Author Topic: PCN Parked on footpath  (Read 472 times)

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Carlos CGD

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PCN Parked on footpath
« on: September 17, 2024, 05:10:57 pm »
I have posted this on another forum before discovering this one.

Need some advice on a parking issue.
The council is Ealing Council and the parking contravention :62 parked with one or more wheels on or over a footpath or any part of the road other than a carriageway.

One Sunday afternoon the council came round with about 20 traffic wardens and ticketed all the cars on our street. I have lived here since 1987 and we have never had this problem, ever. We have a parking sign on our road which shows the a car with two wheels on the footpath and two on the road.

The signs have been in place since the early to mid 90s and we have always parked in the same manner with two wheels on kerb. They say we have contravened section 62 - Parked with one or more wheels on or over a footpath or any part of the road other than the carriageway.
I tried to appeal this and got what appears to be a standard rejection notice because the other residents on the road who appealed got the exact same reply.

After contacting parking services, they claim we parked over the indicated area, which doesn't make sense because we don't have any bays on our road unlike some of the neighbouring roads which have the bays marked and a sign saying to park within marked bays our road doesn't have bays or an indicated area because our road is so narrow in parts and its on a bend it would make it impossible for the rubbish trucks to get round.
My argument with parking services is:

1.We have been parking in this manner for over 30+ years without issue,

2. The heavy handed manner of parking services to harass and bully us was completely unwarranted. There was no engagement with residents before hand to indicate there was a problem, they just showed up mob handed and started ticketing everything,

3.There are no bays to highlight any indicated area

4. The signage according to the government on street parking control signs website show the image we have on our road allows vehicles to be partially parked on the footway or verge
and the manner the vehicle is parked is consistent with the sign allowing partial parking of the footpath.

I have now received the notice to owner and will try to appeal again to parking services.
Their argument now is that footway parking is illegal in London, but the sign on our road and neighbouring roads says otherwise and why has this suddenly become a problem when in 30+ years there's been no issue?

Do I have a case here or am I wasting my time?
BTW, I have 3 parking tickets, two on my car because I was away when they ticketed it so I got two tickets on two separate days for the same offence because no one was able to move it, I had the key and the spare key had a flat battery which my wife didn't know how to open to change and her car got a ticket too with the rest of the street.

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stamfordman

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2024, 07:15:25 pm »
Read this:

https://www.ftla.uk/civil-penalty-charge-notices-(councils-tfl-and-so-on)/read-this-first-before-posting-your-case!-this-section-is-for-council-tfl-dartme/

and post all the info/docs as requested.

One immediate point is that the second PCN of two can't stand as it is a continuous contravention if car not moved.
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Carlos CGD

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2024, 10:09:26 am »
Thank you.
I have loaded the documents into google drive.
I can take more pictures of the road if needed when I get home from work this evening.
Here is the link : https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tSkJe86l067leGVtVFbNzK-rqFNCgkcd?usp=sharing
« Last Edit: September 18, 2024, 10:13:09 am by Carlos CGD »

Incandescent

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2024, 10:47:25 am »
All these PCNs are probably winnable, based on your narrative, but the downside is you'd have to take the council to London Tribunals and risk the full PCN penalty. 

The other arrow in your quiver, is to get all the PCN recipients together and send a letter to your local councillor. ALso telephone about this, because it looks like somebody in the enforcement office has gone berserk. It's all about money, you see, the council couldn't care less about the parking.

stamfordman

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2024, 11:16:20 am »
You've blanked the location and other details. It's hard to help properly unless you do what we ask in the read this advice.

Did you challenge the PCN at first stage?

What stages are the other PCNs at?

Carlos CGD

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #5 on: September 18, 2024, 12:37:09 pm »
All these PCNs are probably winnable, based on your narrative, but the downside is you'd have to take the council to London Tribunals and risk the full PCN penalty. 

The other arrow in your quiver, is to get all the PCN recipients together and send a letter to your local councillor. ALso telephone about this, because it looks like somebody in the enforcement office has gone berserk. It's all about money, you see, the council couldn't care less about the parking.

