city council / parking fine

LE100

I recently got a parking ticket affixed to my windscreen after overstaying for 5 minutes on a road in Manchester.

The £25 fine is from Manchester council (not a private firm). I'm wondering if the circumstances of this case might mean it's possible to appeal the fine and I would welcome some advice.

We were parked at the side of the road in a pay-and-display area. The parking meter on our road was out of order, but there was a sign saying we could use the meters on nearby streets. However it was a considerable walk to the nearest meter we could find.

We paid for 30 minutes of parking, returned to the car to display the ticket, and went to a shop. We came out of the shop a little less than 5 minutes after the parking deadline, to find a parking officer was ticketing us.

We tried to draw her attention but she carried on processing the ticket. By the time we were able to speak to her, she said 5 minutes had elapsed since the parking deadline; she said the council do not allow you to stay more than 5 minutes over, that the fine had already been processed, and she would not waive the fine.

Here are my thoughts:

1. I thought I saw on TV that parking wardens were not supposed to 'hover' over cars that were just about to go over the parking deadline. Or are Manchester city council totally within her rights to deliberately target cars as they go one second over the deadline?

2. It seems relevant that it was such a long walk to the nearest working parking meter. I estimate we wasted around 4-5 minutes of our allowed parking time just returning to the car, due to the inoperative meter.

Advice please.

muckybutt

The points you have raised are valid points....but very unlikely they will get you off a ticket im afraid.

Traffic wardens are perfectly within their right to hovver / loiter around, a typical grace period would be in the region of two ish minutes but that isnt written in law so to speak.

Your best bet is to look at the bays to see if they are correctly marked out, and look at the ticket to see if that is worded correctly. It might be worth an informal appeal to the council re walking further to a parking meter but I have to say I wouldnt waste a stamp and look for other flaws.

Register with pepipoo ( its free ) and start a new thread in the council and decriminalised tickets section, good expert advice on there from all walks of life from those in the know.

Coupon-mad

IMHO you should ALWAYS appeal a Council PCN and normally it's worth taking the appeal all the way to adjudication. Most people win.

First step is to post on pepipoo, with pics of signs, lines and both sides of the PCN:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=30

Draft an appeal and see what pepipoo advise to improve it. As part of your appeal letter, ask the Council for a copy of the Traffic Order for that place including all maps and amendments if they should reject your appeal. Also a copy of the CEO's notebook and a copy of all photos taken.

The odds are in your favour, I would take it to pepipoo asap.

LE100

Thanks for the advice. I'll definitely draft a letter and post on pepipoo.

The fine will go up from £25 to £50 in just over a week. Will it prejudice my appeal if I pay the reduced fine 'just in case'?

LincolnshireYokel

LE100 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice. I'll definitely draft a letter and post on pepipoo.

The fine will go up from £25 to £50 in just over a week. Will it prejudice my appeal if I pay the reduced fine 'just in case'?

Well if you pay it you admit the offence, and so what are you appealing about ?

Coupon-mad

LE100 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice. I'll definitely draft a letter and post on pepipoo.

The fine will go up from £25 to £50 in just over a week. Will it prejudice my appeal if I pay the reduced fine 'just in case'?

Oh. You cannot pay and appeal. Read the PCN and you'd know that. Appeal it with some good information and knowledge like most people on pepipoo do. Forget the bribe.

LE100

FYI I've posted my draft letter on Pepipoo:
forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=71159

All feedback welcome!

Coupon-mad

LE100 wrote: »

FYI I've posted my draft letter on Pepipoo:
forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=71159

All feedback welcome!

Okey-dokey, I have found time to add a reply as my alter-ego of SchoolRunMum on pepipoo, hope it helps and also by bumping your thread early evening on a weekday it's a good time for other pepipoo posters to add something as well.

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=71159&st=0&gopid=708195&#entry708195

Good luck and with most PCNs if you are to appeal successfully you will probably have to go to a later stage of appeal or adjudication - so forget the discounted penalty unless you are lucky enough to get a cancellation this early (probably won't happen this early as Councils like to play a game of bluff knowing that people panic and pay up because of the 'bribe' discount).