PCN for parking on Double Yellows on Gordon Road, Ealing

kryba007

Hi,

Hope you’re all well. I’ve been a bit naughty, but perhaps it might shed some light on a bigger problem.

I parked my car on a double yellow on Gordon’s Road in Ealing.  I realise I asked for it, but was wondering if I could get some input.

I’ve uploaded the some pictures taken by the warden as well as my own below.

The whole street suffers from quite bad parking space utilisation. There are double yellows where you could very easily fit a medium sized car without blocking driveways. Some bays start/end extremely early, much before a dropped curbs. The lines have been recently repainted too - yet this problem remains.

As you can see in the pictures, my car had about 75cm (2.5 feet) of clearance from the first driveway and around 50cm (1.6 feet) from the second. The curb on the left also drops about 2m (6.6 feet) before the actual driveway, perhaps indicating the driveway was moved. Perspective affects the pictures quite a lot, making it look more squeezed than it actually was, but there are bays on the road with much tighter conditions. Yet, other looser stretches remain prohibited...

The car was parked between 1-3pm, within the allowed timeframe. I realise I was wrong to park on a double yellow, but I feel that this is a completely incompetent use of space by the council. And there are many more like that on the road…

Is there any leeway for an appeal or to gain traction, considering the above? Perhaps it took a parking ticket for Ealing council to realize they're severely underutilizing parking space - especially after freshly repainting the lines!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, 

Thank you for your time!

DE_612183

To be fair - you have a small car - if they tried to make that space a parking space there will probably be a minimum length that it would need to be, and that would then cause an obstruction to the driveways.

Don't forget, when you access a driveway, you also need to be able to turn, which again a longer car would cause an issue.

I think you can appeal - don't think it will be you very far.

And you can point out what you have said here - but again I don't think you'll get very far.

vacheron

I don't think you will get very far to be honest. This is a "proper" Penalty Charge by a local authority base on law rather than a "Parking Charge" claiming breach of contract and issued by threatening bottom feeders on behalf of private landowners.

There is no harm in arguing that the space is being underutilised in a busy area, however at the time of the offence they were double yellow lines and a clearly visible notice right next to the space, so I think that the chance of any leniency is very unlikely. 

Coupon-mad

You'd be OK if you were loading or unloading because that's exempt activity on double yellow lines, as every driver should know.

Double yellows don't mean no stopping.

But if you were parked, then it might be worth looking at the Traffic Order on the council website.  See if DYL are plotted there or not.

I doubt there will be an 'out' but as we major on private parking tickets here, Free Traffic Legal Advice (FTLA) forum will be your best bet for council tickets.

Register there but please note that a Hotmail address may not work - try using a throwaway Gmail account instead if you do have trouble registering, and post a new thread; here's your link:

https://www.ftla.uk/index.php?board=3.0

Read their sticky 'Read this first before posting your case' as well as reading through some of the other threads there ahead of posting your own details, to get the hang of what information they need from you in your opening post.

kryba007

DE_612183 said:

To be fair - you have a small car - if they tried to make that space a parking space there will probably be a minimum length that it would need to be, and that would then cause an obstruction to the driveways.

Don't forget, when you access a driveway, you also need to be able to turn, which again a longer car would cause an issue.

I think you can appeal - don't think it will be you very far.

And you can point out what you have said here - but again I don't think you'll get very far.

Thank you for your time. Should have mentioned that the street is one way, but I absolutely understand your point. Do you know if there's any resource I could use to find the minimum length or does the council keep this kind of stuff internally? Thanks!

kryba007

You'd be OK if you were loading or unloading because that's exempt activity on double yellow lines, as every driver should know.

Double yellows don't mean no stopping.

But if you were parked, then it might be worth looking at the Traffic Order on the council website.  See if DYL are plotted there or not.

I doubt there will be an 'out' but as we major on private parking tickets here, Free Traffic Legal Advice (FTLA) forum will be your best bet for council tickets.

Register there but please note that a Hotmail address may not work - try using a throwaway Gmail account instead if you do have trouble registering, and post a new thread; here's your link:

Thank you! Really appreciate your time. I have cross posted to FTLA so awaiting to see what they say. 

Speaking of loading / unloading - is there a specific time frame the officer must wait to confirm that no loading had taken place?

Thanks once again!

Coupon-mad

Yes it is at least 5 minutes but if you do have evidence of merely delivering of loading something to premises, then that could have taken ten or twenty minutes.