You can formally challenge your PCN by using an Enforcement Notice form. The vehicle's owner will automatically
receive the form if the PCN has not been paid within 28 days of the date shown on it. The form offers you the
chance to formally challenge your PCN or pay the full £160.00. If you decide to formally challenge your PCN,
please do not write to us again but wait until the Enforcement Notice form arrives.
This is not what the law states at Part II para. 4 (e):
(e)that, if the penalty charge is not paid before the end of the 28 day period, an enforcement notice
may be served by the council on the person appearing to them to be the owner of the vehicle;
******
The legality of thousands of bus lane fines has been called into question after a motorist overturned one by claiming it had used the wrong wording.
BTW, it was his son driving not him! Mr Burke subsequently supported this in a later decision in which I assisted.
ETA Register of Appeals
Register kept under Regulation 20 of the Road Traffic (Parking Adjudicators) (London) Regulations 1993, as amended and Regulation 17 of the Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Representations and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2022.
Case Details
Case reference 2100649871
Appellant Grace Elizabeth Wheatland
Authority Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames
VRM X653XFX
PCN Details
PCN KT55276825
Contravention date 20 May 2010
Contravention time 08:49:00
Contravention location Eden Street
Penalty amount GBP 120.00
Contravention Being in a bus lane
Referral date -
Decision Date 12 May 2011
Adjudicator Michael Burke
Appeal decision Appeal allowed
Direction cancel the Penalty Charge Notice and the Enforcement Notice.
Reasons The allegation in this case is that the vehicle was in the bus lane during the hours of operation. Miss Wheatland does not dispute this but criticises the quality of the bus lane signage. I have considered very carefully the criticisms she makes but having considered her evidence together with Google Street View I am satisfied that the bus lane signage was clear and adequate and that any respect in which it failed to comply with Traffic Signs, Regulations and General Directions 2002 or Traffic Signs Manual 2008 would come within the de minimis rule as too trifling to be regarded.
In the circumstances Miss Wheatland could have had no complaint had she been required to pay a penalty charge. However, I have also had to consider part of the wording on the face of the PCN.
Miss Wheatland asserts that the PCN is non-compliant in stating that in the event of failure to make representations or a payment 'an Enforcement Notice will be served' rather than 'may be served'. He refers to a PCN cancelled by this Local Authority on similar grounds.
It is an enduring mystery why Local Authorities seem unable simply to copy out the words of the statute or statutory instrument imposing formal requirements. It is not sufficient for the Local Authority to say as here that they have subsequently amended the wording. They have given no good reason for departing from the statutory wording in the first place. However, the fact that the Enforcement Authority depart from the formal wording of a statute or statutory instrument does not necessarily invalidate the document. The question I have to consider is whether the PCN was substantially compliant.
I regard this as a borderline case. Having considered the matter very carefully I do not feel able to say that the wording on the PCN is substantially compliant and accordingly I allow the appeal.
