Searchlight one used the term “notice to keeper”, mentions the Protection of Freedoms Act (2012) and says if the notice is not paid within 28 days or you fail to pay it, then the keeper becomes liable for the charge.  The UKPS (NW) one uses the term “Notice to Owner”, doesn’t mention POFA2012, doesn’t say it hold the keeper liable and doesn’t mention any options of appeal.  The similarites are that both letters were issued by Parking Collection Services and that both letters allow the keeper to appeal to POPLA.

Now, the UKPS (NW) letter from Parking Collection Services is particularly interesting.  Note that UKPS (NW) is a member of the IPC, whilst Parking Collection Services is a member of the BPA.   The question is, if the keeper appeals to PCS and the appeal is dismissed, will PCS provide a BPA/POPLA appeal code) or an IPC/IAS appeal code?

Another interesting question, is that if the keeper appeals to Parking Collection Services and PCS decides to uphold the appeal and cancel the notice, do PCS have the authority to do that, or is it that only UKPS (North West) or Serarchlight that can cancel it.  Some might claim that PCS can’t cancel the notice, because they are a debt collector and the debt collector can’t cancel it, only the car park company can.  However, in this situation, Parking Collection Services can cancel the charge as they are sending out the notice to keeper as an agent for the parking company and not as debt collector.  See this example which shows PCS cancelling a Searchlight parking charge.

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