Dear London Borough of Islington,
I refer your to my informal representation in the first instance, which I require you to consider afresh.
Further to this, I refer you to the statutory guidance issued by the Secretary of State for Transport under section 87 of the Traffic Management Act 2004, that guidance states that:
The NtO may be issued 28 days after serving the penalty charge, and we expect authorities to send them within 56 days. The ultimate time limit, in exceptional circumstances, is 6 months from the ‘relevant date’. There should be a very good reason for waiting that long to serve an NtO.
In this case the regulations provide that a notice to owner may not be served after the expiry of the period of 6 months beginning with the date on which the relevant penalty charge notice was served, which was 19 March 2023. As the Notice to Owner was served on 18 September 2023, one day before the end of the legal time limit, it is apparent that it has been served at the very end of the six month period.
It is now for the council to explain what exceptional circumstances justify such extreme tardiness, or else why the authority has departed from the statutory guidance. Of course the statutory guidance is not binding, and the authority may depart from it, but the authority would need to explain why it has chosen to do so.
If the authority cannot articulate any exceptional circumstances to justify such late service of the notice to owner, or any other reasons which explain why it has departed from the statutory guidance, it can be inferred that the authority simply failed to have regard to the guidance.
Failure to have regard to the guidance is a procedural impropriety contrary to section 87(2) of the Traffic Management Act 2004, on the basis of which the penalty charge notice would have to be cancelled.
Yours faithfully,