My crime was to pull over in west London so that my wife could get out of the car and purchase a bouquet. Within minutes, a parking attendant had slapped a ticket on the windscreen.

So far, so normal - at least for any of Britain’s cities. Except for one thing. I was in a loading bay, I’d been sitting in the vehicle for the duration and, by my reckoning, I was loading, even though it was only a bunch of flowers. I was also attending to my baby son, who started to cry as soon as my wife left the car. I even spoke to a nearby traffic warden to check all was okay.

Only when a second traffic warden appeared on the scene did the rules apparently change - and I suddenly received a ticket. Normally, it’s not worth the candle to challenge a £50 fine. You can waste dozens of man hours and get nowhere. But I felt I’d been harshly treated. Then I began to look into the whole murky world of loading bays - similar to parking bays but designated for loading only - and discovered that they are one of the fastest-growing sources of fines for councils across the country. With CCTV cameras monitoring them, penalties can even be issued remotely.

I discovered, for example, that Transport for London’s revenue from loading-bay offences had almost doubled from £3.9m in 2006-7 to £6.7m in 2007-8 - an average of 284 motorists caught out every day.

Until recently loading bays were a backwater for fines, compared with the revenue from other parking offences and speeding. Now they are seemingly a lucrative business. Scores of parking spaces have been converted into them. A typical London loading-bay camera collects £25,000 a year.

The Department for Transport’s guidance states that you have up to five minutes to start loading or unloading before you are liable for a fine. A warden must monitor you for that length of time before reaching for the ticket book, so that you at least have the opportunity to check the rules.

The new cameras remove any degree of leniency and, some would say, fair play. They constantly monitor the loading bay and record any five-minute period when no loading activity takes place, in which case the driver is liable for a parking penalty that can hit £120 if not paid within two weeks. Although councils are technically forbidden to raise revenue from parking offences, the suspicion is that many still do. Last week, Islington council, in north London, announced that it had a £1m hole in its finances because cautious drivers were getting fewer tickets.

If you want to challenge a civil parking fine - as opposed to one issued by the police - the first step is to contact the local authority that issued it. If you have no joy, the next step is to lodge an appeal (see below).

“Loading-bay infringements are now so common that many companies budget millions of pounds per year to cover the fines,” says Paul Watters of the AA. “Few people can be bothered arguing the toss with councils because of the bureaucracy involved; most drivers simply pay up.”

I decided to challenge the London borough of Ealing over my ticket, on the basis that I was loading (I’ve since been told that “loading” applies only to items that you need a vehicle to transport, but I’ve yet to find where that is written down) and that the first warden I spoke to had been happy for me to stay. After almost a year of letters and appeals, I’ve been called to present my case to an independent adjudicator.

The case has cost me days spent on paperwork and phone calls, not to mention the £150 penalty if I lose. On my side I have a dream team of legal eagles. Barrie Segal, who fronts the website AppealNow.com and is dedicated to fighting “this process of attrition on honest people that is designed to catch you out rather than reflect the realities of life”, has helped me to prepare my case.

Nick Freeman, the motoring lawyer known as Mr Loophole because of his success in defending celebrity clients such as David Beckham, will present my argument to the adjudicator. He took the case for no fee. Both say that, transparently, the ticket was unfairly administered, and though the fine is, in the grand scheme of things, an insignificant amount, it represents the kind of injustice that motorists endure every day.

The hearing is on Friday. By this time next week I’ll know the outcome.

How to appeal against a ticket

If you believe you have been incorrectly issued with a parking ticket, you can appeal against it. Find out the grounds on which you can appeal from your local council or an independent adjudicator (www.parkingandtrafficappeals.gov.uk for London; www. trafficpenaltytribunal.gov.uk for the rest of England and Wales). Bear in mind that adjudicators have no discretion to overrule a ticket on any other grounds.

The first step is to write to the local authority that issued the ticket, explaining why you disagree with it. The address for this will be printed on your ticket.

Include any evidence, such as a pay-and-display ticket or a timed receipt showing you were collecting items from a shop. If relevant, include in your evidence photographs of the street showing the visibility of signs and lines in relation to your vehicle.

As long as you write within 14 days, you will still be offered the early-payment discount if the council rejects your representation.

If your initial representation is rejected, you will be sent a Notice to Owner ordering you to pay. This will give details of how to appeal officially to the council. You have 28 days to pay or appeal.

If the council rejects your appeal, it will send you a form that you can use to appeal to the independent adjudicators mentioned earlier. You have 28 days to make this final appeal.

The adjudicator will write back with the date of your hearing or when your postal appeal is likely to be considered. The council should send you its evidence against you before your hearing. The hearing is informal, conducted over a desk in a normal office, or your appeal can be heard over the phone by the Traffic Penalty Tribunal outside London.

The adjudicator will explain his or her decision at the hearing or by post, usually within 21 days. The decision is binding.

For further advice, visit www.parkingappeals.co.uk and www.appealnow.com.

The verdict - I won my case

Last Friday I presented my case to the independent parking adjudicator (Baying for Blood, October 12) alongside Nick Freeman and Barrie Segal, who had agreed to help represent me. We outlined our arguments and the adjudicator dismissed the penalty charge on the grounds that once a uniformed parking attendant had given permission for me to stay, the other was unable to issue a ticket. As he put it, “what the attendant says is what the council says”. The adjudicator also indicated that he was minded to award costs (at a nominal sum) which would indicate that Ealing council’s behaviour had been “frivolous, vexatious or wholly unreasonable”. This aspect remains an ongoing process.
Alex Pell