Multiple council parking tickets / Traffic Enforcement Centre

steve866

Hi all,
I was wondering if anyone can provide some guidance on the process and likelihood of success of appeal via the traffic enforcement centre based on the below? This is based on tickets provide by Richmond Council:
-On 31st October I was involved in a car accident (not my fault) 
-On 2nd November my car was collected and a courtesy car was dropped off, provided by Enterprise rent a car
-On 2nd November I emailed the council letting them know about the courtesy car and requesting a temporary parking permit (their website states this will be granted electronically in 2- 3 days - I will include more about that below)
-On 2nd November I also paid for a guest permit for 2 days to buy some time for the permit to be issued
-I received parking tickets on my car on 5th, 6th, 9th, 11th and 12th November (I very assumed there might have been a delay in providing the permit due to corona and that common sense would prevail. I called the parking department on the 5th to chase the permit, where I was told I would get a call back and didn't. I called again on 7th and could not get through
-I returned the car on 12th November in fear of getting more parking tickets despite my car not being fixed (there is no alternative free parking available close to me and I needed a car due to doing shopping / picking up medication for shielding vulnerable older person)
-On 13th November the permit was issued (too late obviously!)
-On 13th November I raised an 'informal appeal' (as per guidance) for each of the tickets and explained the above reasoning (especially my expectation that a temporary permit would be issued in 2-3 days)
-On 16th December my appeals were denied on the grounds that I should have found alternative parking until the temporary permit was offered. I was told to further my appeal I would have to wait for notice to owner. I waited for notice to owner (stupidly not thinking that it was a courtesy car)
-On 14th January I received a letter from Enterprise rent a car in relation to each PCN along with a £35 admin fee per letter (totalling £175)
-On 15th February (I'm not sure why the long gap I am just looking at emails) I raised a 'formal appeal' for each of the letters, explaining my dissatisfaction that common sense had not prevailed which also let to me receiving a £175 bill for Enterprise
-On 30th March I received a letter / bill from Enterprise for £110 because the council had denied the formal appeal (I expect to receive 4 more over the next few days). I am disappointed that the result of my appeal was sent to Enterprise and not to me, because I did not receive instructions about the final step in the appeals process (an independent adjudicator which I believe to be the 'Traffic Enforcement center'. After speaking to the TEC and Richmond Council multiple times, I was advised to email the council and request details of the correspondence which was sent to Enterprise to allow me to appeal.

A final interesting note is that I have included wording from the website in relation to temporary parking permits:

 "We will then issue a virtual temporary dispensation on the courtesy car within 3 working days of receiving the email from the courtesy car company/garage. This remains valid for up to a maximum period of 2 weeks. We can extend this dispensation if more time is needed; simply ask the garage to email us before the dispensation expires.

When activated you will receive an activation notification by either text or email. Please note you must arrange legal parking for the temporary vehicle until you have received this notification." 

Interestingly, I am confident that the above text in bold was not on the website a few months ago and I can actually see on this website that archives old websites, I can see that it did not exist back in 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170623014236/https://richmond.gov.uk/resident_permit_guide

Sorry for the long thread, in summary my 2 questions are:

-Is the next step to wait for a copy of the communication sent to Enterprise so that I can follow the TEC appeals process?

-Am I likely to win this or is this a waste of time?

I am obviously very stressed about having to pay £550 (on top of the £175 already charged by Enterprise). 

Thanks

Ralph-y

Hi, and welcome to the forum ....

you will be better served by heading off to http://forums.pepipoo.com/

as we major in private parking .....  have a look round the sigh up ... do not use a hotmail addy as it will  not work

good luck

Ralph