Free Traffic Legal Advice

This is the letter we received on 25th Oct - it's not very clear that it's a rejection letter, but in the last line they state that the PCN still stands. We received a copy of this with the Charge Certificate on 4th November.

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Case update: We submitted Representations which were investigated and ultimately rejected. However, we were never sent a formal 'Notice of Rejection of Representations' letter with pin code allowing us to appeal to the Tribunal. We've now been sent a Charge Certificate and the Tribunal have told us we can't appeal to them, we can only request that North Devon Council consider a late appeal (which doesn't make sense, as we already submitted our Representations on time). It seems North Devon Council have somehow not recorded that we submitted Representations - should we contact the council to ask about our missing NoR, or is it best to just wait until the Order for Recovery arrives and appeal that on the grounds that we never received an NoR ?

TLDR: Paid for full day’s parking but the machine didn’t print a ticket, payment reversed 8 days later, appeal then rejected.

We paid £15 at the parking meter for a full day's parking. Payment was taken from our bank account but the machine did not produce a ticket. We sought advice from nearby tourist information staff (potential witness), left a note in the vehicle window to explain and then reported the machine fault when we saw council car park attendants checking the paper in the meter about 10 minutes later. When we returned to the vehicle we had received a PCN. There had been  no indication that we would receive a refund, and the payment wasn't reversed until 8 days later (we have an email from our bank as proof). Three days after refunding our payment, NDC rejected our appeal, on the grounds that our payment was marked as “Unknown” in their system (ie. they have not received the funds from us). Their rejection letter also stated that if the parking meter was faulty we could have paid by cash or online; as we didn't know until after paying that the machine was faulty, this implies an expectation that we should have paid twice (£30) for parking. They also stated that their sign directs car parker users to contact the council in case of faults but that they received no reports of a fault for that day; this is categorically incorrect as we reported it in person (unfortunately verbally so no written proof) to the council staff attending the car park.   

We have now been served the notice to owner and are planning to appeal on the grounds that the contravention did not occur, as well as potentially offering to repay the original parking fee refunded to us. However, it is true that we were parked without displaying a ticket so technically the contravention did occur (although we had paid in full and reported the issue) - what grounds do we have to appeal, and what evidence do we need?
Thanks in advance.
https://imgur.com/a/1l2GqbT