Free Traffic Legal Advice
Live cases legal advice => Civil penalty charge notices (Councils, TFL and so on) => Topic started by: flourishkey on November 12, 2024, 03:14:10 pm
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Well done in seeing this through. Some adjudicators are receptive to such shortcomings in CPZs.
Case reference 2250085141
Authority London Borough of Southwark
Contravention date 02 Nov 2024
Contravention time 20:49:00
Contravention location Gainsford Street
Penalty amount GBP 130.00
Contravention Parked restricted street during prescribed hours
Decision Date 05 Jun 2025
Adjudicator Andrew Harman
Appeal decision Appeal allowed
Direction cancel the Penalty Charge Notice and the Notice to Owner.
Reasons This appeal was listed for video hearing before me today.
Neither party to the proceedings attended.
It now falls to me to decide the appeal on the papers.
The contravention alleged in this case is that this vehicle was parked in a restricted street during prescribed hours, this street falling with a controlled zone.
Upon the appellant raising the issue of signage, he on his case entering the controlled zone at the intersection of Tooley Street and Shad Thames.
There does not appear to be any dispute, my having seen the council's map and site report evidence produced at 'H', that there is one controlled zone sign at this location, posted on the left of the carriageway, as shown in the council's image 5.
I am not satisfied on the appellant's submissions, supported by the video and other evidence he provides, that this signage would have been visible to him on his turning into Shad Thames, and I accordingly find that this contravention has not been proved.
The appeal is allowed.
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My appeal was allowed yesterday. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend (and neither did the council). There is a lack of adjudicators and the system is strained, at least that is what the clerk told me when they rescheduled me for the 2nd! time.
Many thanks to stamfordman and cp. The link viewer worked (the council did not view the videos), but it did not come to that, the adjudicator agreed the sign is improperly placed. I hope this helps someone in the future, as this is the 2nd time the council has lost an appeal pertaining to this sign and I don't see them changing anything about it any time soon.
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And to answer my own previous question, it appears you cannot see the evidence packs from other appeals as a third party.
If you're referring to evidence packs at the tribunal then no, obviously you cannot see the evidence that other appellants have put before the tribunal.
Here's a few tips for your representation:
1) You've got a couple of videos so put them as unlisted videos on youtube and then you can use the view count to prove they've not looked at them
2) If you can upload a video (not the same as the one you're giving them a link to) then do that as well, the council will often fail to provide video evidence from appellants to the tribunal and that would be another procedural impropriety
I think you should raise the issue of signage now, but in the first instance it would be helpful if you could show us the videos in question.
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As well as our Admin, @cp8759 being the expert here on links in reps, another of our learned members, @Hippocrates is expert with finding fatal errors in some Southwark paperwork/website guidance, so I would wait for them to comment before finalising your draft and submitting, but do not miss deadlines.
Definitely, I have more than a week to prepare this, and the legwork of taking the videos is already done.
I seems to recall an expert member mentioning Southwark is usually on top of such procedural issues, but a look would be appreciated.
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As well as our Admin, @cp8759 being the expert here on links in reps, another of our learned members, @Hippocrates is expert with finding fatal errors in some Southwark paperwork/website guidance, so I would wait for them to comment before finalising your draft and submitting, but do not miss deadlines.
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Bumping this as I received the NTO some days ago and am preparing the response.
Since I last posted here, I went back to the area and took 2 videos:
Video 1: Taken at the border between Rotherhithe and Bermondsey control zones, showing the lack of signs informing drivers of the new restricted hours.
Video 2: Taken at the intersection of Tooley St. and Shad Thames, where the only sign exists: https://maps.app.goo.gl/zrwyeNGfyLLCp78H7
In the video I hold the camera next to my head, at eye level, while taking a left turn from Tooley Street onto Shad Thames. The video demonstrates that:
- For the first half of the turn the sign is not visible due to its positioning flush to the building on the LHS
- For the second half of the turn the height of the sign makes it so my (and several others') central mirror obsures it.
This is the approach I took to reach Gainsford street where the contravention allegedly took place.
I sent this information to the authority as part of a challenge, which was rejected. The rejection did not address my point about improper signage.
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Photos of NTO:
(https://i.imgur.com/trvUGoV.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/5OaZ2Ys.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/tJxi5Oq.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/vH8ZEYm.jpeg)
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Onto responding to the NTO:
I must admit I've forgotten most of what I read on here regarding the process and so on, so I was hoping for some help/guidance in drafting this. The plan as I understand it is to make a representation online where:
- I select as reason the contravention did not occur? or other (improper signage)? does this matter?
