Parking fine

[jittabug]

Our close is notoriously difficult to park in. There are not enough spaces for houses and no-one has a permit, it's just a free for all. We have some parking up on the main road near to our house but this area had been coned off to prevent people parking there, though no reason or notice was provided to residents, nothing came of them and they have since been removed. Anyway, we have two kids under 2yo, and came home to no spaces, and nowhere nearby to park. Needing to get the kids in the house safely, we parked on the end of a row, about half of the car overhanging onto the double yellows at the end. We received a parking ticket the next morning. We contested the ticket on the grounds that our only other available parking had been inexplicably coned off and we had two young children with us, but our appeal has been denied, with no mention of (or explanation for) our complaint about the coned area. I am wondering if anyone has successfully contested a parking fine in similar circumstances, if you think we have any grounds to appeal further, or if you think we are stuck with this fine?

I doubt you'll get anywhere. X location being temporarily unavailable is no defence for unlawful parking in Y location!

You might get off on a technicality, eg if the double yellows aren't painted to the legal standards.

You say we, so why didn't one of you take the kids in and the other go and find a space somewhere?

Double yellow lines are there for a reason, I very much doubt you will get off the fine

Sorry, we weren't both there, I was using the royal we! Basically pulling my husband into this although it was my situation

Just read it back and I did make it sound like we were both there, oops. Nope just me, although he has been the one in contact with the council.

Could it be that residents have just appropriated some cones?

Double yellows are there for safety, often to make corners safe, I have to pull out blind onto a 40 mile an hour road due to stupid parking daily (city only has 4 traffic wardens so people park anywhere)

Bad luck getting done but I don’t think you have any defence really. Double yellers is double yellers and if ‘but there was nowhere else to park ‘ was a defence they would always be parked on and there would be no point in having them. It isn’t lawful.

Your best bet might be to campaign to the council for a controlled parking zone (permits).

The cones transpired to be in order to get some pot holes fixed, but they were there for months, by which time people had already started parking there again and the pot holes were not fixed! And I do understand the annoyances of people being illegally parked, everyone does it round here every single day, I was just unlucky that the wardens came round on that particular day. Thank you all for the responses, we will pay the fine.