It should be a simple matter that a designated parking place in a controlled parking zone must have a parking sign showing the times of operation and who is allowed to park there.
Occasionally a rogue adjudicator has to be reeled in as our Mr Mustard did in the appealed case below.
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Case reference 2250149506
Appellant xxxx
Authority London Borough of Newham
VRM PF18UJB
PCN Details
PCN PN21615103
Contravention date 14 Jan 2025
Contravention time 08:43:00
Contravention location Holbrook Road
Penalty amount GBP 130.00
Contravention Parked resident/shared use without a valid permit
Referral date -
Decision Date 04 Jun 2025
Adjudicator Gerald Mohabir
Appeal decision Appeal refused
Direction Full penalty charge notice amount stated to be paid within 28 days.
1. Reasons Mr DISHMAN appeared on behalf of the Appellant, xxxxx today in a hearing that was heard between 2.45pm - 3.15pm.
2. The Authority were unrepresented and did not appear.
3. There is no submission to the contrary that as the registered owner of PF18UJB, the Appellant had parked in Holbrook Road at 08.43 on 14/1/25 in the London Borough of Newham.
4. Mr Dishman has submitted a skeleton argument with a number of other decisions reached by colleagues in fact specific cases. He accepted at the outset that every decision is fact specific and at best persuasive. Not withstanding that, in a rolled up submission, he contends that there has been no contravention and procedural impropriety.
5. During our discussions, he agreed that that Holbrook Road was within a controlled parking zone ('CPZ') and that there was signage as submitted by the Authority to that effect. He accepted that on 14/1/25, West Ham were playing Fulham as advertised in the time plates and that vehicles in the CPZ were subject to 'match day' restrictions..
6. He further agreed that the TMOs of 2010 and 2017 were in place but makes a somewhat novel submission that the parking bay that the Appellant's car was in, did not have a time plate as per the TSDGR 2016 regulations and was therefore a 'free bay' and not subject to the CPZ restrictions.
7. I was referred to the individual decisions but have to say, even if similar, I disagree with their reasoning. In discussion, Mr Dishman agreed that the CPZ time plates would mean that if a motorist were to park on a yellow line, the onus would be on them to seek out a time plate. However, he says that this does not refer to parking bays. I disagree with that line of reasoning.
8. Were this bay not within a CPZ, there would be some force in that submission, but this was in a delineated area with the clearest compliant signage at either end of every entry and exit point. In those circumstances I find that the onus is on the motorist in the same way had he parked on a yellow line in a CPZ to make themselves aware of any restrictions. Accordingly, I find there to be a contravention.
9. I cannot find to the requisite standard that the Appellant has established that there was a procedural impropriety and so am bound to find for the Authority in this appeal.
10. 10. I understand that the amount owing is £130 if received within 28 days of 4/6/25. This amount will increase by 50% thereafter with the Authority then being able to pursue enforcement thereafter.
11.
Decision Date 30 Jun 2025
Adjudicator Edward Houghton
Previous decision Appeal refused
Appeal decision Appeal allowed
Direction cancel the Penalty Charge Notice and the Notice to Owner.
1. Reasons This is an application by Mr Dishman on behalf of the Appellant for review of the decision of my learned colleague Mr Mohabir refusing the Appeal in the following terms:-
1. Mr DISHMAN appeared on behalf of the Appellant, xxxxx today in a hearing that was heard between 2.45pm - 3.15pm.
2. The Authority were unrepresented and did not appear.
3. There is no submission to the contrary that as the registered owner of PF18UJB, the Appellant had parked in Holbrook Road at 08.43 on 14/1/25 in the London Borough of Newham.
4. Mr Dishman has submitted a skeleton argument with a number of other decisions reached by colleagues in fact specific cases. He accepted at the outset that every decision is fact specific and at best persuasive. Not withstanding that, in a rolled up submission, he contends that there has been no contravention and procedural impropriety.
5. During our discussions, he agreed that that Holbrook Road was within a controlled parking zone ('CPZ') and that there was signage as submitted by the Authority to that effect. He accepted that on 14/1/25, West Ham were playing Fulham as advertised in the time plates and that vehicles in the CPZ were subject to 'match day' restrictions..
6. He further agreed that the TMOs of 2010 and 2017 were in place but makes a somewhat novel submission that the parking bay that the Appellant's car was in, did not have a time plate as per the TSDGR 2016 regulations and was therefore a 'free bay' and not subject to the CPZ restrictions.
