How to appeal a City of London parking ticket (PCN)

Where City of London PCNs go wrong

• Single-yellow-line and meter-bay errors in the Square Mile, where loading and short-stay rules change street by street.
• Bus-gate and restricted-access cameras around Bank and the Barbican, where the restricted hours and permitted vehicles are easy to mistake.
• 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.
• Permit, visitor and dispensation errors. A valid resident or business permit not displayed or not read, a visitor voucher mis-set, or a dispensation or suspension the officer did not have on record.
• 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.
• Suspended, relocated or wrongly marked bays where the suspension notice was not in place, was for different dates, or the bay markings were worn or ambiguous.

How to appeal a City of London 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 online through the City of London's online PCN service, quoting the PCN number and registration, before the 14 days run out. If City of London 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 London Tribunals within 28 days of a Notice of Rejection. It is free and independent, and can be dealt with online, by telephone or in person.
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 City of London's online PCN service. Always look at the evidence before deciding how to respond.