Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi everyone,

I recently received a parking charge notice from Birmingham Airport’s Drop-Off Zone. The limit there is 10 minutes, but I was in the zone for 17 minutes in total. I appealed the fine explaining that there was extremely heavy traffic that day, and I was actively trying to exit almost immediately after arriving but movement was painfully slow due to congestion.

I was picking my dad up and did briefly park my car for about 1–2 minutes, but the rest of the time was spent slowly crawling through traffic trying to leave. I didn’t leave the vehicle or misuse the space.

Unfortunately, my appeal was rejected. I’m now wondering: do I have a realistic case to escalate this further to POPLA, or should I just pay the fine?

Grateful for any advice from others who’ve been in similar situations. Thanks in advance!

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Read https://www.ftla.uk/private-parking-tickets/read-this-first-private-parking-charges-forum-guide/ and amend your post so that you do not identify the driver.

If the driver is not known, this notice does not comply with the requirement of the legislation, PoFA 2012, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/9/schedule/4, to transfer liability from the driver to the registered keeper. Specifically because it was deemed to be delivered on 20 June, which is more than 14 days after the parking event on 5 June.

There are other reasons why this fails also.

See https://www.ftla.uk/private-parking-tickets/advice-needed-ncp-birmingham-international-airport/msg79244/#msg79244

What, precisely, did your appeal say? If you identified the driver in it, you have fewer POPLA appeal points, but if you show us what you said we may be able to construct something.

Hi, thank you for the reply.
I can’t quite figure out how to edit my post but I will do as soon as I can.

Unfortunately, I wasnt aware of this when sending my appeal so I did identify the driver.
I wrote;

“ To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to formally appeal against the Parking Charge Notice issued for my vehicle (Number plate- XXXXXX) on 05/06/2025 at the Birmingham Airport Drop-Off Zone.

I understand that the maximum permitted stay in the drop-off zone is 10 minutes. However, on the day in question, I was unable to exit the zone within the time limit due to unusually heavy traffic within the drop-off area. I did not stop or park my vehicle at any point. From the moment I entered the zone, I was attempting to leave, but the severe congestion and volume of vehicles ahead prevented me from doing so in a timely manner.

This delay was entirely beyond my control and was caused by the airport’s traffic management circumstances on that particular day. I believe it is unreasonable to penalise drivers under such conditions, especially when no misuse of the facility occurred and no vehicle was stationary or left unattended.

Given the situation, I kindly request that you review this charge and consider cancelling it based on the exceptional circumstances. I am confident that the CCTV footage and traffic logs from that time will support my account of events.

Thank you for your understanding and consideration.”


Should I just pay the fine and consider it a lesson learnt for next time? Or do you think I still have a case?


Thanks again.

Doesn't matter now. The driver is liable and you threw away an easily winnable case. Until you blabbed the drivers identity, they had no idea who that was and could not hold the Keeper liable.

I doubt your appeal will be accepted and you have very little chance that POPLA will accept it either. Next time, don't identify the driver. Have a search of the forum for any airport PCN appeal to see how easy they are to beat as long as the driver is not identified.