Free Traffic Legal Advice

Good evening,

Some jobsworth issued a PCN against my car because it was parked adjacent to a dropped kerb which leads to a gate which is never used. The case is now at the NTO stage.

Link to OneDrive folder (use Incognito to avoid needing to sign-in).
GSV location (the RESERVED PARKING sign was not there when I parked)

Pending any further advice you can give me, here is the gist of what I am thinking of writing in my formal challenge:

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I normally park in front of my own garage behind my house, but on this occasion somebody else had blocked my garage, and my usual street of second resort was also full of cars, so I had to instead park on Brecon Road which I am unfamiliar with.

Brecon Road is not part of a CPZ and the place I parked had no road markings. It was therefore a surprise to me to find a PCN issued when I returned to the car the following evening.

I believe this PCN should be cancelled because of the following factors:

• The height of the unlowered portion of the kerb is much lower than normal kerb height, which makes the lowered 'special' portion significantly less distinguishable from the unlowered part of the kerb
• The fact that the gate served by the dropped kerb is of the same colour, wood type and wood orientation as the surrounding garden fence, and has no sign on it, makes it very unobvious, especially in the dark, that a gate even exists at the location, let alone a dropped kerb to enforce unobstructed access to it. Such context is important given what I mentioned in the first bullet point.
• The fact that the start and end of the dropped kerb is significantly offset from the start and end of the gate further reduces the noticeability of the dropped kerb.
• Given all of the above, a single white line should have been there to mitigate the unnoticeability of the special enforcement zone. However, no such line is there, even though such a line is commonly used in front of contextually-obvious places like in front of large sweeping driveways.

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In the OneDrive folder, I have added some photos of my own which show how the lowered and unlowered portions of the kerb visually blend into each other. Please let me know of anything that can help my case.

I added on the fact that there used to be a context-critical sign on the gate but is not there anymore. I've submitted the challenge (which I've uploaded to the folder) and will let you know of the outcome. Thank you for your help.

I've just remembered that the PCN shows the colour of the car as grey instead of silver, but from what I understand that discrepancy has little sway in cancelling a PCN anyway.

Link to what I had sent as my formal representation:


https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q9WzGBRhyprPt_4Cbz0Yrhfp3hARxW6B

@elucidate I have sent you a PM.

Commonsense prevailed:

The contravention alleged in these proceedings is that this vehicle was parked adjacent to lowered footway. I agree with the council that this lowered section of footway is clearly discernible as such, and I therefore reject the appellant's submissions on that point, but it is not clear to me on its evidence that this section of footway is lowered for any of the purposes set out at S86 of The Traffic Management Act 2004: on the photographic evidence the vehicle is parked alongside a fence. I can see that there is a doorway within the fence, but the vehicle is not parked adjacent to that doorway. I infer that this section of footway, given its length, was originally lowered to provide vehicular access. That purpose now appears to be redundant. I am not satisfied that this lowered section of footway assists pedestrian, cycle or vehicular use when crossing or entering/leaving the carriageway. I find that the contravention has not been proved, and I allow the appeal.

No representative?