Free Traffic Legal Advice

Dear St Albans District Council,

In the first instance, I draw your attention to paragraph 8(5) of Schedule 8 to the Traffic Management Act 2004, which provides that:

  References in this Part of this Act to the enforcement authority in relation to parking contraventions in a civil enforcement area outside Greater London, are—
      (a) in relation to contraventions relating to a parking place—
        (i) provided or authorised under section 32(1)(a) or (b) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (c. 27), or

        (ii) designated by order under section 45 of that Act,
      to the authority by whom the parking place was provided, authorised or designated;
The highways authority for roads in St Albans is Hertfordshire County Council, therefore only Hertfordshire County Council is entitled as the enforcement authority to issue penalty charge notices in respect of parking places it has provided.

St Albans District Council has no power to serve a PCN in its own right for an alleged contravention in an on-street parking place, so service of the PCN is a procedural impropriety.

In the alternative, if St Albans District Council is acting as an agent for Hertfordshire County Council, then there is a procedural impropriety because nowhere does the PCN state that the name of the Enforcement Authority is Hertfordshire County Council, this being a regulatory requirement imposed by paragraph 1(a) of Schedule 2 to The Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Approved Devices, Charging Guidelines and General Provisions) (England) Regulations 2022.

In light of the above procedural impropriety, the council's position is hopeless and it would be wholly unreasonable for the authority to reject the ground above, which is plainly unanswerable.

Further to this, the penalty charge exceeds the amount due in the circumstances of the case because, by virtue of regulation 5(2) of The Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Approved Devices, Charging Guidelines and General Provisions) (England) Regulations 2022, no penalty was payable at 3:40 pm.

In addition the PCN carries an 0845 number which comes with a 2p per minute service charge, for the reasons explained in Paul Bateman v Derbyshire County Council (DJ00037-2209, 10 November 2022) (copy attached) this means that the penalty demanded exceeds the amount due in the circumstances of the case. As the High Court held in London Borough of Camden v The Parking Adjudicator & Ors [2011] EWHC 295 (Admin), the fact that other payment methods are available which do not attract the surcharge is irrelevant and makes no difference: once an excessive penalty is made, a statutory ground is made out and the penalty must be cancelled.

The council will appreciate that in light of the above grounds, it would be wholly unreasonable for enforcement to be pursued any further.

Yours faithfully,

They've basically confessed to failing to state the name of the enforcement authority on the PCN, which is an open and shut procedural impropriety. There was a way they could have argued their way out of it, but given what they've put in the rejection, you basically can't lose now.

Assuming the address is 100% up to date on the V5C, just wait for the Notice to Owner.