I have noted Tesco and Sainsbury’s HGVs parked illegally outside their stores in islington I asked one of your enforcement agents today why they dont ticket these trucks - his answer was its ‘unenforceable' Which leads me to believe you dont ticket these trucks yet you chose to ticket regular vehicles parked in the same location - please provide proof of any fines / pcn’s etc paid for by Tescos and Sainsbury’s for pcn’s issued in islington - please provide any information relating to any dispensation offered by yourselves to these private business’s (Tescos & Sainsbury’s) Do you issue fines to supermarkets for loading when parked illegally outside their stores YES / NO Do Tescos have dispensation from receiving PCN’s from TFL as perhaps suggested by TFL operative on your helpline today? YES / NO Please supply total fines / pcn’s / red route penalties etc etc issued to Tesco PLC. and J Sainsbury PLC. by TFL as far back as possible at least for 2019 & 2020 DATA PLEASE

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Our ref: FOI-2360-2021/GH

Thank you for your requests received by Transport for London (TfL) on 18 February 2021 asking for information about Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) issued to Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

Your requests have been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy. I can confirm that we do hold some of the information you require.

We do not record PCNs issued by boroughs, and therefore to provide you with the requested information for LB Islington we would have to firstly identify every Enforcement Zone in this area and then check the PCNs issued to provide you with information on those issued to either Tesco or Sainsbury’s. This would take an excessive amount of time and would therefore 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 requests 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. In this instance, we estimate that the time required to answer your request would exceed 18 hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations), exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’.

We can, however, confirm that there is absolutely no exemption for Tesco or Sainsbury’s vehicles but it might be that at some locations we can’t issue PCNs. If that is the case then we wouldn’t issue them to any other vehicles either.

If you are interested in PCNs issued at specific locations in Islington (a section of a road – or outside the store you refer to for example) we can look at PCNs at that location.

Alternatively we can search for all PCNs issued to Tesco or Sainsbury’s vehicles across London, however we would only be able to report on PCNs issued to any vehicle registered to these companies – we will not be able to limit this to HGVs.

Please let me know if you would like us to provide you with either of the options details above. 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.

If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Graham Hurt

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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