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Signs on Laycock Street near Upper Street:

Signs at the junction of Laycock Street and Liverpool Road:


Note, these signs are pretty irrelevant as they only cover the road where I was parked if you approach the road from the south. If you approach the road where I was parked from the North, you are not met with any entry restriction signs.

In the seesaw of decisions here's a loss from yesterday but the adjudicator didn't consider how you'd know at the roadside when a match is not a match and relying solely on a CPZ plan that may have said 'next match'...

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Appellant   Cheryl Cosgrove
Authority   London Borough of Islington
VRM   MK18TDZ
   
PCN Details
PCN   IZ35553105
Contravention date   07 Jun 2025
Contravention time   15:20:00
Contravention location   Arthur Road
Penalty amount   GBP 160.00
Contravention   Parked resident/shared use without a valid permit
   
Referral date   -
   
Decision Date   23 Apr 2026
Adjudicator   Martin Hoare
Appeal decision   Appeal refused
Direction   Full penalty charge notice amount stated to be paid within 28 days.
Reasons   Ms Cosgrove wrote: ‘I had made an effort to ensure that I was parked legally by checking the nearby signs. However, I was not aware of the specific restriction at the time due to unclear or misleading signage. The sign state match days.. there is no mention of events.. I have been informed there are a few signs across Islington, but again unless you know this or that events are included in the restrictions.. I didn’t know there was a concert and that there was additional parking restrictions in place.. I had my elderly father with who has a blue badge.’
The football season had finished and this was not a match day.
The civil enforcement officer’s photographs establish that this car was parked in a permit bay without a valid permit at 15.22 on Saturday 7 June 2025. The sign explained that a permit was required on a matchday Saturday 1.30-4.30 pm.
A zone entry point sign indicated ‘ next match day Fri6,Sat 7 June’.
The Authority explained ‘Match day controls also take any events including concerts at the stadium that has over 10,000 people there……
The match dates are also clearly displayed on the Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) signage which are located at the entry points of each zone.’
The Authority provided a plan , plotting the entry point signage in place on 7 June 2025.
The car was parked in a permit bay without a permit despite adequate signage.
Had a Blue Badge been displayed it would not have conferred a right to park in a permit bay.
The appeal is refused.

You can raise anything with the adjudicator. Do you not have details on how to join the hearing?

Points to cover which I think were in your reps/appeal anyway. How did you check that it wasn't a football hime tie? I can't recall without reading it all back.

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The only parking sign at the location specifies match days and you checked and it wasn't a football match that day at the Emirates.

Islington's website starts at the top by saying:

Emirates Stadium restrictions
Find out about additional parking restrictions on Arsenal home match days.

Why would anyone think there was a restriction if Arsenal wasn't playing at home and look any further.

Islington has enclosed pictures from another street that is a dead end from both ends so you couldn't have driven through this and you have no idea what if any entry sign was passed. In any case controlled zone entry signs control single yellow lines not parking bays, which have their own signage and your duty was to check if it was a football match day.

Refer to allowed decisions.

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Joker - this decision possibly relevant but we don't know if authorisation is the same as this for only one 'next event. How many 'next matches' were on the sign.

Case reference   2250234820
Appellant   Chloe Arnold
Authority   London Borough of Newham
VRM   SX64EFL
   
PCN Details
PCN   PN21502865
Contravention date   29 Dec 2024
Contravention time   09:56:00
Contravention location   Ham Park Road
Penalty amount   GBP 130.00
Contravention   Parked resident/shared use without a valid permit
   
Referral date   -
   
Decision Date   29 Jul 2025
Adjudicator   Edward Houghton
Appeal decision   Appeal allowed
Direction   cancel the Penalty Charge Notice and the Notice to Owner.
Reasons   I heard this appeal by video link.
The Appellant’s case is essentially that there was no signage in the immediate vicinity to inform her that the day in w question was an event day. This may be so. However the Council clearly relies on this information being given on Controlled Zone signage which the motorist must pass in order to reach the eventual parking place – a standard form of stadium signage.
In the present case, however, although plans have been provided together with photographs of the signs relied on, these are of very poor quality and do not clearly show either the location of the signs or the location where the vehicle parked. I am not satisfied this evidence is sufficient to prove what is needed to be proved, namely that the Appellant could not have reached her parking place without passing such a sign.
I would also add that the Secretary of State’s authorisation for the sign allows the lower panel to be varied to the “date of the next event” – not the date of the next event and the event following that.
The Appeal must therefore be allowed


 

So here is a summary of the points I intend to make tomorrow. Let me know what you think;

1 . The only parking sign at the location specifies match days and you checked and it wasn't a
football match that day at the Emirates. I even checked women’s matches as a passenger in the
vehicle reminded me and there were no women’s matches either.

