Banned Turn Sign Missing or Unclear

Councils enforcing banned turns (no left turn, no right turn, no entry) must display signs that match the official approved design, and those signs must actually convey the restriction to a driver on the approach. If the sign was missing, blocked, faded past reading, showed hours that did not apply, used the wrong design, or — at night — was neither lit where lighting is required nor reflective enough to show up in your headlights, the penalty may not stand.

Legal basis

Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 (S.I. 2016/362) Schedule 3 Part 2 (circular signs conveying regulatory requirements): diagram 612 no right turn, diagram 613 no left turn, diagram 616 no entry for vehicular traffic, each permitted at 270, 300, 450, 600, 750, 900 or 1200 mm diameter; Traffic Management Act 2004 Part 6 and Schedule 7 paragraph 8 (moving traffic contraventions); R (Herron and Parking Appeals Ltd) v The Parking Adjudicator [2011] EWCA Civ 905 at 35 to 38, 43 and 48 — enforceability requires that adequate notice of the restriction was given to the road user, the test is substantial compliance with the prescribed sign judged by whether the motorist was adequately informed at the time and place of the alleged contravention rather than strict compliance, and defects remote from that place do not assist; approved in A & E Baines v North Yorkshire Council [2026] EWCA Civ 257 at 14; Macleod v Hamilton 1965 S.L.T. 305 and James v Cavey [1967] 2 QB 676, both approved in Herron at 35 to 36

How to identify this in your case

Go back to the junction if you can, or use Street View, and photograph the sign from the approach you actually drove. A banned turn or no-entry restriction is conveyed by a circular sign to a prescribed design: diagram 612 for no right turn, 613 for no left turn, 616 for no entry. Ask whether a driver coming your way could actually read it: was there no sign on your approach at all, was it turned away from you, hidden behind foliage or a parked lorry, faded or damaged so the symbol was unclear, at night, neither lit nor reflective enough to show up in your headlights, or did a time plate show hours that did not cover the moment you drove through? Two warnings, because the Court of Appeal has ruled on both. A defect somewhere else in the area will not help you — what matters is the sign facing you at the place and time of the alleged contravention. And a small imperfection in an otherwise clear sign will not help either: the test is substantial compliance, so the signage viewed as a whole from the approach you used must have failed to comply substantially and failed to give adequate notice — not merely failed to be perfect.

Sample appeal wording

Before you send this

Deadline. A late submission can be rejected without your argument being read. Check your notice for the deadline and how it is counted.
Paying may end it. Paying can count as accepting the notice and can close a challenge already under way. Part-paying or acknowledging an old debt can also revive a time limit that had expired.
The amount can change. Check what happens to the sum if you challenge — it may be held, re-offered lower, or keep rising, and fees or enforcement can continue meanwhile.
Use the official route. Use the method, recipient and form your notice specifies, with any reference, evidence and signature it asks for. Sent elsewhere, it may not count.
Only say what is true. Do not copy any statement of fact unless it is true for you, and check the legal point still applies. Delete what does not fit. It may be treated as your statement.
Careful what you volunteer. Avoid unnecessary admissions — naming the driver or accepting responsibility can remove arguments. But answer anything you are legally required to answer, and do include the evidence your ground needs.
Keep the record. Keep what you sent, the attachments, any receipt, and the reply. Note the next deadline.

Sample wording to adapt and send yourself — it may not fit your notice or the stage you are at. Replace the bracketed prompts with your own details; leave any case citation as it is.

Dear Sir or Madam, Re: PCN [NUMBER] — vehicle [REGISTRATION] — alleged banned turn at [LOCATION] on [DATE] at [TIME] I am the registered keeper of the above vehicle and I challenge this penalty charge notice. The restriction was not lawfully indicated at the point at which I am said to have contravened it. A turning or entry prohibition is conveyed to a driver by a circular sign of the design prescribed in Part 2 of Schedule 3 to the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 — diagram 612 for no right turn, diagram 613 for no left turn, or diagram 616 for no entry for vehicular traffic — at one of the permitted diameters of 270, 300, 450, 600, 750, 900 or 1200 millimetres. On the approach I was driving, the position was as follows: [Describe only what you actually saw. For example: there was no sign on my approach; the sign was angled away from oncoming traffic and could not be seen until past the junction; the sign was obscured by foliage or by a parked vehicle; the sign face was faded, dirty or damaged so the symbol could not be made out; I passed at night and the sign was neither directly illuminated where illumination is required nor adequately reflective, so it was not visible in my headlights; a plate beneath the sign showed hours that did not include the time I passed.] [Attach your photographs or dashcam stills, and state the date and time each was taken.] The enforceability of a traffic restriction depends on adequate notice of it having been given to the road user: R (Herron and Parking Appeals Ltd) v The Parking Adjudicator [2011] EWCA Civ 905 at paragraphs 35 to 36, a passage the Court of Appeal approved again in A & E Baines v North Yorkshire Council [2026] EWCA Civ 257 at paragraph 14. In Herron the Court explained, at those paragraphs, that a restriction is not effective unless signs are erected at the location and are the proper signs, clearly conveying the obligation, and that an authority must take the practicable steps needed to secure that adequate information is given by the signs it erects. On the facts set out above, adequate information as to this prohibition was not conveyed to me at the time and place of the alleged contravention. I ask you to cancel this penalty charge notice. [If you want the authority's evidence, add: I also ask for copies of the camera images or footage relied on, and of the traffic regulation order and signage schedule for this junction.] Yours faithfully, [YOUR NAME] [YOUR ADDRESS]

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Banned Turn Sign Missing or Unclear

Legal basis

How to identify this in your case

Sample appeal wording

Beat It writes this argument automatically

Sources

Related appeal grounds

Next steps