Small update
Informal reps were submitted, albeit outside the discount window. Rejection unsurprisingly received. They've seemed to have missed the wood for the trees but expected at this stage. Awaiting NTO.
Reps were submitted as follows:
Dear Milton Keynes Council
On the evening of the 5th November I arrived and parked near the EasyHotel just off Silbury Road in Milton Keynes city centre and promptly paid by phone to cover parking into the morning of the 6th prior to me departing the hotel. The location I parked is marked in the attachment “MK parking locations” with the light blue star. This is the first time I have visited the city. I have evidence of my hotel booking for that evening also attached.
Later on the morning of the 6th I parked in the Witan Gate East location near Genesis House as I needed to take items to the Leonardo hotel where I would be taking part in acting rehearsals for Christmas themed events as Santa Claus. This is marked in the attachment “MK parking locations”.
When parking at the Witan Gate East location I walked toward the Leonardo Hotel and tried numerous times to pay by phone with Ringo as I had done the prior evening when I parked near the EasyHotel just off Silbury Road. Given the distance between the two parking locations (250m or so), I did not realise that the location code for both of those areas was the same on the signs.
After a number of failed attempts to pay by phone where the transaction would freeze I gave up and returned to the pay and display machine on Witan Gate East, approximately 60-65metres from where my vehicle was parked. There were three people queuing before me to purchase a pay and display ticket, one of whom was particularly slow. I did however finally manage to pay for a ticket which I have attached with these representations, timestamped at 10:49 to cover 6 hours of parking, 8 minutes after the PCN issued by your CEO. I didn’t notice a CEO around my vehicle at the time I tried to pay and seems I might have missed them by only a couple of minutes or so. Had I seen them, I would have approached them and mentioned my issues and that I was in the process of getting a physical ticket.
It seems I was also caught out by the fact that Witan Gate East and the parking near the EasyHotel shared the same location code, which is typically unusual for other towns and cities, where even opposite sides of the road can have different codes. This unfortunately meant I was not aware that I technically had a parking session that already applied for Witan Gate East and as such would have an even shorter amount of grace period in which to pay for time.
I would be grateful if you exercised discretion, given the good faith shown in trying to obtain a ticket via pay by phone and then getting a physical ticket when that failed.
The gap in time of merely 8 minutes between the issuance of the PCN and the purchase of the physical ticket to cover a 6 hour parking session also strikes me as being a de minimis or trivial contravention.
I hope with the information above, you can find grounds to cancel the PCN in this instance.
Their rejection:
