Free Traffic Legal Advice

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".

I was issued an PCN the second day after my yearly permit expired. Here is the PCN which was issued.



I thought the yearly renewals would happen automatically after I set that up last year. But it didn't renew and I was issued an PCN. So this time after receiving the PCN, I renewed the yearly permit on Newham's mipermit website. 

ISSUE








While renewing I carefully checked again and set up the yearly revewals. This time what I noticed was that the option for yearly renewals was presented when I landed on that page and when I selected the yearly option, auto renewal section disappeard without any warning ignoring the option I selected for renewals. There was no warning or alert messages on the website to let me know that renewal was only available for monthly payment options either. I thought this was a technical issue on newham's mipermit website and submitted a informal representation as below -







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Hello,

Hope all is well. 

I was of the understanding that auto renewals should take care of the renewals. Can you please confirm why the recurring payment was not taken out for renewing my car's yearly permit ? 

To check this, I have taken my personal time to validate this now and I can see that the "Auto renewal" feature is not working as expected when I tried to set up during this year permit renewals (after receiving the PCN). As soon as I enabled the option for renewals and progressed further, the option I selected disappears(You can clearly see that the complete "Auto renewal" section disappears). I have presented a video as evidence for you. Below is the link to access the video. Use the following password to access the video - <removed it>

<URL removed>

So can I request that - 
1.  Root cause analysis get completed.
2.  This issue gets investigated for a resolution.
3.  Fixes/Code changes deployed to resolve the ongoing issue asap so users are not affected and confused by this issue.
4.  Cancel my PCN.


Thank you

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My request for PCN review and cancellation was rejected.  I am planning to submit a formal representation. Please check and advise how I can progress this in the formal representation. 

Below is the response from Council -  




Thank you for your correspondence received on 13 February 2026 regarding the 
above penalty charge notice (PCN). Your comments and the notes of the Civil 
Enforcement Officer (CEO) have been considered.
Your vehicle was observed at 09:48 Parked in a residents' or shared use parking 
place or zone with an invalid virtual permit or displaying an invalid physical permit or 
voucher or pay and display ticket, or after the expiry of paid for time in Central Park 
Road. 
You have stated that you believed the auto-renewal feature should have taken care 
of renewing your annual permit and you are requesting confirmation as to why the 
recurring payment was not taken. 
You explain that, after receiving the PCN, you checked the system yourself and 
found that the auto-renewal option is not functioning correctly, as the feature 
disappears as soon as you enable it and proceed further. On this basis, you also 
request that your PCN be cancelled.
We have carefully reviewed your comments and the available evidence; however, 
we have not found grounds to cancel the penalty charge.
Virtual permits can be renewed up to 4 weeks in advance. Although its not obligatory 
to send a reminder the council does aim to send renewal reminders to all permit 
holders by email. 
In order to do this the council relies on the applicant providing a correct and recent 
email address at the time of making an application for the permit unfortunately any 
incorrect information will result in a reminder not being delivered to electronically. 
Therefore the onus lies with the applicant to renew the permit in time.
On our system we can see that a reminder email was sent to you to remind you to 
renew your permit on 31/12/2025. We are therefore satisfied that you were made 
aware that the permit was due to expire. The vehicle did not have a permit at the 
time of contravention, therefore the PCN was correctly issued. 
We have noted your comments regarding the auto-renewal function; however, 
please be advised that auto-renewal is only available for monthly permits. You 
currently hold an annual residents’ permit, and annual permits do not renew 
automatically. A new application must be submitted each year for an annual permit to 
remain valid. 
While you have raised concerns about your experience when attempting to activate 
the auto-renewal option after receiving the PCN, this relates to the configuration of 
the annual permit product rather than a system fault. As annual permits are not 
eligible for auto-renewal, the option will not remain available when progressing 
through the renewal process. 
The responsibility remains with the permit holder to ensure that a valid permit is in 
place at all times, and the lack of a current permit at the time of enforcement meant 
that the vehicle was not authorised to park within the controlled zone. 
We acknowledge your requests for further investigation; however, the circumstances 
you describe do not invalidate the contravention and do not provide grounds to 
cancel the Penalty Charge Notice. 
In conclusion, having taken all aspects of this matter into consideration, no 
justification for cancelling the penalty charge notice has been found.
The discounted payment of £55.00 will be accepted in full and final settlement 
if paid not later than the last day of the period of 14 days beginning with the 
date of service of this letter.
You can view evidence of the contravention online at parking.newham.gov.uk by 
selecting ‘View a PCN.’ You will need your PCN number and vehicle registration 
mark (VRM).
If payment is not received within this time, the full penalty amount of £110.00 will 
become payable.
Payment should not be made if you wish to pursue this and want to make formal 
representation, as payment is seen as an acceptance of liability and will close the 
case.
If payment is not received as detailed, I shall assume that you wish to pursue the 
matter and shall arrange for a Notice to Owner to be sent after the period of 14 days 
to the registered keeper of the vehicle so that formal representations may be made.
Should these be rejected, the registered keeper of the vehicle will then be offered the 
opportunity to appeal to the Environment and Traffic Adjudicators. I should point out 
that, should you decide to take this course of action, after the discount period has 
expired, you will forfeit the right to pay the Penalty Charge at the lower rate and the 
full charge of £110.00 will be due.



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OK, fair enough, but so far I've read nothing that might form a robust appeal. The plain fact is the council photos show the suspension sign is only yards away from your car. Of course, you have the absolute right in law to take Newham all the way to London Tribunals if they reject your representations, (informal challenge, and formal against the Notice to Owner), but it would be with the full PCN penalty in play. With this is mind you have to explain why the notice was not seen.

I have looked again at the photos, and the suspension notice does not have the usual 'wings' to make it more prominent from each side, the notice itself faces the carriageway, so you could put this in as a reason.

So looking at GSV, the suspension affected the first three properties from the start of the parking bay. 240 is outside the bay by the built-out kerb. Your car is clearly parked in the suspended area, at No 236, if I'm right. The suspension sign is only a few yards from your car, yet you say you never saw the suspension notice. Yet your wife saw the PCN envelope, yet not, it seems, the suspension sign itself. Frankly, in my opinion, you are going to struggle to overturn this PCN, as you were resident in a nearby property when the sign was put up. I'm quite puzzled why either you or your wife never saw the suspension sign, or maybe you did, but ignored it.