Forum Topic

Question on Parking Fines in Ealing

A neighbour of ours received a PCN recently. She is a lawyer and is more than capable of fighting it. The circumstances of the ticket are so preposterous that she will clearly get off.She had never got a PCN before so she was surprised when her carefully and expertly crafted initial appeal to Ealing was rejected. I told her this happened in nearly all cases.What I wasn't sure of is what happens next. She is now awaiting the notice to owner. She will appeal again and go to the adjudicator if necessary but what fine would she have to pay if she lost - the full rate or the half price rate for early payment. As she pointed out if anyone appealing unsuccessful is effectively fined double some principles of natural justice have been ignored and lots of people without legal training will be intimidated into paying fines they shouldn't because of the extra financial penalty.

Christine Mulligan ● 1899d4 Comments

Let's not blame the parking attendants for the system. They are on low wages and will not keep their job unless the issue a certain number of tickets each day. Ealing Council and Serco will deny that any quotas exist but they clearly do. This puts pressure on the attendants and as a result they often issue tickets which are invalid.Ealing Council knows this goes on but their standard operating practice remains to reject the appeal even for PCNs which are patently ridiculous. Experience will have taught them that in a lot of cases people simply give up and the ambiguity over whether they will face a doubled fine if they appeal certainly helps in that regard.For those that do appeal they generally wait until the second formal appeal at the time when the Notice to Owner is issued. Only then will they rescind the ticket. Doing things this way will maximise the revenue they get from parking fines but is shows an utter contempt for residents of the borough.

Andy Jones ● 1894d

I uses to appeal quite regularly and win most for my late disabled girlfriend. The problem in ealing was that they would give out tickets to disabled badge holders for illegal reasons. But i used to copy in the portfolio holder for parking in any correspondence. A typical example was that if the badge was not exactly level in the window then they would accuse you of not displaying clearly. If you have a justification then copy the letter to the portfolio holder. WE won  all but one and so decided to pay that. The parking hitlers were clearly discriminating against disabled badge holders.

Peter Chadburn ● 1897d

According to Which the early discount should apply if you make the appeal within 14 days.

Gordon Southwell ● 1897d

It is a quirk of the system that if you go to appeal then you lose the 'early payment' discount.
If you win you obviously don't pay, if you lose the appeal then it is the FULL rate.

N V Brooks ● 1899d