- I explain my reasoning, and post the above videos as view-counter links using https://shorturl.at
(https://shorturl.at)- There is precedence (2230480802) where an adjudicator allowed an appeal due to this specific sign being inadequate. I was thinking to mention this in my representation, saying that nothing has changed despite the council being aware of the sign being problematic. Or maybe it's better to keep this for the appeal to the adjudicator?
Grateful for any feedback on this!
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@flourishkey view count links to what exactly?
In any case click counter links are only needed once you have a notice to owner.
Photographs showing the absence of CPZ signs at the border between Rotherhithe and Bermondsey, and how obscured the sign at Shad Thames is.
Anyway, I figured out how to use https://www.shorturl.at/ to do it.
And to answer my own previous question, it appears you cannot see the evidence packs from other appeals as a third party.
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@flourishkey view count links to what exactly?
In any case click counter links are only needed once you have a notice to owner.
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@cp8759, would it be possible to ask you to take a look and for your help in creating view count links to include in my appeal?
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Stickered?
OP, you would be risking the full penalty by going to tribunal. What evidence, as opposed to speculation, do you have?
I'm not taking sides, just testing the possibilities of success which by research you've distilled to the possibility of an obscured sign.
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Leaving the adjudicator's confusing double negative to one side(para. referencing Oxfordshire), this decision boils down to: I was persuaded that the single sign was partially obscured from a driver’s viewpoint.
Does this apply in your case?
Well evidently I did not see the sign. It could very well have been obscured or stickered over or any number of things. It is a half hour drive to go back and take pictures but I might have to do so.
The 'map tile' seems to be a supplementary point, but should I not try and include that as well?
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Leaving the adjudicator's confusing double negative to one side(para. referencing Oxfordshire), this decision boils down to: I was persuaded that the single sign was partially obscured from a driver’s viewpoint.
Does this apply in your case?
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Go here and search by road name and council and look for recent cases or use the date range as well - say past 3 years. Trying some other roads in the zone may reveal more.
https://www.londontribunals.gov.uk/about/registers-appeals
Thank you, that was very helpful.
I have searched for Gainsford, Lafone, and Queen Elizabeth Street and Horselydown Lane.
After filtering the appeals to only those for code 01 and discarding the non-contested ones (on either side), this is what I found for anyone seeing this in the future:
Horselydown (right next to the signs if it matters):
2240353878 -> allowed because a sticker was covering the pm portion of the sign
2240030096 -> refused as adjudicator satisfied as to quality of the signage
2230564265 -> refused, same as above
2230422475 -> refused, same as above
2230370928 -> refused, same as above
2220549480 -> refused, same as above
2230310314 -> allowed due to procedural impropriety (not clear why)
Queen Elizabeth Street:
2240168865 -> refused, shoddy arguments by appellant
Gainsford Street:
2230480802 -> allowed, goes to great length into required signage quality, fairness, etc. I will reference this in my appeal for sure.
2230254439 -> allowed, a bit of a mess, EA reps were unprepared, adjudicator was confused by what the EA presented.
2230204827 -> refused, shoddy arguments by appellant, but EA did not prepare a photo pack showing the signs so adjudicator had to guess whether they passed by a sign or not.
2230542320 -> allowed, again EA did not prepare photo pack. I did not understand this part "Indeed, the schedule to the TMO containing the 'map tile' does not even seem to have been provided. Instead, there appear to be screenshots from a website." from the adjudicator's decision.
2230215914 -> allowed, EA did not produce photo pack showing the signs.
Based on the above, would it be better not to raise the signage issue before the appeal so that I increase the chances they mess up and not provide a photo pack to the adjudicator? Also, can someone explain the 'map tile' TMO part to me? Finally, I guess I should head over there and take photos of how the sign looks from the perspective of the driver?
2230480802 seems to be very good precedence, is there any way I can see the documents provided by the appellant to the adjudicator?
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Go here and search by road name and council and look for recent cases or use the date range as well - say past 3 years. Trying some other roads in the zone may reveal more.
https://www.londontribunals.gov.uk/about/registers-appeals
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If you pass a boundary between two CPZs there must be a sign at this border giving the restrictions of the entered CPZ.
Are the restrictions different in each of the CPZs you've mentioned ?
