Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi anyone that could be of help,

Found a PCN on my car, parked in front of my residence, where there is free off street parking. Had no idea why. Major maintenance works on my building are currently taking place, so thought it was in relation to that.

However it read: 100, section 50, 'parked on pavement'.
This frankly left me dumbstruck at first and with a bad taste of feeling mistreated after.

- Not made aware.
I had no idea of this new law, introduced in 23'/24'. Never received anything in the post, there were never a any signs on the street lights. I don't watch tv or the news. I do not follow road related(?) social media. Etc.

- Not obstructing anyone, really barely on the (dropped) kerb.
Looking at the attached photo evidence you can see my wheels are only on the edge by some centimeters. The kerb of this pavement is lowered here by design. This is for my residence's parking bays.
My car was in no way blocking pedestrians, vision impaired people, buggies or the ability of bin men to take out the bins — as can clearly be seen from the photos.

My experience was very straightforward. I just parked as normal, and my wheels happened to be on the pavement a little, this happened so easily because it's a dropped kerb, while of course making sure (in a common sense way) to leave space for pedestrians.

Please see attached photos here.







Little Video

I would like to appeal this. As I didn't know about this new law. I was not blocking any of all the pavement users. Did not damage the already lowered kerb etc.

Any advice on how to best do this? (I'll need to do this within the next 2 days)

Thank you!!!

It looks like your lords and masters in Edinburgh have copied the London legislation of the 70s, which requires no signs or lines.  I had a look on Google and up came the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 which brought in the restriction.

This does, however look like a typical money-grubbing PCN, so if you are prepared to go all the way to the Scottish adjudicator, you could go on de minimis, i.e offence too trivial for the law to concern itself with. This is a well known legal point in England, but I don't know what Scottish judges think.

I would submit reps on the basis that your car is intruding only very slightly onto the footway, therefore you consider that the contravention was far too trivial for a PCN to be served. You could state that at the time you parked you were unaware of the new parking restriction, especially as no signs or lines announce it. Say that in future, now knowing about the new restriction, you will make sure you park only on the carriageway in future.

Thanks guys. I sent my appeal before the 14day date. Don't know when I'll hear back. But I'll post back here.

A courtesy - meaning yes it was rather petty but well done to the council for not enforcing it.