How to appeal a Bath parking ticket (PCN)

Where Bath PCNs go wrong

• Central Bath Clean Air Zone and bus-gate cameras, where a compliant vehicle was wrongly recorded or an exemption was not registered.
• Residents' parking and pay-and-display errors in the controlled zones around the centre.
• Pay-by-phone and pay-and-display errors. Paying for the wrong zone code, mistyping the registration, a part-paid session, or an out-of-order machine or card reader. Keep the confirmation or a photo of the machine fault.
• Bus lanes, bus gates and moving-traffic cameras (yellow boxes and banned turns) where the signing was inadequate, the hours were easy to misread, or you were forced across the line by traffic ahead.
• Signs and road markings that do not comply. Faded lines, missing or contradictory signs, a zone entry plate that is obscured, or restriction hours that differ between the sign and the bay. The Traffic Regulation Order must be properly made and signed.
• Loading and waiting enforced without observation. For loading and waiting contraventions the officer must observe for the required period and record it; where the vehicle was actively loading, that is a defence.
• Bath Clean Air Zone. A compliant vehicle wrongly recorded, an exemption or discount not registered, or a charge paid inside the allowed window. A Clean Air Zone penalty is appealed to the council and then to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal, like a PCN, but the question is whether the vehicle was chargeable, not whether you parked wrongly.

How to appeal a Bath PCN

1. PCN served — on the windscreen or by hand for parking, or by post for camera-enforced contraventions. You have 28 days to pay or challenge, with a 50% discount for the first 14 days (21 days for most postal camera PCNs).
2. Informal challenge (windscreen and hand-served PCNs only). Challenge through Bath's online parking service (search the council's website for "challenge a PCN"), quoting the PCN number and registration, before the 14 days run out. If Bath rejects an in-time informal challenge, the discount is normally re-offered for 14 days.
3. Notice to Owner after 28 days, then 28 days to make formal representations on the statutory grounds. A posted camera PCN is itself the formal stage, so you make representations straight away.
4. Appeal to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal within 28 days of a Notice of Rejection. It is free, independent and handled online or by phone.
5. If ignored: a Charge Certificate (+50%), registration at the Traffic Enforcement Centre, then enforcement agents. A TE9 witness statement can reset the process if the statutory notices never reached you.

Your PCN number and registration let you view the civil enforcement officer's photographs or the camera footage on the council's website. Always look at the evidence before deciding how to respond.