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proceduralUK · England & WalesDifficulty: moderate

No End-of-Bay Line — Vehicle Was Within the Bay as Actually Marked

Where several bays run together, the law only recognises the bay as the markings actually laid on the road. If there is no transverse line marking the end of the bay, or no dividing lines between spaces, a long marked area is in law one continuous bay — and a vehicle anywhere inside its outline is parked within the markings. The council cannot invent bay boundaries that are not painted on the road.

Legal basis

TSRGD 2016 (SI 2016/362) Schedule 7 Part 4 items 6 and 8 (parking bays exist as the marking laid, diagrams 1028.4 and 1028.6); R (Herron) v Parking Adjudicator [2011] EWCA Civ 905 (motorist must be adequately informed of the restriction by what is on the ground)

How to identify this in your case

Were you ticketed for straddling two spaces or overhanging the 'end' of a bay where no painted line actually separates the spaces or closes the end of the bay? Photograph the full run of markings, showing where lines genuinely start, stop, and whether any dividing or end lines exist where the council claims you crossed one.

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.

I am appealing this penalty charge issued under contravention code 24. The contravention alleges that I was not parked correctly within the markings of the bay, but at this location there is no marked line at the point where the council alleges the bay ends: the markings on the ground form one continuous bay area and my vehicle was wholly within it. A bay exists in law only as it is actually marked under Schedule 7, Part 4 of the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016, and per R (Herron) v Parking Adjudicator [2011] EWCA Civ 905 the question is whether the motorist is adequately informed by what is on the ground. I put the council to strict proof, by photographs of the markings, that a marked boundary existed at the point my vehicle is said to have crossed. If no such line was laid, no contravention occurred and the penalty should be cancelled.

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No End-of-Bay Line — Vehicle Was Within the Bay as Actually Marked

Legal basis

How to identify this in your case

Sample appeal wording

Beat It writes this argument automatically

Sources

Related appeal grounds

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