Traffic Management Act 2004

As of 31st March 2008, the law under which parking is enforced within the City, changes. The new law, the Traffic Management Act 2004, will harmonise parking enforcement across the country and ensure that the system is fair to the motorist.

• The main elements of the changes are

  • Parking Attendants will be called Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs).
  • The introduction of parking penalties based on differential charging whereby the penalty charge is appropriate to the seriousness of the contravention.
  • The power to serve a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) by post if the CEO has started to issue the PCN but the driver either drives away before it can be served or is prevented from serving it due to aggressive or threatening behaviour.
  • The power to issue a PCN for parking within a restricted crossing.
  • The power to enforce double parking and parking across dropped footways subject to signing.
  • The Parking Adjudicator will have the power to decide cases where procedural irregularity has taken place and to refer appeals back to the local authority via the Chief Executive's office if he or she considers that suitable discretion with regard to mitigating circumstances was not exercised when considering an appeal.
  • An obligation to the Council to publish its policies on enforcement and cancellation of PCNs.
  • A statutory timeframe for responding to representations.

• Differential Penalties

  The Traffic Management Act 2004 requires authorities to introduce differential charging whereby the penalty charge relates to the seriousness of the contravention e.g. parking on double yellow lines or in a disabled bay without displaying a valid blue badge (a higher contravention) is considered more serious than for example not clearly displaying a valid pay and display ticket (a lower contravention).

  With this in mind, Gloucester City Council has set the following penalty charges:

  Higher Contravention	£70	(£35 if paid at the discount rate)
  Lower Contravention	£50	(£25 if paid at the discount rate)

  For more information on differential charges and the Council's Discretionary Parking Policy, please click here.

  For a copy of the Gloucestershire Annual Parking Report, Please Click Here 

  To view the new legislation in full, please click here.

   The council is a member of the Parking and Traffic Regulations Outside London (PATROL) Adjudication Joint Committee and the Bus Lane Adjudication Service Joint Committee.  The Joint Committees publish Annual Statements of Account which are subject to External Audit and the arrangements for 2011/12 can be found at:

  Click here for the annual statement of accounts

  Click here for bus lane annual statement of accounts

• Last Modified: Monday 22 October 2012

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