just had a meeting on Regent Street so parked in the really long bay on Portland Place. not in this area of town much so it didn’t even occur to me to think about whether i should pay to park, and i didnt notice anything when i parked (though guess it wasn’t on my mind). got back to find a little plastic envelope stuck on the seat from our friends at the council asking me for £80 (£40 if in within 14 days). it was only then that i noticed the sign at the far end of the bay…
i’m a ‘do the crime, do the time’ sort of bloke, and will admit when i am wrong and pay up, but i was just very unaware of the need to buy a ticket today (though i did know about the fee, i am not 100% clued up on the borders of the borough of Westminster…)
sure i’m not the first, nor the last, but am pretty bitter. has anyone had any success contesting a fine yet?
turned out to be an expenisve meeting, so i hope i win the project!
Sorry mate - that’s crappy. I occassionally have to park in the westminster council area and am sufficiently paranoid to check the westminster boundary map on their website to see if I will be in/outside the charge zone. Plus I leave a post it note on my pc screen the night before reminding me to log in and pay.
thanks chaps. i had a look at those links posted by Punk and have lodged an official online challenge against the fine. doubt i will get anywhere, but i think the more people that contest it the better. i also read some very amusing stories about how they have tried to attack Westminster about these fees and fines. we need to try and clog then up so much that it is not worth their time!
everyone be extra vigiliant when parking in central town, please dont get caught like i did just from total lack of awareness.
Write to your MP and ask for their help to get the law changed. It is absurd that Londoners have to guess which borough they are in all the time as the borders are not clearly marked, and then guess what the local motorcycle parking rules are as they are different in each borough are almost never posted clearly. Point out that this damages local business as people simply don;t stop in areas they do not know well unless they have deep pockets to pay fines.
i appealed online for the ticket i got, said i was unaware of the new charge due to lack of advertisment, was not fully aware of Westminsters borders etc. and what a disgrace i think the way the whole thing runs is. bit of a rant to be honest but i was quite angry about it.
got a letter on friday to say that they have cancelled the PCN due to understanding my lack of awareness. they did say that if there is a next time they shall not be so kind though…
it felt like them admitting the whole thing has been a bit of a farce.
And the message from this is, appeal every PCN. Just keep thinking up excuses.
BTW, Westminster M/C PCNs have gone from 300 per week to 1500 per week since the introduction of the charges. The first two weeks they hit over 2000 per week. That’s an awful lot of 40 quids.
I just got a ticket also over in paddington. I got of my bike and paid for my parking over the phone like a good boy and also cause there was a warden there when i arrived also. Paid on the phone and left the bike to have a coffee with my brother who was making a train swap in 30 minutes. Low and behold come back to the bike with a nice new ticket. I’ve just got home and called westminster to ask WTF??? i was told to send them a copy of the ticket along with the email that says i paid the ticket. Time of payment 11:21 time of ticket 11:34 what a waste of my time just because there data dosen’t get updated within 10 minutes. what a pathetic operation they’re running.
i think i say this when i was sighning up for it today. It’s actually a 10p charge to recieve a text to tell you the parking is paid and then another 10p to tell you when it’s about to expire. you can opt out of both if you wish as you get an email telling you the details anyway. still got a bloody ticket though and i was playing by there rules:angry:
60% of all Westminster tickets (M/C & Cars) are cancelled on appeal to the Traffic and Parking Adjudicators. Add that to the number cancelled by Westminster themelves. And you get a very high number of “failures of tickets”. I say always appeal appeal and appeal again. It costs Westminster money to defend a ticket, make them pay for their own greed and stupidity.
