Free Traffic Legal Advice

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.

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:







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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
- 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!

@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?

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?

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?



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.