Parking Ticket Appeals successes and failures

A question about : Parking Ticket Appeals successes and failures

Our company regularly receives parking tickets when delivering in London I always appeal (providing obvious illegal parking i.e. wheels on kerbs, red routes etc didn't happen) my appeal is always we were unloading goods and by law we are allowed 20 minutes to do this, traffic wardens never wait around 20 minutes to see if that was happening so they can't prove it wasn't going on as we may have been in the customers building for some time and not on the back onf the van, the councils argument that loading/unloading was not seen is not acceptable by a appeals tribunal which I have tested many times and won..

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• Our company regularly receives parking tickets when delivering in London I always appeal (providing obvious illegal parking i.e. wheels on kerbs, red routes etc didn't happen) my appeal is always we were unloading goods and by law we are allowed 20 minutes to do this, traffic wardens never wait around 20 minutes to see if that was happening so they can't prove it wasn't going on as we may have been in the customers building for some time and not on the back onf the van, the councils argument that loading/unloading was not seen is not acceptable by a appeals tribunal which I have tested many times and won..
• Nearly three years ago we were issued with a private parking ticket on a university campus. The university hired out the premises for ballet classes. Building work was going on so the normal car park was very limited and the car park usually full. The entrance to the campus was on a busy main road with no pavement, so it was impossible to walk there with a 6 year old.
  For many weeks of the building work, the security guard directed parents to park in a small staff car park opposite the dance studio, saying he felt the other car park was dangerous for such young children with all the building works. There were very few marked bays available but lots of space around which the guard directed us to park in. Sometimes the guard was not on the entrance gate, but he had made it clear that we could park there. Then, one week, we popped in to collect our daughter, came out less than 5 minutes later, and found that we had been issued with a ticket. We found the security guard and his words were "don't worry, just write a letter to the company and it will be fine".
  Our letter of appeal highlighted the follwing points-
  That the uni were hiring out the premises to parents of young children but providing no safe parking facility
  That the security guard had directed us, week after week, to park there
  That the week after the ticket was issued we were told by the security guard that an "official" directive had been passed to let dance school users park there. So after that week there were people parked everywhere and they said they were no longer issuing tickets because of the building works. There was complete inconsistency in the rules
  That the car park tickets should be kept for the purpose of those misusing the facility, and not those they knew to be genuine users
  That we felt "tricked" into being given a ticket by constant reassurances from the guard that it was fine to be there
  That the guard had told us on the day that the ticket should not have been issued
  That the ticket was littered with copies of the police emblem - for a while we thought it was police issued - and we felt this was deliberately decieving
  We appealed and got absolutely nowhere. Our letters were basically ignored and we just received a standard reply back eg "you were not parked in a marked bay". They refused to addresss any of the points we raised at all, just said they had photographic evidence.
  Despite us responding to their letters immediately every time, they kept hiking the fine up. First they demanded Ј40, then they said we owed Ј80, then Ј120 for "extra administration costs" which I assume was sending the standard letters!
  Then we got a letter saying the bailiffs would be coming round to collect articles to the value of Ј120 plus "costs". We wrote back and said that we would not be allowing anyone access to our home without a court-issued warrant (though at this point, I must admit, I was quite panicky and I nearly paid up), and that they had no right to do this as they still hadn't addressed the issues raised in our letter.
  Finally we got a letter saying they were giving us one final chance to pay (weirdly, they reduced it back down to Ј90 at this point) or they would take us to court and we would have to pay all their associated costs. I wrote back and said, "fine, take us to court, I'm sure a court would love to hear about your non-existant appeals procedure and the fact that you have refused to address every single one of the issues we have raised". I was absolutely detemined by this time to go to court if need be, because I was so fed up with them refusing to address the issues in my appeal letter. We must have had about 6 letters from them and every single one was a standard letter - they didn't even use our name.
  Two years on and we heard nothing after that letter. For about 6 months I was waiting, but have heard nothing. I'm not a legal expert, so I don't know if there's still time to take us to court or not. But my guess is they push you as far as they can to try and frighten you into paying, but don't actually bother with the court stage - I would imagine their chances of winning would be slight.
