'I won a parking ticket legal battle with the council by using a measuring tape'

Walking back to your car to spot a little yellow sachet slapped on the windscreen is enough to ruin anyone's day.

Appealing usually proves fruitless and most people have chucked out any supporting evidence by the time they get a letter through the door.

But one driver took the plunge and managed to beat the parking bosses. Armed with a measuring tape, Chris Burton, from Bury, wasn't going to take his £60 fine lying down.

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The 42-year-old found that a "number" of the blue 'P' notices were 6cm short of their 20cm requirement across Greater Manchester. He went to investigate after being hit with the bill while dropping his dad at a hospital appointment.

A county court judgement ruled the order for Chris to pay his ticket should be "revoked" after he submitted pages of evidence - including the size of the signs. And he now thinks his work could help others question parking tickets.

Chris, a TV cameraman from Manchester, said: “I want to encourage others to go back to Bury council with old tickets to say they weren’t legal. UK law says signs have to be 20cm in size, but when I checked the signs that were there, they were only 14cm."

Chris was issued with a parking ticket on May 25, 2023, after dropping his dad off at hospital. He says there were no available parking spaces at the hospital, so found a space for his Volkswagen Sharan on a nearby road.

However, when he returned to the car, he discovered a penalty charge notice (PCN) on his windshield. He appealed the ticket online and says it was rejected within minutes, so he appealed again