A COUPLE are to take their long-running fight to overturn a Glasgow bus gate fine back to the appeals service - six months after being told they were out of time.
Geoffrey and Dawn Bonelle appeared at Glasgow Sheriff Court today [fri] in a bid to prove that bus gate signage at Nelson Mandela Place is illegal.
They argue that the CCTV cameras being used to capture drivers do not comply with data protection law and that the positioning of the bus gate warning notices means they are often hidden behind traffic lights or buses, making it impossible for drivers to realise they are entering a restricted area until it is too late.
The couple, from Livingston, were issued with a £30 fixed penalty notice by Glasgow City Council after Mr Bonelle visited the city in October 2014 and mistakenly drove through the Nelson Mandela bus gate.
An appeal was rejected by the council, but the Bonelles insist that - despite repeated requests - they did not receive an application form to take their appeal to the Scottish Parking Appeal Service (SPAS) in Edinburgh until November 2015, by which point Mrs Bonelles said she was informed by email that they were "out of time" to pursue it.
With the original fine ballooning to £274 by December 2015, the couple were forced to pay to avoid having their car seized by debt collectors - but lodged a claim with the small claims court to recoup it on grounds of the signage being illegal.
However, during a hearing at Glasgow Sheriff Court yesterday, the council argued that the case was not valid because they had failed to follow the correct appeals process through SPAS.
The Sheriff said this would be a "knockout blow" to their case if they continued, but said that the delay in receiving correct documentation could count as grounds to bring a belated appeal - something which SPAS allows "provided there are good reasons".
He said: "A good reason might be that there was a year-long delay in getting the form."
The Bonelles said they would now write to SPAS to seek permission for a special hearing.
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