• I won an appeal. The council did not bother to attend ( as is the norm apparently), the adjudicator (usually a solicitor/former solicitor) ordered the council to refund my Ј200 fine/compound fees. The council decided to write to me asking me to PROVE I had been the person who actually paid the Ј200 compound/parking ticket fees ( I paid cash). They did not comply with the order ! I will now issue a summons in county court.
• I've received a total of 3 tickets from my local council for parking on the road outside my flat. Their official diagrams show road markings which mark out bay parking half on and half off the pavement, with supplementary signs showing that parking on the footway is valid in this context. The problem is that for the most part, these markings don't exist any more. In places more than 90% of the white paint has been eroded, and any sensible person looking at the bays would conclude that they had been erased years ago and no longer applied.
  Naturally the council don't see it that way.
  My first ticket was received in 2006, and I appealed informally on the grounds that Davie vs Heatley specifically states that markings not matching the description in Traffic Signs and Regulations order. This informal appeal was rejected. A few months later my formal representations (which stated the exact same defences, but a little more eloquently) was upheld, and the council admitted that they were cancelling it due to "an error made by our attendant". Yeah, sure...
  The lie was put to that statement when I received 2 more tickets the next year in the space of a week. For pretty much the exact same offence (I was about 30 metres from the first site, but the condition of the markings and signage was identical there).
  I appealed informally based on the overturning of my previous PCN, but was told that this time it was different because of the different location.
  I appealed formally through the "making representations" process, and was again rejected on both counts by the council who apparently sent someone out to see the state of the markings and decided that they were adequate. See below for why this is laughable:
  https://img227.imageshack.us/my.php?i...1216387nq7.jpg
  In the image there, my car would have been parked behind the mini. As you can see, there are no visible markings on the road indicating bays, and there is no termination point for the sign on the post, implying that it is valid in either direction for that stretch of pavement. In case anyone notes that parking on a corner is automatically against the highway code, this was not the offence the PCNs were issued for, and my rear axel crossed the pavement at 90 degrees with no curvature: I was parked on the straight. (Yes, my car is quite small!)
  Clearly at this point the council was making stuff up, as there is no way a reasonable human being could have seen the bay marking that the mini is parked in for that picture. Did anyone here spot it?
  So, I was left with no real option but to go to PaTAS with my appeal. Between the rejection of representations and the appeal, I supplied numerous pieces of evidence to the council demonstrating why they should just stop harassing me for money, but was constantly brushed aside as though they had no moral obligation to look fairly at my evidence before insisting that I pay.
  I received their evidence packet and within 10 minutes had highlighted about 12 points where their evidence was either outright false or internally contradictory. The real gems were:
• "There is a clear sign indicating the commencement of the allowable area of parking" - were this one true, the allowed area would run from the sign shown above, around the corner to the sign just up the road, which is in the middle of the area they claim is allowable. They really couldn't be more wrong on this one, and in any case, if this were a comencement point then it would require a termination point on the other side, clearly missing
• The council supplied a map of the area with my vehicle marked in completely the wrong location - I told them about this in advance of the hearing and they refused to replace or withdraw this map. Supplying false evidence is probably a crime, right?
• The best part of this whole matter is the report from the parking attendant, in which they clearly have a series of yes/no questions, one of which is "Is the vehicle parked outside an allowable area of footway parking". The attendant answered "No" to that question! This should have been grounds for immediate dismissal, but the council hadn't had all their fun yet, clearly.

I went to PaTAS with my evidence pack and was awarded my appeal for both tickets in less than 10 minutes. This is what happens when someone without a vested interest takes a look, apparently.
I have had further requests for apologies and compensation rejected by the local council, and am now considering filing a complaint with the local government ombusdman and suing the parking department for the 9-month long harassment for money they put me through when it was clear from the start that they were in the wrong.
If anyone has any advice about going through that, I'd love to hear it. I can't find any cases where it's been successful before, but I think with the amount of dishonesty going on in this case purely to try and get the money out of me with no grounds for further appeal amounts to harassment and possibly attempted extortion. In either case it's definitely a case of malfeasance in public office, but I don't believe that the local police would be interested in chasing that one up, unfortunately.