We wrote a letter to the councillor, he made a a semi gesture by writing to parking services, but nothing since then.
The last two times we emailed him he didn't even respond.
We have a 60 name petition from the people on our road and yes I agree, we all believe it's about the money and nothing else, because its not like we all started parking like this yesterday, we've parked like this for the last 30+ years and the council have never acted like this.
They come round regularly because there are sections where you can't park on the footpath and some people park there and get ticketed so it's not like they have never seen how we park.

The other problem we have is some people have paid the fines because of the discounted rate for the 14 days, so I'm not sure how that will effect the people who haven't paid?


Carlos CGD

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2024, 01:11:25 pm »
You've blanked the location and other details. It's hard to help properly unless you do what we ask in the read this advice.

Did you challenge the PCN at first stage?

What stages are the other PCNs at?

Apologies, I have removed the blanks.

I did challenge at the first stage, I have attached the email response in the Google drive link above.
The other PCNS all have the exact same letter and response to the one attached, except the one where I was ticketed twice, that one should be here in a couple of days because it was about 2-3 days after the first ticket was issued.
I didn't challenge that one on the first stage, I didn't think there was any point after the response from the first two, and also by this time the residents had written to our local councillor so we thought parking services would see sense and would over turn the tickets, but he didn't really do anything other than contact parking services and tell them he was disappointed with their action and that they should have engaged with the residents.
Since then, we've not even had any responses from him.

The first stage rejection letter is enclosed it says we can't park on the footpath, which we don't understand, because the sign says we can and it's not like we all started to park like this out of the blue, we've parked like this for over 30 years.
Parking services know this too, because we have a small section of paved area which has the car with the red line through it which doesn't allow pavement parking and they come round and ticket people who park there, so they're always around here on their scooters.

When we spoke to one of the traffic wardens and asked why they were doing this, he said we are parking outside of the indicated area, but we don't have an indicated area?
There are other roads near by which have bays marked, but our road doesn't. It never has, so we really can't understand what's happened?


stamfordman

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #7 on: September 18, 2024, 01:42:14 pm »
Reason being as I thought it is Darwin Drive and is the subject of another thread but it seems to have stalled for now.

This is why we ask for location details in thread titles as the same locations can recur.

https://www.ftla.uk/civil-penalty-charge-notices-(councils-tfl-and-so-on)/(entire-neighborhood-affected)-ealing-code-62-parked-with-one-or-more-wheels-on-/msg35419/#msg35419
« Last Edit: September 18, 2024, 01:47:29 pm by stamfordman »
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H C Andersen

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #8 on: September 18, 2024, 04:09:34 pm »
You have posted a photo of a pair of traffic signs, one indicating the end of a permitted footway parking area, the other the start.

We have no context, no idea where this - and possibly others - are located and therefore their scope.

You'll need to take a few photos pl so that we have a clear idea.

The sign you've posted does NOT restrict footway parking to marked areas and if it applies to you then the council's dead in the water, they just don't know it yet.

Page 174 gives examples of the required sign for parking 'in marked bays'.
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Carlos CGD

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #9 on: September 25, 2024, 11:46:51 am »
You have posted a photo of a pair of traffic signs, one indicating the end of a permitted footway parking area, the other the start.

We have no context, no idea where this - and possibly others - are located and therefore their scope.

You'll need to take a few photos pl so that we have a clear idea.

The sign you've posted does NOT restrict footway parking to marked areas and if it applies to you then the council's dead in the water, they just don't know it yet.

Page 174 gives examples of the required sign for parking 'in marked bays'.

I have taken more pictures and added them to the document along with video of the rubbish truck which got stuck today and a lady had to move her car before it could get round. Then when it neared the end of Darwin Drive it couldn't get through the gap and had to reverse all the way back around.
This has never happened before and now twice in two weeks, the rubbish truck has had problems because the cars are parking further in the street than they used to so as to avoid being ticketed.
At least one car has been caught by either a van or a truck coming round.

