This is an HTML version of an attachment to the Freedom of Information request 'Background to S.I . 2007/3482'.

THE CIVIL ENFORCEMENT OF PARKING CONTRAVENTIONS 
(ENGLAND) REPRESENTATIONS AND APPEALS REGULATIONS 
2007 
 
Opening Speech 
 
1. 
I am pleased to be here today to ask the Committee to give 
its approval to the draft Civil Enforcement of Parking 
Contraventions (England) Representations and Appeals 
Regulations 2007.  These have been discussed in the other place 
already and were widely welcomed on all sides. These regulations 
are part of a package of regulations and guidance that will put into 
place new procedures for parking enforcement by local authorities 
in England.   They make no changes to the procedures used by 
the police and traffic wardens.  They cover England only and 
similar regulations for Wales will be coming before the House later 
this session. 
 
2. 
The regulations are made under Part 6 of the Traffic 
Management Act 2004 and form one component of the 
Government’s strategy to make better use of the existing road 
network by improving road safety, reducing congestion and 
minimising the impact of road traffic on the environment.  The TMA 
gives local authorities a specific duty to manage their networks, 
and fair and effective parking enforcement has a key role to play in 
this.   When a local authority takes this responsibility over from the 
police service, it frees up police time to concentrate on more 
serious matters.  It also means that parking restrictions are, often 
for the first time, enforced throughout the area and at all 

appropriate times.  While this does not always please motorists it 
is essential to facilitate safe and smooth use of the highway.  
There are over 28 million vehicles on the roads in England, and 
each of them spends an average of 23 out of 24 hours parked.  
Managing that demand is what we ask local authorities to do.  
These regulations will help them do this in a fair, transparent and 
effective manner with the overarching objective of keeping traffic 
moving safely.   
 
3. 
The present legislation on traffic enforcement by local 
authorities is complex and untidy. The Road Traffic Act 1991 deals 
expressly only with contraventions in parking places in London.  
This Act has been applied, with adaptations, to other types of 
parking contravention in individual London boroughs and in a 
series of Orders to all contraventions in individually designated 
areas outside London.  When the Regulations now before the 
Committee and the other necessary statutory instruments have 
been brought into force, no adaptations will be necessary and 
there will be a single code for England applying to all civil 
enforcement areas, with only minimal differences between London 
and elsewhere.  Wales will have its own parallel sets of 
instruments.   
 
4. 
There are six sets of regulations, only one of which (the 
Representations and Appeal Regulations) are for affirmative 
resolution by Parliament. These affirmative regulations before the 
committee today set out the procedures for disputing a Penalty 
Charge Notice, a vehicle immobilisation or a vehicle removal.  
Some drivers believe that a Penalty Charge Notice, the clamping 

of a vehicle or the removal of a vehicle is never merited.  But it 
may genuinely be the case that the charge was served or the 
vehicle restrained or removed in error.  This may be because the 
driver was delivering or collecting goods he had loaded or 
unloaded from the vehicle and had left the vehicle to do this.  Or a 
valid permit, ticket, voucher or badge may have been displayed on 
the vehicle at the time.  Or the owner who received the payment 
reminder was not the owner at the time of the contravention.   A 
Penalty Charge Notice - or “parking ticket” - is not a serious matter 
and does not involve endorsements on the driving license.  But it 
does have a financial impact that a fair society should only levy 
when merited.  And clamping or removal can be a considerable 
inconvenience, even when merited.  The measures put in place to 
challenge Penalty Charges Notices, vehicle immobilisation and 
vehicle removal are an important part of delivering a just 
enforcement system.   
 
5. 
The procedures for representations and appeals set out in 
these regulations largely replicate those in the Road Traffic Act 
1991.  That Act replaced a costly and time-consuming procedure 
in the Magistrate’s Court with a simple and streamlined 
independent adjudicator who dealt only with parking matters.   
That original system has been changed to some extent by adding 
bus lane, certain moving traffic and congestion charging 
contraventions to the responsibilities of some of the adjudicators.  
But we need to ensure that the procedures remain simple and 
easily accessible to the public, avoiding the fear that they will need 
costly legal or other representation to make their case properly.   
 

6. 
We believe that the draft regulations before the committee 
deliver the continuation of simple and straightforward procedures 
for representations to the issuing authority and appeals to the 
adjudicator that are easily accessible to the public.    They were 
prepared with the help of a working group comprising 
representatives from local authorities, the British Parking 
Association, the police, motoring groups and the parking 
adjudicators.  They have been subject to extensive consultation, 
but few comments were received on the representations and 
appeal provisions and the changes that have been made since 
consultation largely result from reconsideration by Government.    
 