Yes, the Bermondsey CPZ is the only zone with restrictions in place at 9pm on Saturdays (which is entirely unreasonable if you ask me, but that's a separate matter). Rotherhithe is Monday to Friday, 8am to 6:30pm, London Bridge Monday to Saturday, 8am to 6:30pm.
I recall now other cars in this zone. There is only one sign in Shad Thames and it's not right and the road entrance and is ranged to the left.
Some recent tribunal cases have been allowed where Southwark hasn't got its act together with evidence that zone signage and the traffic order are in place.
(https://www.ftla.uk/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fundefined&hash=366be86bc91d9fa2f95e703ffa77b81adb876d26)
Could you point me towards those tribunal cases? I looked at the spreadsheet but did not find them.
The council seems to favour putting the signs up where red routes end rather than where CPZ borders are: for example if we look at tower bridge road which is the border between Bermondsey and London Bridge CPZ, the signs are put here https://maps.app.goo.gl/sMkEZpfdy5ChF2xM9 after you turn onto Queen Elizabeth street. Meaning, if you turn left onto Tooley Street, you are now in CPZ G with no sign alerting you to the new CPZ hours.
I do imagine there's some reasoning behind that to the tune of 'it would be contradictory to put a CPZ hours sign above a red route' but not sure if this is a proper way of doing things according to the law, or, more importantly, how an adjudicator would view this.
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I recall now other cases in this zone. There is only one sign in Shad Thames and it's not right and the road entrance and is ranged to the left.
Some recent tribunal cases have been allowed where Southwark hasn't got its act together with evidence that zone signage and the traffic order are in place.
(https://www.ftla.uk/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fundefined&hash=366be86bc91d9fa2f95e703ffa77b81adb876d26)
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If you pass a boundary between two CPZs there must be a sign at this border giving the restrictions of the entered CPZ.
Are the restrictions different in each of the CPZs you've mentioned ?
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If there is no CPZ entry sign on your route then you win - it has to be there. I'll have a close look later.
There is one, it's just not at the border between CP zones but rather at the borders of Butler's Wharf.
I do not understand why that is, perhaps because the A200 is a red route and major road artery and parking there is prohibited at all times, hence the signs where placed when turning off it into clusters of roads where there are single yellows?
This is the informal challenge ground BTW, do they cover every reason they have to?
(https://i.imgur.com/KHP1Ayy.png)
Another idea I had today was to perhaps set up one of those view counter links to the border between Rotherhithe and Bermondsey CPZs which shows no CPZ sign, and perhaps catch them not having looked at it? But I am not sure how to set that up.
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If there is no CPZ entry sign on your route then you win - it has to be there. I'll have a close look later.
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Hello ftla members,
10 days ago around 21:00 on a Saturday I parked on a single yellow inside CPZ G (Bermondsey). I was not loading or engaged in some activity that would make me exempt from restrictions.
Link to gmaps spot where I parked:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/tuSM1YyA5n6KoPoZ8
I was not familiar with the area and it seemed reasonable at the time that no parking restrictions are at place due to day & time; this is the only CPZ inside Southwark that operates past 6.30 pm on a Saturday. Another car was parked behind me giving false reassurance. I was quite surprised to see this PCN when I returned to the car:
(https://i.imgur.com/Mbm62bL.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/gDlCnqk.jpeg)
What I have done/considered before asking for help:
The period of observation was 3 minutes, which is quite short so initially I thought this is a possible defence but a) The photographs taken by the CEO actually cover a span of 5 minutes b) I saw in another thread since 2023 the minimum period is 2 minutes and not 5 for Southwark council. This rules out this angle.
I cannot prove I stopped for a reason that would constitute an exemption (alighting, loading, etc.) so that is also ruled out.
Which leaves me (I think) with the signage to contest. I don’t think the signage is sufficient in the area to alert you to the controlled hours. I entered CPZ G from the the Rotherhithe CPZ (which has different hours) via the A200. The border between CPZ, which is supposed to have a sign with the new CPZ hours, doesn't have one:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/5ZMeweZBLVW9YYgD7
There is, however, a sign when you turn off the A200 into Shad Thames. In retrospect I should have seen this one, but it is a couple blocks away from where I parked, and my guard was down due to the time and day:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/2fnv19GUfKn2T1yT6
I have checked other approaches to the street via Tower Bridge which similarly has different CPZ hours hence requires signs and similarly I can see there are signs when turning off Tower Bridge Rd.
At this stage I will challenge it, as they will re-offer the Reduced Charge even if unsuccessful. Any help welcome.