I recently got a letter from the Council after they rejected my appeal in regards to what I believe is an "alleged parking offence".
In the letter there final paragraph is as such:
If you wish to appeal please read the attached leaflet, issued by the Parking Adjucator then complete and send in the form of appeal to the address shown. Remember that you only have 28 days to do this. This leaflet describes what happens next.
So I didn't get the leaflet along with the NOTICE OF REJECTION.
I called the Parking Enforcement Services that issued the PCN and they were not of much help.
So I see two problems here:
1. I can't exercise my right to appeal to the Parking Adjucator because the Council did not send me the "attached leaflet". This in itself should make the PCN null and void as they have not followed their own procedure.
2. I have phoned them and asked them to provide me with the name of the individual I need to write to in order to have the PCN quashed on the above grounds, as they did not follow procedure. To top it all off, they also sent me an email with all of the information that is in the NOTICE OF REJECTION and again did not attach the appeal leaflet to the Parking Adjucator.
This all started with me parking in a resident voucher marked space with a resident voucher issued by their own machine. This machine states in big letters RESIDENT when you put in the card the Borough have issued and then proceeds to give out a printed piece of paper with a large R on it. (I note that the Oxford dictionary states that a voucher is a printed piece of paper.) The thing that makes me quite perturbed is that I have parked on the same street before with a voucher with a large R on it and have never gotten a PCN.
The Council have been a bit ambiguous as I have asked them to send me a close up picture of the voucher (which was on the windscreen stuck on the inside) but they sent me a bunch of pictures which just simply show where the car was parked and none of the windscreen up close so that it is possible to discern what is on the voucher. I feel that they have done so in order to not admit fault...possibly believing that I have misplaced the voucher or have no way to prove my case. Luckily I have the voucher in my possession, which I think is a good rebuttal to their claim.
I think it is pretty safe to think that if you put your card into a machine and it states that you are a resident that you ARE a resident and thus can park there.
I asked them to justify what they charge for a parking ticket, the reason this amount is halved if paid within a certain time and why this amount increases if not paid on time before going to County Court. I received a reply that they cannot provide this information and that I have to get it from somewhere else.
They also have not answered the questions I put to them, such as what system of GPS to they use for taking the photos and is the machine used to take the photos linked to a Government Certified Satellite that is licensed to take pictures for that purpose. Not much of an answer there.
I then phoned the Parking Department and asked what address I would have to send a Court Summons to if I decided to go down that route....no reply was given...they hung up after me asking a few times.
Sort of really hate the fact that the government agencies show no respect for the average citizen.
This was like the time I asked why my son doesn't have to go to school at the beginning of the school year and they said they hadn't sorted out a spot for him yet. So I asked to be refunded the Council Tax I pay for education for the time period he wasn't allowed to go to school because the Council said he couldn't and they just laughed in my face...I have heard that schools have issue fines to parents who have kept their kids out of school for whatever reason,,but when the shoe is on the other foot then it is a different matter...
No wonder people say the country has changed...
