Wholly Within a Marked Parking Place — 50cm Rule Does Not Apply

Section 85(2) expressly exempts a vehicle parked wholly within a designated parking place, or any other part of the road where parking is specifically authorised. Marked bays in the middle of the carriageway or on the offside are often more than 50cm from the kerb by design — that is exactly what the exemption covers. If your car was inside a marked bay or an authorised parking area, code 26 cannot apply.

Legal basis

Traffic Management Act 2004 s.85(2): no prohibition where 'the vehicle is parked wholly within a designated parking place or any other part of the carriageway where parking is specifically authorised' (designated parking place per the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984)

How to identify this in your case

Were you parked inside a marked parking bay — including centre-of-road or echelon bays — or in an area where signs authorise parking, even though your car was more than half a metre from the kerb? Photograph your vehicle inside the bay markings and the nearby signs showing parking is permitted there.

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 26. Section 85(2) of the Traffic Management Act 2004 provides that the double-parking prohibition does not apply where the vehicle is parked wholly within a designated parking place or another part of the carriageway where parking is specifically authorised. My vehicle was parked wholly within such a parking place, as shown in the enclosed photographs of the bay markings and signage. The exemption is therefore engaged and no contravention arose. I put the council to strict proof of any basis on which it contends the location was not a designated or authorised parking place. The penalty should be cancelled.

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Scan your PCN — our AI checks if this ground applies to your specific ticket, drafts a properly-cited appeal letter, and sends it for you where the council takes email — guiding you through their own online form where they use one, so you press submit. The win fee is only charged if you win.

Wholly Within a Marked Parking Place — 50cm Rule Does Not Apply

Legal basis

How to identify this in your case

Sample appeal wording

Beat It writes this argument automatically

Sources

Related appeal grounds

Next steps