Pay and Display Bay Signs Missing, Defective or Contradictory
A pay and display bay must be signed so a driver can tell what to pay, when charges apply, and where to pay — including directing you to the right machine or phone payment for that bay. If the signs at your bay were missing, unreadable, showed conflicting hours or tariffs, or steered you to a machine or location code for a different scheme, you were not given adequate information and the charge should not stand.
Legal basis
Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 (SI 2016/362), Sch 4 (parking control signs, 'Pay at machine' and phone payment legends); Traffic Signs Manual Ch 3 (2019) paras 13.12.1-13.12.4; Local Authorities' Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996 (SI 1996/2489) reg 18; Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 ss 45-46; Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Representations and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/576) reg 5(4)(a), (f)
How to identify this in your case
Photograph every sign serving the bay you used: the bay plate, the machine, and any pay-by-phone location code. Check for problems such as no sign at all for your stretch of bays, hours or tariffs that differ between the sign and the machine, no indication of which machine or location code serves your bay, or two schemes side by side with nothing separating them. The Traffic Signs Manual requires signing so that 'drivers are not misled into purchasing a ticket and parking in the wrong bay'.
Sample appeal wording
formal
Replace [PARKING DATE], [NtK DATE] etc. with your own dates before sending.
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Related appeal grounds
- Aberdeen Clean Air Zone ticket issued too early
- Appealing a Scottish tribunal's legal error to a higher tribunal
- Attorney acting for keeper under Scottish power of attorney
- Bailiff acted without proper advance warning notice
- Bath CAZ — Sunset Period for Pre-Registered Commercial Vehicles
- Bay Obstructed or Too Small — Could Not Park Within the Bay Markings