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9 weeks to respond to my appeal
My local council took nine weeks to respond to my parking fine appeal (I appealed due to poor signage but it was rejected).
I understand that issuers of parking fines normally have 56 days to respond or they forfeit the fine. However, the council has contended that this rule only applies to ‘formal appeals’ after a Notice to Owner is served.
I hadn’t realised until now that there was any distinction between ‘informal’ or ‘formal’ appeals, and in my view had simply appealed my parking ticket (I did so by email, which was an option outlined on the ticket, incidentally because I’d first tried the council’s website but it kept crashing).
Instinctively it feels a bit odd that the council is telling me I didn’t make a ‘formal’ appeal when I followed an appeal route that was specified on the parking ticket! And they still haven’t sent a Notice to Owner to my address, nearly ten weeks on from when they ticketed my car.
After suggesting they’d taken too long to respond to my appeal, the council replied to say “If you wish to wait for the Notice to Owner to be served, please do not make payment and the matter will proceed to the this stage.” Feels a bit cynical if the council is nudging people down the ‘informal appeal’ route so they can take as long as they like to respond!
Grateful if anyone could tell me if I have a leg to stand on here, both for the sake of the money and the principle. Particularly annoyed at this one as it was my daughters first day at school after summer holiday, traffic warden doing the rounds by the school, and I parked on a single yellow with abysmal (but I think legally OK) signage - didn’t inconvenience anyone for one second but returning to my car 5 mins later I had a bill for £35 / £70.
thanks so much in advance!
I understand that issuers of parking fines normally have 56 days to respond or they forfeit the fine. However, the council has contended that this rule only applies to ‘formal appeals’ after a Notice to Owner is served.
I hadn’t realised until now that there was any distinction between ‘informal’ or ‘formal’ appeals, and in my view had simply appealed my parking ticket (I did so by email, which was an option outlined on the ticket, incidentally because I’d first tried the council’s website but it kept crashing).
Instinctively it feels a bit odd that the council is telling me I didn’t make a ‘formal’ appeal when I followed an appeal route that was specified on the parking ticket! And they still haven’t sent a Notice to Owner to my address, nearly ten weeks on from when they ticketed my car.
After suggesting they’d taken too long to respond to my appeal, the council replied to say “If you wish to wait for the Notice to Owner to be served, please do not make payment and the matter will proceed to the this stage.” Feels a bit cynical if the council is nudging people down the ‘informal appeal’ route so they can take as long as they like to respond!
Grateful if anyone could tell me if I have a leg to stand on here, both for the sake of the money and the principle. Particularly annoyed at this one as it was my daughters first day at school after summer holiday, traffic warden doing the rounds by the school, and I parked on a single yellow with abysmal (but I think legally OK) signage - didn’t inconvenience anyone for one second but returning to my car 5 mins later I had a bill for £35 / £70.
thanks so much in advance!
