Two tickets arrive in the same week. Both are yellow-and-black, both say "charge notice", both quote a sum that roughly doubles if you ignore it. One is a statutory penalty issued by a council under the Traffic Management Act 2004. The other is an invoice from a private company that believes you broke the terms of a contract you entered by parking on its land.
Everything about your response, the deadlines, the appeal route, the consequences of ignoring it, depends on knowing which one you are holding. For drivers doing 120 stops a day across mixed streets, retail parks and residential estates, this is not an occasional question.
This guide covers England; enforcement differs in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is general information drawn from operational experience, not legal advice.
The five-second test
Look at the top of the notice. A council ticket says Penalty Charge Notice and names a local authority (or Transport for London). A private ticket usually says Parking Charge Notice, a deliberate echo, and names a company: Euro Car Parks, ParkingEye, APCOA and dozens of others.
The giveaway is the word penalty. Only bodies with statutory enforcement powers can issue one. A private operator cannot fine you; it can only claim that you owe a contractual charge.
The council PCN
A council PCN is issued under civil enforcement powers, either fixed to the windscreen (or handed to the driver) by a civil enforcement officer, or posted to the registered keeper after being captured by camera.
The mechanics are set by statute, not by the council's preference. Payment within 14 days brings a 50 per cent discount (21 days where the PCN arrived by post after camera enforcement). If nothing happens, a Notice to Owner follows, opening a 28-day window to pay or make formal representations. Rejected representations carry a right of appeal to an independent adjudicator: London Tribunals inside London, the Traffic Penalty Tribunal elsewhere in England and in Wales. The adjudicator's decision is genuinely independent and thousands of PCNs are cancelled this way every year.
Ignoring a council PCN is expensive by design. A charge certificate adds 50 per cent, the debt registers with the Traffic Enforcement Centre at Northampton County Court, and enforcement agents can follow. Liability sits with the vehicle's owner, presumed to be the registered keeper, which matters enormously for rented and company vans (we cover that in a separate guide).
The private parking charge
A private charge is a claim for breach of contract: the signs at the entrance set the terms, and by parking you are treated as having accepted them. The operator obtains the keeper's details from the DVLA (only members of an accredited trade association can) and writes to the keeper.
Since October 2024 the two trade associations, the British Parking Association and the International Parking Community, have operated a joint single Code of Practice for their members. Under it the charge is capped at £100, with a 40 per cent discount for payment within 14 days. A government-backed statutory code under the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 has been consulted on but, at the time of writing, is not yet in force; the industry code is the operative standard.
Appeals go first to the operator, then to the independent service for its trade association: POPLA for BPA members, the IAS for IPC members. An unpaid private charge is not registered like a penalty; the operator's remedy is a county court claim, which it may or may not pursue. Many do, so "ignore it, it's not real" is outdated and risky advice, but the pressure of an escalating statutory debt is absent.
Why delivery work complicates both
Delivery drivers collect both kinds in ways ordinary motorists rarely do. Council PCNs come from yellow lines, bus lanes, red routes and pedestrian zones on the round itself; loading and unloading is often a defence, and often wrongly penalised (see our guide to evidence that wins loading appeals). Private charges come from retail parks, customer car parks and residential estates where a three-minute delivery reads, to an ANPR camera, exactly like unauthorised parking.
The observation windows, grace periods and exemptions differ between the two systems, and an appeal argument that wins in one is irrelevant in the other. Arguing "I was only delivering" to a council means invoking the loading exemption with evidence of continuous activity. Arguing it to a private operator means pointing to the grace and consideration periods in the single code, or to signage that never formed a contract in the first place.
The habit that costs operators real money
Small fleets tend to treat every ticket identically: pay it fast, take the discount, move on. On a council PCN with no defence, early payment is usually right. But paying by reflex means paying charges that were never enforceable, and in a fleet collecting several a month per van, that quiet leak compounds. The reverse habit, ignoring everything, converts £65 discounted penalties into £195 enforced debts.
The operational answer is unglamorous: a register that records every notice, its type, its deadlines and its outcome, so decisions are made on facts rather than reflex. That is exactly what our depot templates and the forthcoming PCN tools are built for, and the fleet cost calculator will show you what penalties are really doing to your cost per parcel.