Islington's website starts at the top by saying:

Emirates Stadium restrictions
Find out about additional parking restrictions on Arsenal home match days.

Why would a reasonable motorist look any further than this based on the information available?
2. Islington has enclosed pictures from another street that is a dead end from both ends (Laycock
street) so you couldn't have driven through this and you have no idea what if any entry sign was
passed.

They have admitted in their own evidence pack that I did not mention which direction of travel I
came from and that the zone entry signage is only visible if approaching highbury station road from
the North.

I can confirm I had come from Tuffnell Park, which would have led me to approach Highbury Station Road from the North.

In any case, I have been advised controlled zone entry signs control single yellow lines not parking
bays, which have their own signage.

Refer to Case 2250234820 where appeal was allowed because the Secretary of State’s authorisation
for the sign allows the lower panel to be varied to the “date of the next event” – not the date of the
next event and the event following that. Which islington have done in their case by putting two
dates on the zone entry signage.

3. In Islington’s evidence pack, they have stated in their case summary “The contravention occurred
in Junction Road, N19 and the CEO issued the PCN at 12:16pm.” Which is incorrect.

4. The CEO relies on the TSRGD, stating; “The enforcement authority can confirm
that the signs used are designed in accordance with the Department of Transport's TSRGD (The
Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016) regulations and the enforcement authority
is satisfied that the signs used meet these standards.”

In fact, the only time the word match is mentioned in the TSRGD is in the following paragraph;

The expressions “Match”, “match”, “Event”, “event”, “Market”, “market”, “Day”, “day”,
“On”, “on”, any of those expressions in the plural or the expression “Next” or that expression
without a capital letter may be used with any of the expressions permitted by paragraph 1, 2, 3 or
4 as appropriate.

There is no mention as to when each term is appropriate to use. If we are to accept Islington’s
interpretation of the TSRGD, the term ‘Market Day’ would have also been appropriate on the
signage for the purposes of enforcing restrictions during a Robbie Williams concert (which of course
is Ludicrous. 

7. It is evident that Hackney Council changed their signage between 2018 and 2019. It is clear that
other London boroughs have recognized the confusion that is caused when the term Match Day is
used for non-sporting events. Islington clearly should have followed the same course.

Closing argument

Islington’s argument that the zone entry signage informs motorists when restrictions are enforced
should be disregarded as it has been proven that it is possible to enter Highbury Station Road
without seeing the signage. Additionally, it is clear that reliance on such signage is not appropriate in
these cases.

So this now becomes a case of what would be expected of a reasonable person at the roadside. I
believe when presented with ‘Match day’ restrictions on such signage, it is acceptable that a
reasonable motorist would look no further than to check whether any sporting events are taking
place at the local sporting venue.

Just a quick update - my appeal was allowed.

It didn't seem it would go my way at certain points, but the more the adjudicator dug into it, the more he was unhappy with what Islington submitted as their case (no one showed up on their side).

Key points that persuaded the adjudicator:

- The fact the signage is on Laycock Street even though that was not where I parked. They accepted I could have entered Highbury Station Road from the North and not seen any signs.

- He really didn't like how cluttered the entry zone signage was and didn't see how a motorist could take it all in while driving. He did actually like the case you mentioned from Newham where it said the Secretary of States authorisation allows for the date of the next event only (not also the one after that).

- He said Islington's argument rested that the TMO sets out that Match Day includes events with over 10000 people attending Emirates stadium. However, he really didn't like that the document was 81 pages long and that section was buried in the middle of it.

- Surprisingly, he liked the point that Hackney council changed their signage between 2018-2019, presumably because they recognised it was causing confusion.

In summary, he disregarded the zone entry signage and agreed it wasn't reasonable to expect someone to take a match day to include events as well.

Thank you so much for everyone's help on here, particularly Stamfordman. I never would have been able to come up with a winning argument for this matter without all the stuff you provided me with.

The shame with all this is, if I were to find myself in a similar position again, I'd probably just pay the £55. It's taken almost a year to resolve this, and it simply wasn't worth the stress it caused every time something new popped up with it. The councils really do have all the power to **** you with these PCNs.

The decision is not up yet.

The tribunal is taking too long to schedule cases currently probably because it hasn't increased capacity since the big rise in moving traffic contraventions.