Hi all, my brother received a PCN through the post for an alleged contravention of ignoring a no right turn sign. The no right turn is apparently at Tangent Link for customers coming out of B&Q in Harold Hill. He did not notice any signs but on revisiting he now noticed that there is one there. Are there any grounds to challenge this as a simple mistake on what looks like a private road shouldn't really result in a £65 fine in my opinion.

Front page of PCN through post shown below:

Thanks! Just realised I was reading CCTV parking PCN.

Hearing is on Monday 16th.....will keep you informed.

Havering have submitted their evidence - this is what they have included in their case:

"We acknowledge that slight changes need to be made in the wording of our Penalty Charge Notices; and our new Notices reflect the changes.
Whilst noting the appellant’s comments, we would refer (appeallant) to the recent High Court decision by Justice JJ Raynor, in the case of ‘Hackney
Driver’s Association Ltd -v- the Parking Adjudicator & Lancashire County Council’, 2012 which confirmed the long standing view that statutory
documents should be read as a whole, and that so long as they did not confuse or mislead the appellant, they were not expected to be verbatim
copies of the legislation that they were tasked with conveying. Hence, we are satisfied that taken as a whole, the wording of our Penalty
Charge Notice did not deny or remove the appellant’s right to make representations or pay at the reduced rate. On the contrary, by offering the
appellant the discount period of 21 days instead of 14, the Penalty Charge Notice gave the appellant further 7 days to his advantage.
We would like to point out that there are clear and self-explanatory signs at the location of the contravention which are in accordance with the Traffic
Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016. Any vehicle, other than those permitted, observed contravening the regulation is recorded and
subsequently issued with a Penalty Charge Notice."

Only thing is, in the notice of rejection, they ignored my point about the stating 14 days instead of 21. Am I allowed to question why the LA did not provide this information to me in their NoR so that I could make an informed decision - thus citing procedural impropriety?

This post has been edited by rsg444: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 - 14:53

You must stress that the rgs require 14 days their system could progress to the next stage at that time but you believe you may act up to 21 days then you would be out of time . To tell you that you have 21 days for something the law allows you only 14 days for cannot be said to convey the correct info

Ok thanks PMB - is it worth me also mentioning why havering did not answer that point in their NOR?

Do you know what the case refers to?

I'm going to write something like this:

The London Borough of Havering have cited case 'Hackney Driver’s Association Ltd -v- the Parking Adjudicator & Lancashire County Council’, 2012'. While this case may be pertinent to the wording of a PCN, what I am querying is that the Local Authority have not applied the legislation. The legislation clearly states that the receiver of the the PCN is only required to pay 50% of it if it is paid within 14 days. However the authority, in their PCN stated 21 days which, for me causes confusion. Was I meant to go by legislation, or was I meant to go by the PCN? This caused confusion, if I had paid on day 18, but was deemed to have only paid half of the outstanding amount, I would have had no legal backing as the legislation states 14 days. While the cited case may have ruled that PCNs are not required to cite legislation verbatim, the case does not set a precedence that Local Authorities can amend the prescribed time duration as clearly stated by UK legislation - this therefore means the correct information in relation to the legislation was not conveyed.

Furthermore, in my representations, I did not dispute the right turn, I did not question the signage, I only questioned the use of 21 days instead of 14 days. The authority had the opportunity to cite this case in their Notice of Rejection but they failed to do so thus failing to consider all of the points that I had raised in my representations. The authority simply responded as follows:

"Your vehicle was seen in Tangent Link at 20:06:47 hours performing a no right turn. I am satisfied that a contravention occurred and that the Penalty Charge Notice was issued correctly. Your vehicle was observed and captured on CCTV failing to comply with a sign indicating a prohibited turn in Tangent Link. The Penalty Charge Notice was issued as the vehicle performed a manoeuvre, which is in contravention to the sign in place. This junction is clearly signed informing motorists of the prohibited turn. It is the driver’s responsibility to be aware of, and comply with, road restrictions at all times. I am satisfied that a contravention occurred and that the Penalty Charge Notice was issued correctly.

I am satisfied that the Penalty Charge Notice was served correctly. Accordingly I must ask you to pay this Penalty Charge"

The authority responded as if I was disputing the manoeuvre or the signage, they completely ignored the point about the 21 days instead of 14 days point (which was my only point in my representations) and only to responded to the point I had raised when the case was referred to the adjudication process.

My request is simply that any enforcing authority act within the prescribed guidelines as set out by legislation - in this case, I feel they have not. An incorrect manoeuvre does not enable an enforcing authority to ignore legislation as part of the PCN process.

I am of the opinion that perhaps the authority are using the legislation meant for parking PCNs issued as a result of CCTV as opposed to the correct legislation for moving traffic offences.


Today is the last day for me to add any more submissions to the case.

This post has been edited by rsg444: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 - 09:19

That covers it pretty well, for me i would leave out the last sentence, as it does not matter what the legislation is the principle is the same (when read as a whole you must be able to understand your rights and responsibilities)

Have a read

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2012/3394.html

Many thanks PMB - I read the case, and in a nutshell I interpreted it as the Judge saying: local authorities can reword/paraphrase legislation in their PCNs, so if the legislation states as a crude example, "you must pay in 14 days" and the authority wrote on their PCN, "you are required to pay this within fourteen days", then the case can be used as a defence.

But the case doesn't allow the authority to have on their PCN, "You are required to pay this within 21 days" - as this is not conveying the same message as the legislation. i.e. it does not set a precedence to start amending the parameters that are set out in legislation.

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

Don't forget the other additional 4 days service; where they choose to use such erroneous parameters.

Thanks all! Hearing on 16th April. Fingers crossed the appeal is upheld. Will keep you posted.

So hearing was scheduled for yesterday but I've not seen any update when I track my appeal - it wasn't on the daily hearing list either. Any ideas as to what is happening with the process - is this normal?

Was it a personal hearing? Daily list is for personal hearings.

If you opted for postal decision and agreed for decision to be emailed to you than they usually email early hours of the morning.

You could always call and ask if a decision has been made.

It was a postal hearing. I'll try and give them a call. Thanks.

Dear all,

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank those of you who helped in putting my brother's appeal together. The adjudicator allowed the appeal on the grounds that the PCN was invalid due to the use of 21 days instead of 14 days among other things.

It should be up on the register within five days if you're interested in reading his full rationale.

Thanks again!

Brilliant please let us have the case ref number. There are a few appeals on going on this

Certainly, it is 2180111742

I really like this part: "Put another way, given that the PCN is invalid, the amount payable is nil."

Any update on the appeal yet? Hope it succeeds.

Yes the appeal was upheld in April. Check out the previous posts for details.