Free Traffic Legal Advice

Thank you to all for your guidance and support. A reasonable outcome where common sense prevails. Fine money goes to Cats Protection.

Happy Christmas and wishing a splendid 2024 to all.

Got a rejection while away. They say they tried to access the links but were removed, I just checked them and that's not the case, they are accessible. I guess they know that's my word against theirs', so is a way for them to not look at the evidence, however I did attach 3 pics in the measly 3 pic allowance, so they must have seen those. It is also feasible they were blocked by their own proxy or other filtering function, so received some sort of error. I think providing links is perhaps too fallible, many orgs block downloads from external repositories, and councils are terribly backwards in terms of technical thinking.

Anyway, rejection note is here: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AhaoZsGtfKSPkJcvdNgTzOS1ym1yzA?e=brfZGz

My concern is they still keep using their own small number of rather select pictures which do not show the sign on my parking bay, showing a restriction in the past, but instead keep showing the restriction photo from 4 bays away, which is valid, but very few people will check when they've seen their own bay is restricted for a date in the past.

Would be great to get some guidance on how to appeal this to TPT, in terms of wording, pictures etc.

They don't need a account, I have configured for anon access via link, it will log access date as by 'guest', so that should do it. If they don't access it then it'll have no audit trail.

What do you think of my appeal wording?

Looking at the suspension logs, they put a suspension sign for houses 22/23 outside number 22, and another sign outside 24, which is very clear as directly pertains to the very next bays to both signs. Then they put a single sign for 27/28 suspension outside number 29 only, four bays away, so it feels like they made a mistake.

Anyway, thank you all for input. My appeal will be thus:

challenge due to = procedural impropriety, contravention did not occur (sign in the bay was for a very different date, so I did not contravene it). Something like the below:

"Driver arrived on 19th July and noted the sign directly posted on the parking post for the bay to be used, stating the bay - outside number 27 - is suspended on 5th July. Seeing that date is in the past, driver proceeded to park. This is evidenced by CEO photographs named 'Screenshot 2023-07-20 170104.jpg' and 'Screenshot 2023-07-20 170311.jpg'.

It is correct that, four bays away, outside number 29, is a sign stating the bay outside 27 and 28 are suspended on 20th July but, being as the driver had seen the suspension sign directly attached to the used bay, these were given a cursory glance, as a reasonable person will take direction from the sign posted nearest to their parking bay which, in this case, signalled a date in the recent past. Drivers are entitled to be able to rely upon clear and unambiguous signage, and the council have a duty to provide such clear and unambiguous signage, which was not done in this case.

The photograph 'wrongbaysuspended.jpg' shows the ambiguity in this situation, with the red circled sign showing the 20th and the red circled car parked in the bay marked as being restricted on 7th July. This photograph was taken by the driver the very next day, when the penalty was discovered, and the sign on the bay has been removed, despite it clearly being present in the CEO's photographs the day before. So it was obviously realised by the CEO, or other council worker, that the signage was confusing, and cleaned up. You can, however, see the presence of both signs at the time of the parking incident, in the picture name 'Screenshot 2023-07-20 170224.jpg', which shows the S2000 parked in the bay with bicycle chained to the lamppost with the yellow sign showing 7th July as suspended: The sign clearly shown by the CEO in pictures 'Screenshot 2023-07-20 170104.jpg' and 'Screenshot 2023-07-20 170311'.

If there were two suspensions for this bay, then two signs should have been posted on the bay. Therefore, signage was misleading due to multiple conflicting signs, and signage cannot be said to have met the requirement to clearly show the restriction. Therefore, there was no restriction legitimately applied and therefore no contravention happened.

Secondly, the PCN is defective, as it is missing the 'notwithstanding' clause.

On both these grounds, I ask that the penalty is rescinded."

Please do feedback on how to improve this. I have an RSI at the moment so bashed this out rather quickly and I am sure could be worded better!

Ok, great thank you. Will let you know when the NTK/NTO arrives. I'm the owner but my wife is the keeper, but I was 'driving' (i.e., I parked the car) at the time.

With TPT, choice between telephone hearing or decision on papers. The latter is never recommended. Some of the experts here voluntarily offer to act as representative for telephone hearing if they think reasonable chance of success.

Ok, great thank you.

I think I am going to let it go to TPT, more than anything I am interested in how that will go, either way, so I view it as an experiment. My position will be that the signage is misleading, as the sign on the lamp post for my bay, was for a date in the past, as DancingDad says above. So, having been satisfied by the sign on my bay that the suspension was in the past, a reasonable person would not seek out other signs, or where would that end?

Reposted from Pepipoo, as requested:

Came back to my car this afternoon (21st July) and had a local council ticket for being in a suspended bay. There is indeed a sign for a suspended bay about 25 feet away, but I suspect there are multiple reasons this sign is not valid, not least of which being it's not in front of the suspended bay(s) or even the correct house numbers, plus I think the amalgamated signage could be a problem. Essentially, I came home from the airport at about 3am, so would have never seen this sign that's about 25 feet from my parking spot, especially as the parking bays are diagonally facing away from this sign.

Pics on my Onedrive:

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AhaoZsGtfKSPkIprX2DArT3tBR7Gvw?e=AkgXU0

My car is the silver S2000 with the GB sticker on the rear bumper, and is 4 bays away from the sign:

https://1drv.ms/i/s!AhaoZsGtfKSPkIpzZUEXW2ugbz25Mw?e=O9SlKK

The sign itself is between numbers 28 and 29, yet refers to 27 and 28, outside which there is no suspension sign for those bays. So it's all a bit of a mess and feels like they accidentally put the sign on the wrong house's lamp post, removing the ability to see it when parking in the impacted bay.

There is a suspension sign on the lamp post by my car, but it's for 5th July. I can't remember it from the other morning, but I guess I pulled up, saw that date for 05/07 and parked, and yet the CEO has ticketed me, but thankfully, they also did take a pic of the completely irrelevant sign on my lamp post:

https://1drv.ms/i/s!AhaoZsGtfKSPkIpw95bF1NhYByjEyA?e=wVWosR

The council have rejected my appeal which was made on the basis of lack of a sign in the vicinity of the bays, and the non-compliant 'dual' sign, which I read about on Pepipoo but perhaps misinterpreted. This is the rejection letter:

https://1drv.ms/b/s!AhaoZsGtfKSPkIpqxpCTIoK1Ov5bog?e=7fQhwW

I'm not averse to paying a legitimate fine, but this feels rather sneaky as I don't see how I could see a suspension sign 25 feet from me, and I consider the one on my bay's lamp post obviously misled me in that there was a previous suspension now passed, so I'm unlikely to look for another one. Whilst their statement is true that the suspension notice is attached to the nearest time stamped lamp post, I find it a strange claim that we're supposed to check the time stamp each time we park; as we live here, we know the times so just park in bays. If I take BHCC's words at face value, every time we parked, we'd be walking up and down the road on the off chance there's a suspension sign somewhere, which seems a bit ludicrous.

Thoughts?