LEZ penalty issued during your residents' grace period

Each Scottish Low Emission Zone (LEZ) gives local residents extra time before enforcement applies to them — this is called a residents' grace period. If your vehicle was detected inside an LEZ before your grace period had expired, no offence took place and any penalty is invalid. The grace periods are: Glasgow — resident grace until 1 June 2024; Edinburgh — until 1 June 2026; Dundee — until 30 May 2026; Aberdeen — until 1 June 2026. This only applies if your vehicle's registered address (on your V5C logbook) was inside the residential grace area on the date you were detected.

Legal basis

Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 s.15, s.16; SSI 2021/177 reg 8(4)(a); council LEZ Scheme Orders under s.9

How to identify this in your case

V5C registered keeper address on detection date is inside the published residential grace area; detection date is before resident grace expiry.

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.

Dear [COUNCIL] LEZ Team, Re: PCN [PCN_NUMBER] Representation under reg 8(1); ground reg 8(4)(a). Under s.15(1) of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, s.6(1) is not contravened where a vehicle is driven within an LEZ before the expiry of the applicable grace period. On [DETECTION_DATE]: 1. My V5C registered keeper address was [ADDRESS], within the residential grace area for the [GLASGOW/EDINBURGH/ABERDEEN/DUNDEE] LEZ as published in the LEZ Scheme Order made under s.9. 2. The applicable resident grace period expired on [GRACE_EXPIRY_DATE], after the detection date. 3. No contravention of s.6(1) occurred. Evidence: V5C; council's published LEZ residential map / grace schedule. Please cancel the PCN under reg 9(2). Yours faithfully, [NAME]

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LEZ penalty issued during your residents' grace period

Legal basis

How to identify this in your case

Sample appeal wording

Beat It writes this argument automatically

Sources

Related appeal grounds

Next steps