Grrr.
Got a £35 ticket, parked over 30 mins in a 30 mins. No return in1 hour zone..Street.
Ticket issued at 16.40 ..I was in a Mc Donald's drive through in 16.31 on the reicpt.
If I challenge on line with pics of receipt and car , will I get off ? It's not the amount,it's principal,and they want us back in town centres!
I wonder if McDonald's would give me a car image with time ...... probably not !
Something along the lines of:
"I believe this ticket has been issued in error and unlawfully. To the best of my knowledge, I had been parked in the street for less than 30 minutes, before I visited the local McDonalds drive through. I submit in evidence the receipt which clearly shows that I was present at McDonalds drive through - and hence, in my car, at 16.31, so therefore I contest the timing on the parking ticket based upon this."
The local council will have an informal appeals process first, often managed by a 3rd party contractor, followed by a formal process which is adjudicated by someone else within the council, followed by an appeal to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.
Most councils will allow appeal by email with attached evidence and some state that they will only allow 1 informal appeal before they issue the Notice to Owner (and trigger the formal appeal process), which is technically incorrect, as they can cancel proceedings on a ticket at any time, so if they refuse to cancel, email them a few more times reinforcing your point until the NTO arrives. This is because if you were to subsequently win at the tribunal, you could request costs if it's shown the council was being vexatious by refusing to consider your appeal at the earliest opportunity.
In this case, if you were not parked for more than an hour - and they may have photographic or CCTV evidence, so please don't consider fabricating any evidence of your own, you have not committed an offence and the ticket should be cancelled on informal appeal. They must tell you why they are not cancelling it and you can further challenge that reason. There's no such thing as a "slip rule" in terms of parking tickets as there can be with speeding tickets. Details on the ticket cannot be subsequently altered if they have been entered incorrectly by the parking attendant.