• Hi all
  I have appealed and won many PCN. I've listed some of the details on the PARKING TICKET APPEALS GUIDE, I won't relist them here.
  My favourite one was when Southwark Council put two PCNs on my motorbike in the space of on hour (presume the first one blew away) depspite me having a pay and display ticket in my second tax disc holder mounted on my bike - if the warden had even bother to walk round my bike once, he would have seen it.
  The Council wasted 9 months of my time on this so I charged them and took them to the small claims court. I won Ј220 from the council for wasting my time!!!
  My second favourite one wa the 56 day rule which the council didn't even know about. (see appeals forum for full details)
• In late 2005 I was fined £170 by Creative Car Parks for allegedly parking for over 3 hours in a shoppers car park in Polegate, East Sussex. However, I had actually initially parked there for a few minutes to get some change and then moved the car to the station car park nearby where I bought a ticket. I caught a train to Brighton and returned a few hours later.
  I then popped the car back in the shoppers car park to collect a prescription before returning home. In total I had parked in the shoppers car park for 9 minutes.
  I received a notice of the fine in the post a few weeks later demanding payment. The only contact detail was for the payment by credit card. There was no other information enabling me to contact the company. Luckily I had retained my railway car park ticket which included the time I had parked which proved I was not in the shoppers car park at that time.
  I sent a very angry letter to Creative Car Parks who said they had a problem with their equipment on that day and were rescinding the ticket.
  I took this matter up with my local MP, Norman Baker who had been told of similar action being taken both locally and nationally by Creative Car Parks and he mirrored my concerns that our private information was being given to this company by the DVLA. He subsequently brought this up in the House of Commons and there was a lot of publicity at the time. The Mail on Sunday took up the case and we also appeared on local BBC and ITV television to draw this apparent lapse in our Data Protection rights to the general public.
  Despite the law being changed these companies are still buying this information from the DVLA and many other people are being conned out of a lot of money by Creative Car Parks and similar organisations.
  In the Mail on Sunday this week they have raised this issue again so it is important that if you are caught by this or similar companies that you don't let the matter settle but fight it.
• I was parked on a Residents area on a Bank Holiday and the sign did not make clear if that was OK or not. I asked 2 passing wardens if it was OK and they said yes. When I got back to my car it had been towed. I had to pay to get it released and I appealed. The appeal was rejected on the basis I had not taken the wardens numbers. The Westminster council made no attempt to identify them even though I could spotlight where and when the discussion occurred. After hitting some brick walls I eventually spoke with somebody at Westminster Council who refered me to a report that had been done into parking problems and appeals. Funnily enough the vast majority of bad tickets were down to incorrect warden advice. The report also highlighted timescales and I found that the council had exceded the timescale to reply to my initial appeal. Based on that I asked for a personal hearing which you can do after a rejected appeal and the council backed down and refunded me.
• Last year I took a case to tribunal and won even though my case wasn't as clear cut as most. So it's definitely worth appealing even if you are not sure you'll win.
  My car was towed away, after I parked in a suspended residents bay in Lowndes Square, London SW1. When I parked there on a Thursday there were signs on every possible bit of street furniture for a one day suspension on the Saturday.
  The eighth nearest suspension sign (yes I counted when I got back to find my car gone) referred, slightly ambiguously, to a long term suspension of some of the bay I parked in for scaffolding works. This sign was, in itself, on the same post and immediately above yet another sign for the Saturday suspension. In the confusion of signs I simply didn't notice it.
  I went back the next day and photographed everything, including the bay I had parked in that was (as it had been on the day I parked) full of cars 'illegally parked' by owners who hadn't noticed the suspension sign either.
  The council, of course, rejected my appeal, twice, so it went to tribunal.
  At the appeal the adjudicator came across as somewhat dry and and stuffy. And at one point said something along the lines of, "What would you say if I said to you that Kensington and Chelsea have correctly issued a parking suspension that you simply failed to notice?"
  This nearly threw me but I replied that I failed to notice because of the number of other suspension signs confusing the situation and that I wasn't the only driver who had been confused by the signage.
