Home / Advice / Scotland pavement, dropped-kerb or double-parking ticket — the officer had not begun to prepare a notice when you drove away (regulation 5(1)(b))

proceduralUK · ScotlandDifficulty: medium

Scotland pavement, dropped-kerb or double-parking ticket — the officer had not begun to prepare a notice when you drove away (regulation 5(1)(b))

Where a Scottish council serves an enforcement notice under regulation 5(1)(b), that is, on the basis that its officer had begun to prepare a penalty charge notice when the vehicle was driven away, it is a ground of challenge that the officer had not begun to prepare it. The regulations say that merely observing the vehicle does not count as beginning to prepare a notice. The letter asks the council for the officer's record.

Legal basis

Parking Prohibitions (Enforcement and Accounts) (Scotland) Regulations 2023 (S.S.I. 2023/373) regulation 5(1)(b): this regulation applies where "an authorised enforcement officer had begun to prepare a penalty charge notice to be given in accordance with regulation 4, but the relevant vehicle was driven away from the place where it was stationary before the officer had finished preparing the notice or had given it in accordance with regulation 4". Regulation 5(2): "For the purposes of paragraph 1(b), an authorised enforcement officer who observes conduct which appears to constitute a contravention is not because of that observation to be taken to have begun to prepare a penalty charge notice." Regulation 10(4)(i): the ground "that, in the case of an enforcement notice which is served under regulation 5(1)(b), an authorised enforcement officer had not begun to prepare a penalty charge notice when the relevant vehicle was driven away". Read at legislation.gov.uk (latest available text) on 2026-09-09.

How to identify this in your case

Use this only if the enforcement notice says, or the council says, that it was served under regulation 5(1)(b), that is, because the vehicle was driven away while the officer was preparing a penalty charge notice, and no officer had started preparing anything when you left. An officer who only watched the vehicle had not begun to prepare a notice. Say what you saw.

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.

I make representations under regulation 10(1) of the Parking Prohibitions (Enforcement and Accounts) (Scotland) Regulations 2023 on the ground in regulation 10(4)(i) that an authorised enforcement officer had not begun to prepare a penalty charge notice when the relevant vehicle was driven away. [FACTS: what you saw of any officer before you drove away.] Under regulation 5(2) an officer who observes conduct which appears to constitute a contravention is not because of that observation to be taken to have begun to prepare a penalty charge notice. The authority is asked to produce the officer's record showing when the preparation of a notice began and what had been prepared when the vehicle was driven away. If the authority holds no such evidence, I ask that the enforcement notice be cancelled under regulation 11(2).

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Sources

Parking Prohibitions (Enforcement and Accounts) (Scotland) Regulations 2023 (S.S.I. 2023/373), regulations 5(1)(b), 5(2) and 10(4)(i)