Free Traffic Legal Advice

What answer do you get with this: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/streets-travel/bristols-caz/charges-and-vehicle-checker

Pl post the PCN.

When will you be moving to Canada and for how long?

IMO, the forum rules are clear as regards posting PCNs: 'leave in the VRM'.

We wouldn't know whether what you've posted represents the totality of their photo evidence because you won't allow us to access this. 

But if what you've posted is the total of their evidence and if you assert with evidence (to the standard required at adjudication) that the necessary markings were not clearly displayed in the immediate vicinity of your vehicle, then go ahead.

IMO, given that the information board and instructions seem clear then any defence would go to mitigation. This would be bolstered if you could demonstrate that the app does not give this car park despite being parked in it then this would help because it suggests a systemic failure.

On GSV the car park board and instructions seem clear, as does the location number. Perhaps you could confirm with photos when you visit.

On the map on the parking app it showed that she was in the other car park, not the one she was parked in so she didn't realise the car park was not the correct one.

As I understand it, you were not in the vehicle and do not have first-hand knowledge, so this is your mother's recollection.

I'm no expert on these apps, but how could it locate her car without some user input? If she already had the app and was 'registered' or whatever, then presumably she has used this before. Any previous problems?


Just thinking ahead to the nest stage(a NTO), who is the registered keeper and are their DVLA details current?

IMO, if you qualify the issue should be raised with the council's external auditor. Contact the council and find out when their accounts are published and how objections to these may be raised with the external auditor- there's a 30-day window.

https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Council-accounts-a-guide-to-your-rights.pdf

This is not for objecting to your PCN as such, it is a means of focusing attention on the principle.

If you're successful, and it appears that the legal position is clear, then the external auditor would include this in their report to the COUNCIL.

You get to the highest level of responsibility and decision making and bypass the foothills/molehills of self-interested officers in the parking hierarchy. 

I'm still struggling with the photographic evidence, both yours and theirs.

IMO,
There is a traffic sign which regulates a parking bay. In itself this has NOTHING to do with footway parking*, it regulates a parking bay. The default position is that the parking place(of however many spaces) should be marked on the carriageway. But there isn't one on the carriageway. Instead, there appear to be some white blobs on the footway.

The council's position is that there is a clear and properly demarcated parking place wholly/partly on the footway restricted to Resident Permit Holders **** which not only reserves the place to those holders but also allows parking on the footway. This is nonsense in as much as there's a single yellow line at the edge of the carriageway which prohibits waiting both on and off the carriageway, so it's not possible to 'park' anywhere! 

To them if you're within the parking place you're OK, but if outside then you do not have an exemption from the footway parking prohibition. In a way it's their equivalent of Floor's Lava!

But IMO from all the photos it's impossible to see whether the parking place is correctly marked and that you were parked beyond its clear limits, thereby being parked in contravention on the footway.

Can you take side-on photos which capture the sign and these markings?

*- because it's not the sign prescribed for a parking place on the footway but simply one on the carriageway!
On the carriageway: item 4 in the Part 4 sign table; https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016/362/schedule/4
On the footway: items 2,6,7 etc in the above.

The council allege that the contravention occurred in a CAR PARK.

A CAR PARK cannot be part of a Controlled Parking Zone.

IMO, the Ts and Cs relate and are totally restricted to CPZs and roads.

You were in/on neither.

Whether the council allow holders of WSN permits to park on estate land is a matter for them, but IMO it HAS to be made clear by separate signs and notices that failure to comply means a penalty may be demanded.

If one parked 100m from the nearest parking place, would this constitute 'Not parked correctly....bay or space'?

IMO, no.

Which begs the question: when is a vehicle sufficiently proximate to a parking place that despite no part of the car being within the parking place the contravention is established?

IMO, if no part of a car is within a parking place (as shown in the council's photos), then IMO the contravention can be disputed(if not within a car park which is regulated by different rules).

Wait for others.

Last day of 'risk-free' 14-day period is 26th.