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Wales — council took more than 56 days to answer your formal representations

If you made formal representations to a Welsh council after receiving a Notice to Owner, the council has 56 days to send you its decision. If it misses that deadline, the law treats your representations as ACCEPTED — the council must cancel the Notice to Owner, refund anything you have paid towards it, and write to tell you it has done so because it missed the deadline. This is the Welsh equivalent of the English 56-day rule and rests on the Welsh 2013 regulations, not the English 2022 ones.

Legal basis

Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Representations and Appeals) (Wales) Regulations 2013 (WSI 2013/359), regulation 5(2)(b) (56-day duty to serve a decision), 5(5) (deemed acceptance on failure) and 5(6) (cancel, refund and serve a notice saying so). Regulation 5(4) preserves the authority's ability to serve a fresh notice to owner on another person, so the remedy is cancellation of the NOTICE TO OWNER. Regulation 5(1) allows the authority to disregard representations served more than 28 days after the notice to owner.

How to identify this in your case

Check the date you sent your formal representations to the council in reply to a Notice to Owner, and the date the council received them. Count 56 days from that date. If no written decision — either cancelling the ticket or rejecting your challenge — has reached you by the end of day 56, the council has missed the deadline and the Notice to Owner must be cancelled. This applies to Welsh councils only.

Sample appeal wording

I made formal representations to the authority in response to the Notice to Owner served on me in respect of PCN [NUMBER]. My representations were served on the authority on [DATE]. Under regulation 5(2)(b) of the Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Representations and Appeals) (Wales) Regulations 2013 (WSI 2013/359), the authority was under a duty to serve notice of its decision within the period of 56 days beginning with that date. As at [DATE], 56 days have elapsed and no notice of decision has been served on me. By regulation 5(5) the authority is therefore deemed to have accepted the grounds relied upon in my representations. By regulation 5(6) the authority must now cancel the Notice to Owner, refund any sum paid in relation to it, and serve a notice on me informing me that the Notice to Owner has been cancelled because the authority failed to serve notice of its decision in accordance with regulation 5(2)(b). I ask the authority to do so and to confirm in writing.

Replace [PARKING DATE], [NtK DATE] etc. with your own dates before sending.

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Sources

Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Representations and Appeals) (Wales) Regulations 2013 (WSI 2013/359) reg.5(2)(b), 5(5) and 5(6)
WSI 2013/359 reg.1(2) — these Regulations apply in relation to Wales