I have written my appeal to parking services in response to the notice to owner and have included it in the file (its the PDF document title Ealing Council Parking Services)
I'm not holding much hope with parking services because I know a number of residents have already paid the fines in the discounted window, I'm not sure how this would affect my appeal or if it holds any sway.

I would be really grateful if anyone could tell me if there is anything else I should add or is it sufficient?

Thank you.

Link to Google Drive.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tSkJe86l067leGVtVFbNzK-rqFNCgkcd?usp=sharing
« Last Edit: September 25, 2024, 11:55:53 am by Carlos CGD »

stamfordman

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #10 on: September 25, 2024, 01:00:44 pm »
Are you liaising with Martin Blackwell as per the other case I posted?

Carlos CGD

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #11 on: September 25, 2024, 02:10:12 pm »
Are you liaising with Martin Blackwell as per the other case I posted?

I am, but I think our appeals are at different stages. I have the notice to owner, I believe he is at a level two complaint with the council.

Incandescent

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #12 on: September 25, 2024, 03:21:13 pm »
Also get this into the local paper or local website

Grant Urismo

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #13 on: September 27, 2024, 02:18:35 am »
I am, but I think our appeals are at different stages. I have the notice to owner, I believe he is at a level two complaint with the council.

Just to emphasise that the formal appeal process (PCN/NTO/Appeal) is a completely different thing to a complaint to a Council. Both can co-exist, be at different stages and proceed at different speeds.

You asked on the other thread what the benefit would be of getting hold of "a copy of the footway parking resolution made under section 15(4) of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1974 that applies to this road", which Stamfordman recommended, so I'll attempt to explain. For a PCN to be valid, the wording of the PCN needs to follow a set of rules AND you need to have broken a rule, AND that rule needs to have been communicated to you in the language of traffic signs. A lot of cases that we see here are won on because the council messed up one of these 3 bits, so we like to check that the council have done them all correctly. The way pavement parking works is that it's generally allowed, except in London where it's banned, except for a few bits of London where it is officially unbanned by a London Council, which they do by making a formal resolution under section 15(4) of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1974. The Council then put up signs that match exactly what the resolution says, and you're then allowed to park where the signs say you can. Well, that's the theory, but in practice, we often find that the signs don't match the resolution. If you prove this to a traffic adjudicator, they will tear the ticket up for you. This happens often enough for us to recommend getting hold of the resolution and checking it pretty much every time we see one of those 'you can park on the pavement' signs being relied on by a London Council.
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Carlos CGD

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Re: PCN Parked on footpath
« Reply #14 on: October 15, 2024, 12:39:18 pm »
I am, but I think our appeals are at different stages. I have the notice to owner, I believe he is at a level two complaint with the council.

Just to emphasise that the formal appeal process (PCN/NTO/Appeal) is a completely different thing to a complaint to a Council. Both can co-exist, be at different stages and proceed at different speeds.

You asked on the other thread what the benefit would be of getting hold of "a copy of the footway parking resolution made under section 15(4) of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1974 that applies to this road", which Stamfordman recommended, so I'll attempt to explain. For a PCN to be valid, the wording of the PCN needs to follow a set of rules AND you need to have broken a rule, AND that rule needs to have been communicated to you in the language of traffic signs. A lot of cases that we see here are won on because the council messed up one of these 3 bits, so we like to check that the council have done them all correctly. The way pavement parking works is that it's generally allowed, except in London where it's banned, except for a few bits of London where it is officially unbanned by a London Council, which they do by making a formal resolution under section 15(4) of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1974. The Council then put up signs that match exactly what the resolution says, and you're then allowed to park where the signs say you can. Well, that's the theory, but in practice, we often find that the signs don't match the resolution. If you prove this to a traffic adjudicator, they will tear the ticket up for you. This happens often enough for us to recommend getting hold of the resolution and checking it pretty much every time we see one of those 'you can park on the pavement' signs being relied on by a London Council.

Thank you.
I have logged my appeal to the Notice To Owner and have requested a copy of the parking resolution order.
I will attach the response from the council as soon as I receive it.