Dear London Borough of Havering,
I challenge liability for PCN HG60468721 on the basis that the council has materially departed from the requirements of the London Local Authorities Act 1996. Firstly the PCN states that an Enforcement Notice may be issued if there have been no representations received and no payment made before the period of 28 days starting with the date of service of the PCN, this is wrong for two reasons as follows:
The first point is that the statutory 28 day period commences with the date of the notice, not the date of service. The second point is that an Enforcement Notice may be served if payment is not received, there is no statutory right to make representations against a bus lane penalty charge notice and while one might make representations, that is irrelevant for the purpose of service of an Enforcement Notice: the authority may serve an Enforcement Notice at any time after the expiry of the statutory 28 day period, in particular the authority may serve an Enforcement Notice even if informal representations against a PCN have been made and are outstanding.
What the 1996 Act actually says is that a penalty charge notice must state that if the penalty charge is not paid before the end of the 28 day period, an enforcement notice may be served by the council. While the wording of the regulations does not need to be quoted verbatim, the substance of the provision must be communicated and the PCN is defective in this regard.
Further to this, the statutory grounds of appeal are misstated. In particular the following statutory grounds of appeal do not exist under the 1996 Act, but are quoted on the PCN:
1) The vehicle had been permitted to remain at rest in the place in question by a person who was in control of the vehicle without the consent of the owner. This might well appear relevant to a bus lane contravention where, for example, a camera captures a car parked in a bus lane. This might happen for instance where someone drives a car into a bus lane outside of its hours of operation, parks the car and then the bus lane comes into operation later in the day. However this statutory ground of appeal does not exist.
2) The hire company ground which exists under the Traffic Management Act 2004 and the London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2003 is quoted on the PCN, but this ground does not exist under the London Local Authorities Act 1996.
3) The penalty exceeds the amount due in the circumstances of the case: again this ground exists under the Traffic Management Act 2004 and the London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2003, but it does not exist under the London Local Authorities Act 1996.
In this instance the PCN departs so fundamentally from the requirements of the 1996 Act that the conditions required under the Act for liability to be imposed do not arise, it follows that the penalty charge must be cancelled.
Yours faithfully,
Looks like drivel, there's no consideration of the points made and they've even managed to quote the wrong Act of Parliament. For now just wait for the enforcement notice, in the meantime I'll try and confirm the make and model of the CCTV camera.
It would be helpful if you could confirm the exact route you took, and also if you could pop back and get some update photos of the signage.
