I was issued at 10:09, 9 minutes after resident only bays came into effect.

The specifics are:
Location: Queens Park Rd, Brighton
Contravention: Code 12
Restriction run from 9am-10am and 2pm-3pm

I challenged the ticket on the grounds that it was issued within the so called grace period of 10 minutes. The specific working of my informal challenge was this:

"The vehicle was parked legally in a bay in which a restriction on parking without a permit comes into force at 10am. The PCN was issued at 10.09am. The Civil Enforcement of Parking Contraventions (England) General (Amendment) Regulations 2015 states that:
“(2) Paragraph (3) applies in relation to a contravention mentioned in subparagraph (a) to (c ) of paragraph (1) where a vehicle is stationary in a designated parking place and the vehicle has been left beyond the permitted parking period.

(3) No penalty charge is payable for the contravention where the vehicle has been left beyond the permitted parking period for a period not exceeding 10 minutes.

(4) In this regulation—

(a)“designated parking place” means a parking place established by virtue of an order made under section 1, 6, 9, 32(1)(b), 35 or 45 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984(3);

(b)“permitted parking period” means—

(i)a period of parking that has been paid for as authorised by or under any order made relating to the designated parking place; or

(ii)a period of parking for which no charge is payable as authorised by or under any order made relating to the designated parking place.”

This amendment introduced what is informally know as a grace period. The rest of the amendment can be found here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/561/made

As the PCN was issued within the grace period – that is within 10 minutes of the restriction coming into force – it was not issued legally. As such I trust it will be cancelled forthwith.

Yours faithfully."



Suffice to say the council response was rather curt in denying my appeal (nor did it, typically, address what I had actually written):

You may not park in a bay marked for resident permit holders only unless you are displaying a valid permit.The information downloaded from the internet which you have included in tour sic challenge has no relevance to the issue of this PCN. Enforcement began at 10.00.The FIVE MINUTES (their caps) observation time required began at 10.02 and the PCN was issued at 10.09. The PCN was correctly issued."

I thought I was on the right side of the law here, however their unamused response gives the impression they are confident in fighting this one. Does anyone have any actual experience of challenging a ticket on these grounds?

I've attached an image of their response with some details and an identifying picture blanked out, however those are their blurry photos.

This post has been edited by aphexes: Thu, 14 Feb 2019 - 15:40

Absolutely.

I beg to differ, regulation 9A(2) says "a penalty charge notice with respect to the vehicle may be served only by the fixing of a notice to the vehicle by a civil enforcement officer who has reason to believe that a penalty charge is payable with respect to it.", a civil enforcement officer can print the PCN whenever he wants but he cannot serve it until he "has reason to believe that a penalty charge is payable" which cannot happen until after the 10 minute period has elapsed.

But if he prints it, he must put on the time of contravention.
And cannot falsify that (errr) should not falsify that.


I fully accept that he can enter all into his machine before the ten minutes are up and that the physical act of service could be an hour later.
But he cannot print it early and thus cannot issue it without falling foul of the grace period.

I think this is all somewhat academic as we all agree the grace period applies to this case.

cp8759, I went through the registration process and submitted my appeal with 'detailed grounds to follow'. I have received no deadline by which to submit my full appeal, but an automated email saying:

"Your appeal has been received and allocated the reference above.

You will receive an email from us in the next few days advising what the next steps are. In the meantime, you can log onto your account and review its progress.

https://foam.trafficpenaltytribunal.gov.uk/...es/#/show/61236

If the above text does not appear as a link, copy and paste it into your web browser to view it.

If you have any questions you can also contact us on the Freephone number below.

Kind Regards

Traffic Penalty Tribunal"

Should I have received a deadline? Will that come once a human reviews what I have submitted?

This post has been edited by shonks: Wed, 22 May 2019 - 15:12

They can only provide a deadline date when the date for the adjudication is set.

Yes.

They have sent me a follow up email, but still no mention of a deadline... are you suggesting I do nothing until they give me a deadline? Message reads:

"In your appeal summary you mention "Detailed grounds to follow", this can be loaded onto the case via the evidence tab at the top of the screen, if you experience issues uploading documents they can be sent to the Tribunal at the below email address as we can upload them on your behalf.

help@trafficpenaltytribunal.gov.uk

Please do not hesitate in contacting the Tribunal if you require any further assistance
Kindest Regards, Sandra
Traffic Penalty Tribunal"

First the council will decide whether to contest the case, if they don't you'll win by default. If the council contests, you'll be sent a hearing date and the deadline for you to upload your evidence will be a few days before that.

I see, so the reason for not submitting anything at this stage is to save the hassle of preparing something when the council may decide not to contest it, and therefore resolve the case, before any submissions are considered?

In part, yes. It also means that if the council does chose to contest, they don't know what you're going to say in your appeal, so it gives you a tactical advantage.

No it's not.

It's so that you can see the authority's evidence before the hearing and before you have to submit your evidence. In this way you can target your appeal at the authority's claims.

They thrust; you parry and riposte.

I beg to differ. I can think of a couple of cases where we've submitted war & peace only for the council not to contest.

?

The question was:
I see, so the reason for not submitting anything at this stage is to save the hassle of preparing something when the council may decide not to contest it, and therefore resolve the case, before any submissions are considered?


And the agreed answer is:
No.

The objective is to allow appellants to see the council's evidence before submitting their own. A benefit would also be to cut down on effort should the council choose to not contest, but it is not the reason.

In this case I would put an appeal in that covers the basics.
ie PCN served when no penalty was payable.
Plus PI in that the council rejected using false grounds, ie that the 10 minutes rule only applies to paid parking.
I would point out that the NOR seemed to have been prepared by someone with no knowledge of the relevant legislation who seemed to simply try to find a reason to reject.
Wholly Unreasonable actions which totally fail the authority's duty to consider fully, fairly and impartially.

The council have upload 12 items of evidence which consist of our various bits of correspondence/appeals etc. And the Traffic Penalty Tribunal have sent me the following message:


The authority uploaded its evidence on your case. There are a couple of actions for you to take now.

1. Review the authority evidence

Please review the evidence. You have 7 days to add your own evidence and comments if you wish to do so.

2. Confirm how you wish your case to be decided by choosing ‘select decision options’

There are two ways for this decision to be made:

Option A: I would like the adjudicator to decide my case now: The appeal will be decided by the adjudicator without a telephone hearing. Select ‘request decision’.
Option B: I would like a telephone hearing: Tell us about your preferred times and select ‘submit hearing request’. We will then contact you to arrange a date and time for a telephone hearing.

Please note that if you do not make a request within 7 days of this email the decision will be made without a telephone hearing.


I have been away and so unfortunately missed this email the day it arrived. I have until the 13th of June to decide whether I want a telephone hearing before it is automatically decided without one.

The council should have uploaded a case summary, post it on here so we can take a look.

You need to phone them and request an adjournment, even if CP can draft an appeal for you in time you still need to be able to get your head around it

This post was made in error. My reply is the next post.

This post has been edited by aphexes: Tue, 11 Jun 2019 - 14:59