Local appeals PCN after Ealing Council substitutes written reminders for emails
A parking judgement may mean that Ealing Council needs to change its annual parking permit renewal system which recently switched from letter 'reminders' to email.
This follows a judgement in the Parking Appeals Tribunal where a resident successfully appealed a PCN which was issued when his parking permit was seen to be out of date.
Ealing Council had recently switched to reminders by email instead of by letter as it started to issue digital permits, similar to the new way of renewing tax discs.
The claimant had been renewing parking permits annually for fifteen year without incident but had not received a reminder letter, due to the new system, and forgot to renew the permit. When he received the PCN he took several steps to renew the permit, but the local authority refused to cancel the charge and he appealed.
The adjudicator said he was satisfied that for fifteen years the resident had received a reminder letter but did not do so this year. He said the Enforcement Authority could have issued a warning first before issuing the PCN and he recommended that the local authority cancel the charge. This this has now been done.
Local councillor Gary Malcolm said this new method of using email excluded large sections of the community.
He said: “The judgement indicates that Ealing Council should not only offer parking renewal notices by email, as this excludes many sections of the community, who do not use IT. Refunding the ticket shows they now have to change their processes. Liberal Democrats are pressing for this change.”
Cllr Malcolm said his view was that in cases where people have a permit but the Council does not have an email address for them, a letter should be sent. This was particularly important for elderly or vulnerable residents.
A statement from Ealing Council said:"We have email addresses for close to 90% of permit holders who will automatically receive a reminder when their permit is due to expire. We are writing to those who haven’t given us their email to encourage them to register and suggest those who don’t already have one, sign up for an email account.
"Drivers who still do not have an email address are urged to either record the date in a calendar or ask a friend or relative if they can use their email address. Although it is the responsibility of drivers to remember to renew their parking permit on time, we do give people 7 days’ grace after their permit expires before we issue PCNs.
“In this particular case, although we weren’t obliged to, we cancelled the customer’s PCN as a gesture of good will.”
14th April 2016 (updated)