Free Traffic Legal Advice

Well, that took about 4 hours: London mayor's untaxed car conviction withdrawn https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7708vn2yp7o

I'm glad the DVLA have shed their reputation for slowness, and I look forward to the rest of the general public receiving a similarly prompt retraction when in the same situation.

Do you have evidence of a charging session starting shortly after 3:15? If so that would certainly add credibility to your case.

VRM means vehicle registration mark - ie your numberplate. There's no need to cover this up, it's on display to the public all the time.

To me this looks fairly straightforward, if you were "parked outside their patient/client’s home address" then your pass is valid. You should write a fairly simple challenge and include proof that you were parked outside the patient/client’s home address, and the Council ought to cancel the PCN.

Complaining about the Warden is also possible, but it should be a completely separate process to appealing the PCN and would best be done once you've got the PCN cancelled. Mixing the two processes up is likely to confuse matters.

I would go much simpler and firmer, along these lines:

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The facts of this case are as follows. On [date] I purchased a yearly parking permit valid at the location in PCNxxxxxxxxxxx from the Council's website at [URL]. The website offered me an option to auto-renew this permit, and I selected this option. I therefore expected this permit to auto renew on [date], so I was shocked to receive PCNxxxxxx on [date].

I have since discovered that the Council's policy contradicts the offer made on it's website, and auto-renewals should not have been be offered for a yearly permit. The bug in your website that allows customers to select renewal of yearly permits persists to this day, as seen in the attached screenshot.

I believe it is wholly unreasonable for you to fail to renew my permit after you offered me a permit with auto-renewal and you accepted payment for a permit with auto-renewal.

I believe it is wholly unreasonable for you not to have fixed this bug in your website as soon as you were made aware of it.

I believe it is wholly unreasonable for you not to have made customers who chose automatic renewal of yearly permits aware of this bug in your website as soon as you were made aware of it.

I believe it is wholly unreasonable and tantamount to fraud for you to attempt to make a profit from a known bug in your website by issuing PCNs to customers who had a reasonable expectation that you would do as promised and automatically renew their permits.

I therefore believe it would be frivolous and vexatious for you not to cancel this PCN under these circumstances.

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The words 'frivolous and vexatious' are carefully chosen. The parking adjudicators rarely award costs against the Council, but they can do if their conduct has been "frivolous and vexatious".

Wait for the Council to upload their evidence pack. Quite often Councils will weigh up the chances of winning against the effort required to produce an evidence pack and decide not to contest your appeal.

That looks ok to me. They are likely to reject whatever you say, but that unlocks the next stage is where an independent adjudicator will actually pay attention to what you wrote instead of fobbing you off.

If you wanted to go a little harder you might add this:

3. I am shocked by your insistance that a motorist should access a website when they see your signage, as doing so would constitute an offence under section 2 110. (1)(a) of the The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2003. If you continue to assett that motorists "can check the Wembley event dates on the Wembley Stadium website" in your response, I require you to explain what exemption to the law allows this. I remind you that the Regulation also states:

(2) No person shall cause or permit any other person to drive a motor vehicle on a road while that other person is using—
(a) a hand-held mobile telephone...

If you do not accept that you are wrong about this, I reserve the rght to do exactly as you say and report that I have done so to the Police stating that you are the person who has permitted it.

The discount running out is just part of the process, if you go to adjudication the results is going to be (unless there are particularly unusual circumstances) either win and pay nothing or lose and pay the full rate.

See what other more experienced members say, but I think there may be some value in appealing the 2 PCNs individually to avoid a situation where an adjudicator looks at both and decides you should pay one. My slightly amateur assessment is that the second should be a slam dunk at adjudication, so getting the Council to fold on the first one should be your initial focus.