Council PCN - out of time?

kiethton

Quick version: The council have today responded to an appeal submitted 74 days ago, can I tell them to go away?

Long version:

Back on 29th June my wife parked in a council owned and operated car park and due to a combination of factors didn't pay for the ticket immediately. 

The ticket was appealed on 30th June with the following:

"Evening, I parked and went to pay with coins which I had on me. With no ticket machine signs said payment via RingGo only. I had no signal in the proximity of the parking place.

I went to where I was going with my 1 year old daughter while trying to get signal and download the app. When I got there I found that she had soiled herself. When she was clean I managed to get Wifi, download the app and pay for the parking. Obviously some time had elapsed. I attach my invoice for the parking which I did pay for.

Please check your systems but you will see that I always pay for my parking and have never had a parking ticket before. I was prepared to pay immediately with cash at a meter, I had it on me, however Bromley's new parking processes were incompatible with the realities of both Beckenham's awful phone reception and my daughter's bowels. 

Given my evidenced payment, albeit a little delayed, please cancel the ticket, else provide me with your formal appeals procedure. 

Best,
"Mrs Kiethton"

A confirmation of receipt was received - the payment system switched to RingGo only earlier this year.

On 8th September we chased up the council and basically said, "as it has been nearly 70 days since the appeal was submitted and I have heard nothing please confirm cancellation as is now time-barred"

Today we received a letter rejecting the appeal while apologising for the time to reply saying it's not the usual practice etc.

No letter or notice to owner has been received. Am I right in thinking that they have 56 days to respond to an appeal and I can tell them to go away?

Umkomaas

As we major on private parking tickets here, Free Traffic Legal Advice (FTLA) forum will be your best bet for council penalty charges. 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 the 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 - but as a minimum you will need to post redacted photos/scans of all correspondence you've received from the council (both sides, if appropriate), as they need to see all the small print.