Barnet Council have now requested a Judicial Review which will be heard in the High Court on 1st August.

Barnet Council have now requested a Judicial Review which will be heard in the High Court on 1^st August.

Parking Ticket Newsletter™ July 2006

Dear AppealNow.com™ Reader

It has been a while since I produced the last Parking Ticket Newsletter™.

This newsletter deals with the following subjects.

Validity of Parking Tickets
The Parliamentary Transport Committee’s Recommendations on Parking The
The Parking Adjudication Service
Starting Your Own Website

The Validity of Parking Tickets
Earlier this year I represented Mr. Hugh Moses at his appeals before the Parking Adjudicator. The appeals related to two parking tickets. Although we contested the reasons for the issue of the parking tickets, in one case it was never put on the vehicle or handed to the driver we also contended that the parking tickets did not comply with the Road Traffic Act 1991.

The Parking Adjudicator agreed and cancelled the parking tickets. The council involved, Barnet Council, asked for a review and were turned down in no uncertain terms by a different adjudicator.

The council have now requested a Judicial Review which will be heard in the High Court on 1^st August.

After the Barnet case I won two other cases on the same invalidity point– one against the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and one against the London Borough of Lambeth.

I have also stated that I believe that ALL parking tickets issued in Scotland are invalid. Of 5 appeals lodged on behalf of a lady as a test case Edinburgh Council have cancelled two without explanation!

The Parliamentary Transport Committee’s Recommendations on Parking.

Last Month the Parliamentary Transport Committee published its report on decriminalised parking. I had submitted evidence and recommendations to the committee and was pleased to see that they had incorporated 6 of those recommendations including making parking tickets targets and bonus based on parking tickets illegal. Good news BUT I do not see this dealt with in the in the proposed new legislation.

Here are some of the 104 recommendations

1. More leniency by parking attendants - very good idea but not so far incorporated in the new legislation
2. All bonuses and targets must be made illegal - but not so far incorporated in the new legislation
3. A more motorist-friendly appeals process with a penalty charge discount re-offered after an informal challenge - Good idea but this requires proper training and councils considering appeals properly.
4. More power being given to adjudicators is an excellent idea BUT parking adjudicators must be clearly independent i.e. not funded by the councils as at present. Also Adjudicators should be made to follow set procedures in considering evidence which they currently fail to do to the detriment of motorists.
5. Parking attendants will be known as civil enforcement officers. A waste of time - People will still call them parking attendants or parking wardens. Absolutely no point in this

What the Committee failed to do!

The committee has not dealt satisfactorily with the following

1. They should have recommended that compensation be paid for incorrectly issued parking tickets – this would act as a deterrent to councils and parking attendants issuing illegal parking tickets. The committees failure to recommend this is a big mistake.

2. The committee has failed to deal adequately with the matter of bailiffs pursuing parking fines. This has reached epidemic proportions and must be sorted out NOW.

The Parking Adjudication Service
They are major problems with the Parking Adjudication Service in the UK. Although the majority of motorists win their appeals before the Parking Adjudicator the adjudicators, in my view are not considering the law properly. If they had done so more motorists would have won their cases. I will prepare a separate Newsletter on this subject.

Starting Your Own Website

Since I started AppealNow.com™ I have set up about 50 websites. I have been asked by many people how to go about this.

Nowadays there are excellent easy to use programs which enable you to do this without any technical knowledge. Two I would recommend are:

Website Article Wizard and XsitePro. Website Article Wizard is in my view the easier to use and at the moment I am working on websites using XsitePro

If you are interested in these programs click the links below

Website Article Wizard

and

XsitePro.

Yours sincerely

Barrie Segal

Founder of www.AppealNow.com™

Reversing the Charges™

July 2006