I'm not surprised.
Register your appeal. Contravention did not occur; Procedural impropriety.
Once you've registered your appeal you can submit a more comprehensive argument.
...along the lines of:
On *** I parked in the parking place.
(pl, pl stop referring to it as a bay). The law as regards traffic signs refers to orders and these refer to designated parking places - 'A local authority may by order designate parking places on highways..'
As can be seen in the enclosed GSV snapshot and confirmed in the authority's photos, this parking place is situated on the south side of Falkner Street and extends for approx. 27 metres from the termination of a 'Keep Clear' prohibition outside Abercromby Nursery School to its junction with Bedford Street South. Within this relatively short distance there are no street lamp columns and no other traffic sign posts - or trees for that matter. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that the council haven't placed any 'traffic signs' (s64 RTRA refers) in or within the vicinity of the parking place. There is another parking place on the south side of Falkner Street but this is distinguished from my location by virtue of being separated by the 'Keep Clear' prohibition and a length of unrestricted street.
It therefore follows that, for the want of any traffic sign conveying a restriction at my location, a motorist would not know what restrictions might apply. In the circumstances of my case, and by implication every other PCN issued in that place, the CEO has been directed to photograph the nearest traffic sign on the opposite side of the road (as can be seen in the council's evidence where leafy trees are in evidence as they frame the traffic sign relied upon).
I was not bound by this sign, indeed I didn't register it at the time as I was focused on what restrictions applied to where I parked, not places on the other side of the road.
The authority have rejected 2 sets of representations on the fraudulent basis that the CEO's evidential photos establish the council's compliance with LATOR and therefore their right to pursue a penalty when those representations gave the clearest evidence to the contrary. Indeed, in the NOR they have compounded their lack of candour with the following statement:
'There are two signs on that road which state that it is permit parking only. A sign is not required at that[presumably my] location as there is already a sign at the other end of the road in the bay'.
Setting aside for one moment that 'that' sign is not in my parking place and that, as I now know because the NOR drew it to my attention and I have measured, it is 210 feet from where my car was parked, this is not even the sign presented in the authority's evidence.
Given the authority's attempts to justify their error and penalise me by relying upon spurious photographic evidence and specious claims, it must surely follow that whether by virtue of the regulations or their public law duty to act fairly these actions give rise to grounds of 'procedural impropriety'. I have therefore added 'Procedural Impropriety' to my statutory grounds by virtue of this comment in the authority's NOR:
I am confident that now that this evidence and the council's actions have been opened to more enlightened and impartial scrutiny the adjudicator will see the truth of the matter and cancel the PCN.
My thoughts.
