Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi, I received a PCN for contravention 27 Parked in a special enforcement area adjacent to a
footway, cycle track or verge lowered to meet the level of the carriageway on 05/02/2025 at 21:17.

I challenged the PCN which has been rejected by Waltham Forest. This dropped kerb serves as access to our private alleyway, which we share with our neighbours. We all have a shared understanding that we can park over the alleyway if there is no other parking available. In the over 17 years living here (and our neighbours 25+ years), neither of us have ever received a PCN for doing this.

We find it strange it has happened now, but this brings me to my question - what are the next steps?
Waltham Forest are adament this is a footway and it doesn't matter that it provides access to our private alleyway. Our neighbour across the road also parks over her alleyway and did not receive a ticket at the same time (the dropped kerb is to the left of ours, not directly opposite).

I'd appreciate any guidance here, is it worth trying to appeal this when I receive the Notice to Owner or should I pay the £65 and accept we will never be able to park over our alleyway in future?
Thanks.

Street view so you can see the alleyway: https://maps.app.goo.gl/kCvzrTGh5HA8i9Nr8

Rejection letter from Waltham Forest: https://imgur.com/a/wUv5zXe
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If there are any other details you need, please let me know - thank you!

Why is the access gated? Is it subject to a Gating Order or gating agreement?

The Notice to Owner letter has come through yesterday and wanted to get some advice about what to put in the representation.

As stamfordman said, the dropped kerb appears to serve no purpose for any of these including a pedestrian crossing at that section of the road, which is the line Waltham Forest is using particularly for this PCN, so I will go down this route of stating the sole purpose of the dropped kerb is for access to the private alleyway, but is there any other evidence you think would be useful to include here? Or other statements?

Our neighbours have still been parking across this alley (as normal) and they haven't received any PCNs. They have also said they are happy to write a letter to support my representation too.

It is there for security purposes for our and surrounding properties

So it's not yours, it's shared and without sight of your deeds I think it's a reasonable premise that any of your neighbours could use it as a vehicle crossover - vehicles of any size e.g. motorbike. The fact remains that it's there and was installed by the highway authority (it seems some years ago) for a reason and on application - they don't install vehicle crossovers on a whim.

Your difficulty is that you cannot claim the exemption of serving your residential property because the access is shared(unlike opposite where the dropped footways seem to be on a property by property basis).

I think that you need to focus on the legitimate expectation argument, but beware that this only works once. In tandem, you could run the 'it's not used for vehicle access' argument. You would probably need input from the occupiers of all properties served by the alleyway(and who might have been party to the gating agreement/order).

Thanks mrmustard and H C Andersen for your comments and insights.

I need to have a look for some documents then I think! Our neighbour said at the time the PCN was issued that it is his and our house (either side of the alley) that have the rights to the alleyway (much like the other alleyways in the road) and that we technically don't have to allow access to other residents in our part of the road, not sure of the technicalities here so something that needs to be looked into more.

The council seem to be relying on it being for pedestrians to cross the road but it wasn't installed for that purpose and there aren't dimples in the paving to assist the blind.

This is what I am hoping may result in the cancellation of the PCN as it is definitely not used for this purpose, never has!