Thank you H, very helpful. This is the Council photo of the signage:
https://flic.kr/p/2psLLEsAll other Council photos are of my car parked in the bay, which I don't dispute.
Does this representation read better:
I parked in the bay and noted the contents of the traffic sign. As shown in the Council's photo, the only option to pay for parking was to ‘pay at machine across the road’. At this stage I looked for a parking machine ‘across the road’ as per the sign. My interpretation of across the road would be to mean on the other side of the same road. However, no machine is present across the road.
There was also an arrow on the sign pointing up the road and so I walked in this direction to check for a machine. I arrived at a roundabout which had 3 exits from it. I could see no machine from the roundabout and could not possibly imagine that a driver was expected to guess between 3 possible roads, especially given the considerable distance that would take a driver from the parking space. Therefore, I drew the conclusion that the machine must have either not been installed yet (the road signs looked new to my eye) or had been removed for repairs / replacing etc. Given that there was no possible way for a motorist to pay for parking as instructed by the road sign, I concluded that it was reasonable to park within the space.
Using Google maps it is possible to identify a parking machine circa 135 metres away which is the nearest to the parking bay. It is also entirely out of sight from the parking bay and a motorist would have to choose between 3 possible roundabout exits in order to find it. I believe this is entirely unreasonable and leads to the farcical possibility of as motorist being issued a ticket by the time they are able to locate the machine, pay for parking and return to their car.
Hounslow’s formal response does not dispute that it is an unreasonable machine location in relation to the parking bay. Their response to this point is that ‘cashless solutions are available’. However, this leads to the question of how a motorist is to know this and what steps should be taken to utilise the cashless solution? Certainly the sign makes no reference or indication of this, only offering the option to ‘pay at machine across the road’. If the Council does offer a cashless solution as their response indicates, then the only possible place that instructions on how to use it could be found are on the payment machine. I do not know if this is the case or not as no photo of the machine or its location has been produced by the Council. This leads to a circular argument - in order to mitigate the unreasonable location of the machine, the Council rely on the cashless solution for which the machine has to be located!
I am also of the belief that the bay is marked incorrectly resulting in the location where my vehicle was parked not being within the parking place designated by The London Borough of Hounslow (West Chiswick) (Parking Places) (No.13) Order 2009 (notwithstanding the presence of bay markings). Item 68 of schedule 4 stipulates that there is a bay on Sutton Lane North on the "south-east side, from a point 8.1 metres south of the southernmost wall of No. 22 Sutton Lane North, southwards for a distance of 6.0 metres". I refer you to the measurements shown at
https://imgur.com/Z2XUnfT which illustrate the point: if one takes a point 8.1 metres south of the southernmost wall of No. 22 Sutton Lane North, one finds himself almost at the southern end of the bay, rather than at the northern end. If my car was not within a duly designated parking place, the contravention cannot have occurred in any event.
Finally, the Notice to Owner was served 102 days after the alleged offence (date of PCN 20/7/23 and NTO served on 28/10/23). Local Authorities are required to act fairly and expeditiously, and there is no good reason for the delay in this instance.
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