The contravention did not occur.
The authority's burden in law is two-fold:
1. To prove that the car was parked adjacent to a footway lowered to meet the carriageway, and
2. That this exists for one of the statutory purposes, namely:
(i)assisting pedestrians crossing the carriageway,
(ii)assisting cyclists entering or leaving the carriageway, or
(iii)assisting vehicles entering or leaving the carriageway across the footway, cycle track or verge;
Clearly (i) does not apply because there is no corresponding dropped footway opposite.
Similarly, (ii) does not apply, neither has it been asserted by the authority, because there are no complementary cycle lanes, paths or segregated routes on the footway.
The authority must therefore establish that (iii) applies. But as the GSV snapshots show, whereas the footway being lowered at this point might have applied in the past this purpose ceased to subsist when the fence and vehicle opening mechanism were modified as stated in my informal representations.
As TMA 86(i) does not apply, I should be grateful if the authority would not belabour this in any response as it is not a relevant consideration.
The contravention did not occur and the PCN must be cancelled on these grounds.
In addition, I would refer the authority to this provision in the Secretary of State's statutory guidance:
Providing a quality service
The NtO may be issued 28 days after serving the penalty charge, and we expect authorities to send them within 56 days. The ultimate time limit, in exceptional circumstances, is 6 months [footnote 33] from the ‘relevant date’. There should be a very good reason for waiting that long to serve an NtO.
In this case the PCN was issued on 22 May and the NTO on 11 August an elapsed period of 81 days, 25 days longer than the guidance's recommendation. The authority is therefore required to give acceptable reasons for this delay without which grounds of 'procedural impropriety' could apply.