  Also the traffic warden had taken a photograph of the suspension notice but had deliberately cut off the notice immediately below referring to the Saturday suspension. I had a photograph of both signs squeezed together on the same post and, I think perhaps, that the fact that the warden had been so obviously disingenuous in his selective photography, might have been what swung it in my favour.
  The Adjudicator concluded that the council had a statutory duty to make their signs as clear and obvious as possible and, in this case, had failed to do so.
  Therefore I got my Ј200 refunded
  So I would say. Take it all the way, even if you don't have a cast iron case. Also, if at some point the adjudicator seems to be taking the council's side he's simply playing devil's advocate, so be polite and articulate in your response, make a reasonable case, and you may well win.
  Actually I would like to say something in Kesington & Chelsea's favour.
  As a K&C resident I only get to park in places like Lowndes Square, or Kensington High Street, because the council, uniquely in London as far as I know, has a borough wide resident's parking permit rather than dividing it into zones.
  That means that people, like me, who live in the far north west of the borough (for those who don't know London that's the poorer bit, next to Wormwood Scrubs) can park anywhere in Kensington and Chelsea.
  So I can park my car, sandwiched between a Rolls Royce and an Aston Martin, wander into Harrod's, stroll around for a bit without buying anything, stroll out again, climb into my 13 year old Metro and drive away, secure in the knowledge that, as a resident of the Royal Borough I'm the equal of anyone, no matter how rich they are or how expensive their car.
  So hats off to Kensington and Chelsea for that!
• Received a PCN from the local council for parking on a single yellow line during a restricted period. I appealed to the council on the grounds that the yellow line was unenforceable due to the absence of an end marking (T bar) and it appearing to continue through a designated residents parking bay (Road markings must accurately conform to the specifications and the council are breaking the law trying to enforce restrictions on those that do not, unless a special variation order has been made by the Secretary of State).
  Won the appeal without argument when I asked to see a copy of the Secretary of States variation order!
• I succesfully appealed a parking fine once. They didn't mess me about either. I live in a resident only parking zone and had just changed my vehicle. Until my permit was dispatched, they gave me a temporary chit to put on the dashboard - which I did. I still ended up getting a ticket though. There was other paperwork on the dash but it didn't cover the chit. In fairness to the warden, my chit would not have sood out from the other paperwork. Anyway, I sent the ticket with a copy of the chit to the appeals place and a couple of weeks later they replied basically saying "Forget it". There was a hint in the letter that the chit may have been incorrectly displayed but I assume that's just the powers that be not wanting to admit they dropped one.
• Motorists Issued P.c.n. Should Check The Tickets Closely.last Year I Was Issued A Ticket Which Said I Was In Contravention Of The Road Traffic Act 1991.this Act Was Up Dated 2004.i Appealed And Won.this Is A Technicality But Law Is Law.so Even If Your Ticketed Fairly Its Still Worth Appealing If The Ticket Displays The Old Act Details.
• Hey all,
  I had success in an informal appeal recently due to the road sign which explained the restrictions should have been removed in 2005. I found this out as the sign was hard to read and I thought it looked dated so I checked it out on the Department for Transport and as suspected it should have been removed as it was no longer legal.
  Here is a link to the DfT website where they publish signs which no longer carry a legal standing
  https://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/tss/nlpbtsrgd/
  Here is a link to a 2 page pdf of the sign which I was caught out by - its labelled up as 641. After going through this I have been amazed by how many of these signs I have seen - most of which are around town and city centre's so be sure to check it out.
  https://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/tss/...anuary2005.pdf
  Hope it helps.
