Council took more than 56 days to reply to your challenge

Once the council serves the notice you can challenge it — that is a Notice to Owner in an ordinary parking case, or the penalty charge notice itself where the ticket came to you by post from a camera. Your written challenge is called formal representations. From the day it receives them the council has 56 days to consider them and serve you a decision notice. If it misses that deadline the law does not merely criticise it: it is deemed to have accepted your representations, and it must cancel the notice, refund anything you have paid, and write to tell you it has done so because it failed to serve a decision notice in time. Two things to know. The council may disregard representations that REACH it more than 28 days after the notice was served, so allow for the post — a challenge put in the postbox on day 28 can arrive too late to count. And cancellation does not prevent the council serving a fresh notice on someone else — for example the driver or a hire company — so it ends your liability, not necessarily the matter.

Legal basis

The Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Representations and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/576), regulation 6. Regulation 6(3) requires the authority, where representations were made in accordance with regulation 5(2) and not disregarded, to comply with regulation 6(4) "within the period of 56 days beginning with the date on which it receives the representations". Regulation 6(4) requires it to consider the representations and any supporting evidence and to serve a decision notice stating whether it accepts them. Regulation 6(7): "If the enforcement authority fails to comply with the requirements specified in paragraph (4) within the 56-day period— (a) it is deemed for the purposes of these Regulations to have accepted the representations made by the recipient, and (b) it must— (i) cancel the relevant enforcement notice, (ii) refund any sum paid in relation to it, and (iii) serve a notice on the recipient informing the recipient that the enforcement notice has been cancelled because the enforcement authority failed to serve a decision notice in accordance with paragraph (4)(b)." Regulation 6(2) permits the authority to disregard representations received more than 28 days after the enforcement notice was served. Regulation 6(8) provides that cancellation does not prevent the authority serving a new enforcement notice on another person. Enabling Act: Traffic Management Act 2004, Part 6. The escalation route in the sample wording is regulation 22 and regulation 23 of SI 2022/71: where the authority registers the charge and the county court makes an order under regulation 22, regulation 23(2)(b) permits a witness statement stating 'that P made representations to the enforcement authority under regulation 5 of the 2022 Appeals Regulations but a notice of rejection was not received from that authority in accordance with regulation 6 of those Regulations', served within 21 days of notice of the order under regulation 23(1)(c)(i), or such longer period as a district judge allows under regulation 23(4).

How to identify this in your case

Check when you sent your formal representations — against a Notice to Owner, or against the penalty charge notice itself if the ticket came by post from a camera — and confirm the date the council received them. Count 56 days from that date, counting the day it arrived as day one — so the last day is 55 days after it arrived, not 56. If nothing has come back by the end of day 56 — no cancellation, and no decision turning your challenge down — that is your signal to act. What the law requires is that the council SERVED a decision notice inside those 56 days, and where it posts one, service counts from when the letter would arrive in the ordinary course of post rather than from the moment it was posted. That assumption can be displaced by proof of what actually happened, which cuts both ways for you: a decision notice posted too late to arrive by day 56 is out of time, and if one reaches you after day 56 that late arrival is itself evidence — keep the envelope, and do not assume the date printed inside settles it. If nothing ever came, say so, and ask the council to show how and when it served the notice, including the address it used and its proof of posting. Where it did not serve one in time, the council is treated as having accepted your representations, and must cancel the notice, refund anything you have paid, and write to tell you it has done so.

Sample appeal wording

Before you send this

Deadline. A late submission can be turned down without your argument being read. Check your notice for the deadline and how it is counted.
Paying may end it. Paying can count as accepting the notice and can close a challenge already under way. Part-paying or acknowledging an old debt can also revive a time limit that had expired.
The amount can change. Check what happens to the sum if you challenge — it may be held, re-offered lower, or keep rising, and fees or enforcement can continue meanwhile.
Use the official route. Use the method, recipient and form your notice specifies, with any reference, evidence and signature it asks for. Sent elsewhere, it may not count.
Only say what is true. Do not copy any statement of fact unless it is true for you, and check the legal point still applies. Delete what does not fit. It may be treated as your statement.
Careful what you volunteer. Avoid unnecessary admissions — naming the driver or accepting responsibility can remove arguments. But answer anything you are legally required to answer, and do include the evidence your ground needs.
Keep the record. Keep what you sent, the attachments, any receipt, and the reply. Note the next deadline.

Sample wording to adapt and send yourself — it may not fit your notice or the stage you are at. Replace the bracketed prompts with your own details; leave any case citation as it is.

The authority received my formal representations against the enforcement notice in this case on [DATE THE COUNCIL RECEIVED THEM]. Under regulation 6(3) and (4) of the Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Representations and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/576), the authority must consider those representations and serve a decision notice within 56 days beginning with the date it received them. That period expired on [LAST DAY OF THE 56-DAY PERIOD], and by the end of it no decision notice had reached me. If the authority maintains that it served one within the 56 days, please provide the date of posting, the address used and its proof of posting, so that the date of service can be established; service by post is deemed to take effect when the letter would be delivered in the ordinary course of post, and that presumption is displaced by proof of what actually happened. In the absence of service within the 56-day period, regulation 6(7) applies: the representations are deemed accepted, and the authority must cancel the relevant enforcement notice, refund any sum paid in relation to it, and serve notice confirming the cancellation. If a decision notice was in fact delivered after the end of that period, it was served out of time and regulation 6(7) applies in the same way. If the authority nonetheless registers the charge and the county court makes an order against me under regulation 22 of SI 2022/71, regulation 23(2)(b) allows me to serve a witness statement on that court, within 21 days of being notified of the order, on the ground that representations were made under regulation 5 but no notice of rejection was received in accordance with regulation 6.

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Sources

The Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Representations and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/576), regulation 6 — the 56-day period and deemed acceptance:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2022/576/regulation/6
Traffic Management Act 2004, Part 6 — the enabling Act:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/18/contents
Interpretation Act 1978, section 7 — when service by post takes effect, and that the presumption is rebuttable:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1978/30/section/7