The good folks at the hyper efficent Ealing Council (pun) have frozen all parking disputes pending a review by the High Court.

If the review is anything like the reviews done on Barnett and Lambeth Councils, the outcome could take quite a while and eventually invalidate Ealing’s ability to charge the exorbitant rates they do on parking charges.

Thank you for your email dated 1 November 2006.

There has recently been a High Court ruling in relation to another
local Authority’s penalty charge notices (PCNs). In light of this
Court decision, Ealing Council has placed all of its open PCNs on hold
pending the review of the full judicial transcript. Once legal advice
has been obtained on the impact of this ruling on PCNs issued by this
Council, a decision will be made and this will be made public.

Yours sincerely

Joanna Lynch
Parking Representations Officer

As a side note, I LOVE the fact that my dispute was registered over 6 weeks ago, and they’ve only now gotten ’round to telling me it may take months to get my money back. Ealing, is the more odius of Council’s when it comes to Parking fines and restrictions.