Life is expensive enough, without the council fleecing us as well.
PCNs are parking tickets issued by the council typically. Or agents on behalf.
Many are invalid. It's cost prohibitive for councils to take losing cases to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal (these are trained independent lawyers), councils know this, they don't want to look stupid in public, so they may not even bother to present a case to the tribunal. They're looking for easy collection of money, and I'll only pay up if the TPT say so! Same way we wouldn't plead guilty to anything else we didn't do.
First don't worry about the 14 day discount to £35 - remember you're the innocent party, no contravention occurred.
Use Chat GPT to generate a Subject access request letter. Get all photos, specify originals including metadata.
Common reasons tickets are invalid, no contravention occurred.
- Faded double yellow lines, not visible.
- Zero second duration 9:21 - 9:21 means the same as 9:21:00 - 9:21:00 therefore a zero second duration is not a valid Observations Period.
- Photos have different times to the PCN. Photos 5 mins before the time on the ticket are invalid. Likewise 5 mins after.
- Invalid duration period, 15 mins is hard to challenge, under 10 is insufficient observation (enforcement officer must demonstrate no Unloading)
Write to the chief executive if you only get fobbed off by parking staff. Be polite, it always works. Be reasonable, and do keep going back if there are dishonest statements (that is statements that are not evidenced, ie just their admin staff opinions) made by council staff, even after their "final decision letter", the chief executive will always reply (see CEO Email COM) to look up and send a polite letter.
Ask the council DPO if they're a registered Solicitor. Most aren't legally qualified, so then we see they lack credibility and competency in their position.