Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi all! Just received two (!) PCNs for driving in the Bristol Clean Air Zone, which I had never before heard of.

I'm not from Bristol and on both occasions was only visiting briefly. I feel I am being unfairly punished since I would happily have paid the small charge if I had been aware of it – in my view the signage is grossly inadequate although I realise that this is probably not a grounds for appeal.

Here they are –

PCN 1:






PCN 2:











Annoyingly, the council have now re-worded the notice, so it appears to comply with the legislation re: dates. There is still an 0840 number, but that's not the only option for payment... Can any of you see a possible grounds for appeal here?

I don't think the penalty amount is remotely reasonable – does anyone know what the legislation has to say about that? I looked around online but couldn't find anything concrete...

Would be very grateful for any help you guys can give here!

Incidentally, are they allowed to extract the penalty + the original charge?

Yes, they are.
However, the 0870 number can be a win on its own. I believe there have been previous successful cases, but as the TPT register is not available on-line we can't search it. But there are threads on here and Pepipoo, where the success was announced.

Needless to say, they'll not want to make the signs more visible, as then they make less money !

Sadly, despite your kind advice, I did not have time to get off my appeal. Now I've received a charge certificate (see attached). I've resigned myself to paying the fine but I REALLY don't want to give these thieves any more of my money. Is there any way you chaps know of by which I can avoid this? Any help would be gratefully accepted and will be acted upon immediately!
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You were given a template to use on 9 August, and the PCN was issued on 20 July so you had until midnight on 20 August to submit a representation, that means you had at least a week and a half?

Sorry to sound harsh but that's not lack of time, it's lack of prioritisation, as copy / pasting the representation and clicking submit would only take two minutes.

If you never made a representation, you've lost the right to appeal and have no alternative but to pay the charge certificate before the penalty goes up even more.

As John says, what's the state of play with the other PCN?

I guess I'll have to pay this surcharge as well.

Unfortunately for the PCN that slipped your mind, yes you'll have to pay the surcharge as well. Hopefully this will focus your mind if you ever get a PCN in the future.