7. I was referred to the individual decisions but have to say, even if similar, I disagree with their reasoning. In discussion, Mr Dishman agreed that the CPZ time plates would mean that if a motorist were to park on a yellow line, the onus would be on them to seek out a time plate. However, he says that this does not refer to parking bays. I disagree with that line of reasoning.
8. Were this bay not within a CPZ, there would be some force in that submission, but this was in a delineated area with the clearest compliant signage at either end of every entry and exit point. In those circumstances I find that the onus is on the motorist in the same way had he parked on a yellow line in a CPZ to make themselves aware of any restrictions. Accordingly, I find there to be a contravention.
9. I cannot find to the requisite standard that the Appellant has established that there was a procedural impropriety and so am bound to find for the Authority in this appeal.
10. 10. I understand that the amount owing is £130 if received within 28 days of 4/6/25. This amount will increase by 50% thereafter with the Authority then being able to pursue enforcement thereafter.
The grounds on which review is sought are as follows:-
2. “The decision is illogical and perverse to the point of being Wednesbury Unreasonable. It is a 'brave' adjudicator indeed who ignores the combined intellectual and experienced might of three adjudicators, Houghton, Brennan and Walsh, who have all found that a cpz entry sign does not apply to a bay. This is not a point the principle of which I have had to argue since I started being a pro bono representative in 2013. It is in the interests of justice that this patently incorrect decision be reviewed. It is paragraphs 6, 7 and 8 which contain the meat of the illogical decision. What was novel was not my argument, founded upon the decisions of at least 3 experienced adjudicators, but that I was asked to explain, on the hoof, why a cpz entry sign does not apply to a marked out bay”
Mr Dishman then goes into further detail on the basis of “The traffic Signs Manual ,logic and the decision in Herron”
3. It seems to me that Mr Dishman is correct. It is certainly correct that the vehicle was parked “in a delineated area with the clearest compliant signage at either end of every entry and exit point”. However CPZ signage does not apply to an area as a whole; what it applies to is the yellow lines indicating the waiting restrictions within the area ( which is why it bears the No Waiting rondel), and has no application at all to designated parking places (where the restrictions themselves will always, and the operational hours will very often, be entirely different.) To the best of my knowledge it has never been suggested that a designated parking place can be signed by a CPZ sign any more than it could be signed by a yellow No Waiting time plate, (save, as I am bound to add for the sake of completeness, those comparatively rare instances where permitted variants such as Pay and Display Zone or Permit Zone are used – and even in these instances the CPZ sign only operates to apply the operational hours shown on it to the type of bay mentioned on the signs).
4. What this clear Zone signage indicated was that on the event days shown on the sign the operational hours of every single yellow line until further notice were as specified on the sign. The signs , authorised by the Secretary of State also operated ( as Adjudicators have accepted over many years) as a general notice to motorists of when the event days were ; however in the case of designated parking places the designation must provide for a restriction which actually applies on on an event day and that restriction must be signed accordingly . The Zone sign stating a day to be an event day is of no effect in a designated parking place unless there is a sign for that parking place (supported by a TMO) to say that parking on event days is actually prohibited. In the absence of any sign for the designated parking place itself it could perfectly well be a type of bay which had no event day relevance.
References
5.
6. The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 defines a Controlled Parking Zone ( of this type ) as
(a)
an area-
(i)
in which every part of every road is subject to a prohibition indicated by single or double yellow lines or single or double yellow kerb markings (except where parking spaces have been provided, where entrance to or exit from the road is made, where there is a prohibition or restriction on waiting, stopping, loading or unloading indicated by a different sign or where there is a crossing) whether or not an upright sign to indicate the same prohibition is placed in conjunction with the line or kerb marking; and
(ii)
into which each entrance for vehicular traffic has been indicated by the sign provided for at item 1 or 3 of the sign table in Part 3 of Schedule 5;
7.
8. The Traffic Signs Manual Chapter 3
9.
10. 14.1.2. Both types of CPZ have zone entry signs which show the times that waiting is prohibited. For a type (a) CPZ, these times may be the same as the operational period of the on street parking places within the zone. This is always the case for voucher parking zones and other CPZs where the type of parking is indicated on the entry sign. Signing within a type (a) CPZ will generally be in accordance with section 13 for waiting and loading prohibitions and for parking places
11. 14.1.6. All designated parking places and loading bays within a type (a) CPZ, other than parking meter bays, need to be signed in accordance with section 13. The times of operation, where not continuous, are always shown on the sign, even where they are the same as those shown on the zone entry sign
As there was no evidence from which the Adjudicator could find that the restriction relied on was correctly signed I find that it is in the interest s of justice that the decision be reviewed and I substitute a decision allowing the Appeal .