• i had a huge success against canterbury city council on behalf of my daughter. i had a pub in the city centre so there was no parking outside except for loading and unloading. my daughter parked outside and carried a box to the upstairs of the pub and in the time she got back down again, she had a ticket. the warden said she had been there for longer than the 20 mins allowed and we knew that she had not. we knew that the wardens saw a car there, didnt stand and watch as they are supposed to, but went off for wander and a fag, then came back and assumed that the car that was there NOW, was the same car that was there before. and he was wrong. so it went as far as tribunal with mr. independant adjudicator, and the council turned up, complete with a very large minder. and it just goes to show that they really dont care what evidence you put in front of them before it actually gets that far - once they got you they wont let you go - and when it got to the bit at the end when the adjudicator asked if there was anything else i wanted to say, i said yes please. this ticket says we have a green car. we dont have a green car, we have a blue one!!! i produced the registration document showing the colour of the car and mr. adjudicator laughed his socks off and case dismissed. almost a whole year of wasted time,money and heavens knows what else.
  a point worth mentioning is that always, always read your ticket!! sounds daft i know but the ticket on your screen may not actually be for your car!! normally, you dont read it and just go and pay it, and the person whose car it was put on in the first place, has removed it and put it on someones elses car, in the hope that THEY wont read it and check it, and will just pay it, because that happens a lot!!!
• Excel put a ticket on my window in their car park stating that the contravention was 'non-display of ticket'.
  Illogically - the attendant wrote down the number of the parking ticket on this ticket.
  I complained that his logic was faulty .. did he have supernatural powers - no response, a lot of phone calls and wasted time. However, it is important to get the name and e-mail address of anyone who responds to you - they don't like it if you send e-mails direct to them.
  Eventually I took to sending registered letters. This proved more effective but they then wrote back and said that I had 'outstayed my time'.
  I hadn't - as the ticket was timed before the expiry date.
  In my opinion the attendant had ticketed the disabled man next to me - who hadn't realised the car park was not free for disabled people, who was in tears when I arrived back at the car.. and decided to add one extra as I was parked next to him.
  My ticket was clearly displayed on the dashboard. According to Excel that is not good enough - it has to be stuck to the window to be displayed. But this infromation is only on the back of the ticket - after you have paid up. Therefore the point of sale and the contract is made before you see the ticket. They cannot alter the terms and conditions after the ticket is paid for - even if it does drop down into the collection point straight after you have paid. This infromation was not on the noticeboard.
  You do receive nasty threatening letters - and I bet the poor disabled man paid up, but make sure you read the noticeboard in the car park before you park ,every bit of the parking ticket.... and say that you will see them in court if anything doesn't make sense. Ask for their photographic evidence becuase without it - it is their word against yours.
  It is advisable to take a photo of the noticeboard, as soon as you get the ticket, as the one concerned was altered shortly after they caved in.
  This is the letter that saw them off - and Excel finally sent me a letter admitting they had no grounds.
  Recorded delivery
  Alun Cockcroft
  Commercial Director
  Excel Parking Services
  356 Omega Court
  Cemetery Road
  Kenwood Park
  Sheffield
  S11 8FT
  Dear Mr Cockcroft,
  Ticket numberXXXXX
• I have had 2 tickets and had both revoked after writing to the issuer
  The first was about 3 years ago in scarborough on holiday with my 3yr old daughter - I had parked up forgot to buy a ticket and went out about 30mins later - there was a ticket - I was frustrated cos I had genuinely forgot - so I wrote and said that I had gone to find a toilet and to get some change and wrote a letter explaining that we were on holiday spending lots of money and did not want to scar the holiday with a ticket - I was pleased a few days later to get a reply saying it was revoked.
  The second time was on Saturday - I bought a ticket ( Crewe, Asda car park ) - Forgot to put it in the window - I emailed them monday morning with a picture of the ticket and explaining the situation and wrote in an apologetic tone - Today ( Wednesday ) A letter saying it had been revoked - I think I have saved in excess of Ј100 of fines.
  Its common sense stuff really but a good idea to discuss on here - Thanks to this site I have got a free ipod shuffle, claimed about Ј150 from Halifax for a mortgage they sold me got sat nav for under Ј60 - Martin - your the man!
• Got a PCN in Worthing West Sussex. I had bought a parking ticket, but it must have flipped over when I closed door. I appealed claiming that the ticket was on display (white lie). I also said that the time on the ticket was the same time as the PCN, so the issuer must have seen me buying it. They wrote back with pictures of my ticket wrong side up. Banged to rights methinks. But apparently their policy is to let you off for a 1st offence, if you are a bit in the right.