Annual Parking Report 2018 to 2019

The purpose of a Penalty Charge Notice is to encourage compliance with parking restrictions. The issue of a Penalty Charge Notice should act as a deterrent and hopefully through time re-educate drivers to ensure parking regulations are adhered to. Civic Enforcement Officers will only issue a Penalty Charge Notice where they are convinced from the evidence they have before them that a contravention has occurred. 

Advice is provided on what can be done should a member of the public have been issued with a ticket. In most cases (except manual tickets), evidence can be viewed on-line, and for all cases an informal challenge can be made or the Penalty Charge Notice can simply be paid if there is agreement that the notice has been given fairly. In brief there are three parts to the general appeal's process, which are the informal challenge, formal representation and appeal to the Independent Traffic Penalty Tribunal (TPT) if the representation is unsuccessful. 

Firstly, in the appeals process an informal challenge can be made to the Car Parking Office within 14 days of the ticket being issued and at this point the Penalty Charge Notice will be held at the discounted rate. If this challenge is unsuccessful the next stage of the process is to make Formal Representations to the Council on one of statutory grounds, which are:

• the alleged contravention did not occur
• the penalty exceeded the amount applicable in the circumstances of the case
• there has been a procedural impropriety by the council. The order which is alleged to have been contravened in relation to the vehicle concerned is invalid
• the PCN was served by post because the council say the Civic Enforcement Officer was prevented by some person from fixing the Penalty Charge Notice to the vehicle or handing it to the person in charge of the vehicle, but this did not happen
• that the recipient was never the owner of the vehicle in question; or had ceased to be its owner before the date on which the alleged contravention occurred, or became the owner after the date on which the alleged contravention occurred
• that the vehicle has been permitted to remain at rest in the place in question by a person who was in control of the vehicle without the consent of the owner
• the recipient is a vehicle hire firm and the vehicle was on hire under a qualifying hiring agreement and the hirer had signed the statement acknowledging liability for any Penalty Charge Notice issued during the hire period
• that the Notice to Owner (NtO) should not have been served because the penalty charge had already been paid in full or by the amount reduced by any discount set within the period set

Should a formal representation to the Council be unsuccessful then an Individual can appeal to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal who are independent from both the Local Authority and the appellant. An Adjudicator considers all aspects of a case and reviews relevant evidence and makes a decision that is both binding and final to all parties.

The Council is committed to give a fair, transparent and consistent approach to dealing with correspondence at all times throughout the appeals process.

The aim of the Council is to respond to all informal challenges within 14 days, and formal representations within the required 56 days timeframe. For further information on parking policy and enforcement visit our pay a parking fine webpage or the Patrol website.

Parking Penalty Charge Notices - reasons for cancellation 2018 to 2019

The table shows the reasons for cancellation of a Penalty Charge Notice following receipt of either an informal challenge or representation. Grounds for challenges and representations can be found in our Parking Enforcement Policy.

Total number of cancelled Penalty Charge Notices is 766.