PCN - any advice

simongregson

Hi, I wonder if anyone could help with advice on the PCN that my wife received. I have scanned in the PCN. The first 2 pictures came from the council (the PCN fell off when my wife drove away, so we don't have a copy of the back of it, just the copy sent by the council).

Basically, my wife was confused by the signage. The last 2 pictures show the no parking sign by the car and the sign opposite respectively, my wife (who was on the drivers side) looked at the one opposite which was gaffa taped over. I gather from the gaffa tape that the restrictions in this street have changed recently.

TheBogsDollocks

If the last photo was positioned on the same side as your wife's car and was the nearest one then you may have a case. The "NO Waiting" roundel is obscured and therefore it's reasonable to argue that your wife interpreted the sign as meaning parking permitted between 8am and 6pm.

I advise requesting a copy of the CEO's log book to see what notes were recorded. You may get lucky and find they failed to record sufficient details or made an error such as putting wrong time, location, vrm etc.

There is also the possibility that the Traffic Regulation Order is faulty so I suggest you demand a copy of the active TRO that contains the No Waiting restriction (if it does).

TheBogsDollocks

As an extra, the reason the top sign is taped over is because otherwise it definitely would not be a legally compliant sign. Bothy signs should comply with diagram 639 in the TSRGD 2002.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2002/02311347.gif

There should not be two divided yellow panels.

simongregson

Thanks for all your help. We decided in the end that on balance we couldn't argue that the signage was unclear, it was more a case of not looking on the correct side of the road, so we've paid the reduced fee.

It seems a shame they are becoming so draconian with parking restrictions, down a side street with no reason not to allow parking. Many of the local shops are going bust, and we are amongst the people who won't be shopping in the area again. Tremendous work from the local council :-)