Sheffield City Council PCN

tinalee1

Today I received a PCN that seemed wildly unfair and I am even wondering if I have grounds to put in a complaint, never-mind just appeal. It sounds ridiculous, but this really is an honest description of what happened:

I pulled up in a street parking bay, and walked away from the car to find the nearest machine so I could see the number in which to pay on my app. As I walked over to do this, a mother struggling with shopping bags and her children stopped me to ask for help in ordering a taxi. The mum didn't speak English and her child had to translate between us. Of course I tried to help them, which perhaps took about 5 minutes. As I was coming to the end of this I noticed a traffic warden with his machine out by my car so I literally ran over and said to him "I'm just about to get a ticket, which is the nearest machine?" (so he knew my intent) He pointed to the opposite direction I came from and then started talking to another man whose car was there. I stood beside him & waited for about 30 seconds until he was done with his conversation so I could ask if I could use the code on the closer machine, but before I even had chance to do that he slapped a PCN on my car. 

I said "why did you do that? I literally told you I'm about to buy a ticket."
Warden: "I didn't know that was your car."
Me: "How could you not know, I ran over the road to tell you I was just about to buy a ticket?"
Warden: "I didn't know."
Me: "I was on my way to buy a ticket and I just stopped briefly to help a family who couldn't speak English."
Warden: "Okay well sorry, maybe you can appeal it. I was observing your car for about 10 minutes."
Me: "That doesn't sound right."
Warden: "There's nothing I can do, you can try and appeal it. You should've told me that was your car."

Then he walked off. I checked the ticket and the observation time was only for 4 minutes. 

Do I have grounds to appeal this? It feels very unfair.

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.

tinalee1

Umkomaas said:

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.

Okay thank you