Thread: What might be done?

My wife who is disabled and a blue badge holder recently (last week) received a pcn under contravention code 25. She was returning from the doctors and needed to collect a prescription from the chemist. On arrival at the chemist the only place to park was a loading bay, which was empty. She cannot walk far at all (she suffered a stroke 3 and a half years ago), walks with a stick, and certainly cannot park across the street as she is not capable of walking fast enough to cross the road safely. Her blue badge was displayed.

My question is: are there ever any mitigating circumstances relating to parking in a loading bay? There are no disabled bays in that part of the street, and there were no other avilable spaces.

We have already written by e-mail and received today a refusal of our appeal, but i am interested to know whether there may be any avenues which we may pursue.

Thoughts/ideas would be appreciated.

Unfortunately your blue badge doesn't give you an exemption in a loading bay.

You've gone down the appropriate avenue by appealing in writing. Your options from a legal point of view are unfortunately as per their letter, which presumably tells you you can either pay now or wait for a Notice to Owner and then make a formal representation. I presume you would be gambling on winning, as against being able to still pay the reduced rate - their letter will confirm this.

It's a difficult one. You have a very good set of mitigating circumstances in my opinion and they ought to cancel it. However they are not obliged to.

If you feel you want to fight this, then go for the formal representation route and explain in full and include some evidence to support your case - something which proves you were there on a medical matter. Make it very clear that you had no practical alternative (although you now understand the rules, etc etc).

Meantime, you could also, if it's viable, try and get an informal meeting with someone who deals with appeals, for example a manager in a public parking office if you have one, and try and get them to agree to reconsider - although that's slighly outside of normal process. However it can work if they will agree to speak with you one-on-one.

Ultimately if you get nowhere you will have a right to take the case to an adjudication hearing, which is free but might be a little time-consuming. They will look sympathetically on a situation such as this.

And if you want to embarrass them, also write to the local paper.

You should have been given a blue badge handbook. If you don't have one, explain that to them too and ask for one. It's not a legal defence not to have been given one, but may add to your moral argument.

And finally - if you have any reason to think the pcn is erroneous in any way - reg number, times and so on, stick it up here and someone will look at it for possible errors which might undermine of invalidate it.