I want to know how many drivers during 2020 have been issued with a penalty charge and have appealed against their penalty charge on the grounds that the only reason for entering the congestion zone was the 2020 closure of Vauxhall Bridge (and that they were unaware that they had incurred a congestion charge). I also wish to know how many appeals have been upheld by TFL.

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TfL Ref: FOI-1490-2021

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 17 November 2020.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. You asked:

I want to know how many drivers during 2020 have been issued with a penalty charge and have appealed against their penalty charge on the grounds that the only reason for entering the congestion zone was the 2020 closure of Vauxhall Bridge (and that they were unaware that they had incurred a congestion charge). I also wish to know how many appeals have been upheld by TFL.

There are six statutory grounds on which a representation can be accepted against Congestion Charging penalty charge notices (PCNs), but in addition we do also consider mitigating circumstances and exercise discretion outside of these grounds, where it is appropriate to do so. For example, if it is clear that a PCN has been issued as a result of a genuine customer error then we apply discretion. However, we do not report on this.

Therefore, to provide the information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. Under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with a request if we estimate that the cost of determining whether we hold the information, locating and retrieving it and extracting it from other information would exceed the appropriate limit. This is calculated at £25 per hour for every hour spent on the activities described.

We have estimated that it would considerably exceed the cost limit to provide a response to your current request. In order to locate and retrieve representations that were made on the grounds that you have listed above and ascertain if they were upheld, we would need to manually review each individual representation we received since the bridge closure, and extract and collate those that met the requirements of your request, as we do not report on this.

We have received thousands of representations this year. The process of manually reviewing each one would take considerably more than 18 hours and exceed the cost limit outlined above.

To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. For example you may consider limiting your request to a much shorter period of time. Please note that we will not be taking further action until we receive your revised request.

If you are considering submitting a further FOI request please think carefully about whether the request is essential at this current time, as answering FOI requests will require the use of limited resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. Where requests are made, please note that our response time may be impacted by the current situation.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Eva Hextall

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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