7. 
We have also had the benefit of expert and robust advice on 
our proposals from the entirely independent adjudicators. This 
reflects their experience of dealing with many thousands of 
individual cases and we are grateful to them for this advice.  
 
8. 
I would like to draw the committees attention to the areas 
where the draft regulations improve on the current procedures.  
 
9. 
The Penalty Charge Notice itself will, as recommended by 
the Transport Committee, state on it the procedures for 
representations and appeals.  The Committee was of the view that 
there is widespread ignorance of the challenge procedures and 
that putting them on the Penalty Charge Notice would help to 
resolve this.   
 
10. 
The circumstances in which a representation and an appeal 
can be made have been widened to specifically include instances 

where the enforcement authority has not followed the correct 
procedures.  This ground would cover such things as an authority’s 
failure to observe the correct time limits or to include the right 
information in notices or a case where a local authority had served 
a penalty charge notice by post when it was not authorised to do 
so. 
 
11. 
Finally the Adjudicator will have the power to return to the 
local authority for reconsideration a case where a contravention 
has taken place but in mitigating circumstances.  This could cover 
cases where a driver had to pull over because someone in the car 
suddenly felt ill, or the cheque for a resident’s parking permit had 
been banked by the local authority but the permit had been lost in 
the post.  Local authorities have long had the power to cancel a 
Penalty Charge Notice in such circumstances but a couple of them 
have shown some reluctance to use this power.  The adjudicators 
will now be able to ask them to consider the case again.  I would 
like to clarify a point raised in the other place which was whether a 
local authority was bound to reconsider a case referred back to 
them by the adjudicator. I can assure the committee that the LA 
must reconsider the case put to them by the adjudicator. If the 
authority does not make a decision within 35 days, it is deemed to 
have accepted the adjudicator’s recommendation and must cancel 
the Notice to Owner.   
 
12. These 
regulations 
will 
be widely welcomed by local 
authorities and the public and I hope they will also be welcome by 
all members.  It has taken a lot of hard work to balance the needs 
of local authorities for a strong and effective enforcement regime 

and the needs of motorists for one that is flexible and fair.  They 
are based on the successful regime put in place by the Road 
Traffic Act 1991 but make a few key changes to help deliver a 
fairer and more transparent system of effective parking 
enforcement by local authorities.  I commend the regulations to the 
Committee. 
 

Winding up speech 
 
1.  Complement Committee on interesting and informative debate. 
 
2.  Respond to particular points made.  
 
 
3.  There have been changes to the regulations and the 
Government’s guidance in the light of responses to last year’s 
consultation and advice from the working group of local authorities 
and their representative bodies, the Chief Parking Adjudicators, 
the police, and motoring organisations.   The majority of these 
changes do not affect the regulations before the committee today 
for consideration.  The only change of significance to them is the 
addition of the need for a local authority to set out on the Penalty 
Charge Notice the right to make representations to the issuing 
authority and, if that is rejected, to make an appeal to an 
adjudicator.   This change was made in response to 
representations made to Ministers in Parliament rather than replies 
to the consultation.   
 
4.  Government decided to move into this set of regulations various 
other matters about notifying the recipient of the right to make 
representations and appeals that at an earlier stage were included 
in the draft General Regulations.   The reason for this change is 
that, on closer examination, it appeared to Government that these 
matters fell to be covered in the affirmative regulations to be made 
under Section 80 of the Act.  As a consequence, the full list of 
matters to be included in Penalty Charge Notices and Notices to 

Owner has had to be divided between the two sets of Regulations 
but they are drawn together in the Department’s guidance to local 
authorities   
 
5.  The regulations setting out the procedures for representations and 
appeals in respect of removed vehicles are made under powers 
conferred to the Lord Chancellor by section 101 B of the Road 
Traffic Regulations Act 1984.  At an earlier stage these provisions 
were included in the General Regulations but the Lord Chancellor 
(Modification of Functions) Order 2007 (S.I. 2007/1756) means 
that they are subject to affirmative resolution in the same way as 
the provisions with respect to representations and appeals against 
Penalty Charge Notices and vehicle immobilisations.   
 
6.  There have also been small changes to the wording of some of the 
regulations to make their intention more explicit. 
 
7.  These regulations provide a fair, open and effective framework for 
parking enforcement by local authorities.  I commend them to the 
Committee.