Appeal a Gatwick
Airport Parking Charge
Gatwick's two terminals sit far enough apart that drivers regularly arrive at the wrong one, and the drop-off zones at both are camera-enforced. The charge is issued automatically and the Notice to Keeper follows by post, putting the operator on the 14-day clock from the moment the camera fires.
A Gatwick drop-off charge is an invoice from a private company rather than a fine. A camera read your registration on a terminal forecourt, and because nothing was put on your windscreen the operator had to get your address from the DVLA and post you a Notice to Keeper - which the law requires within 14 days of the day after the event.
What makes Gatwick different is that it is really two sites. North and South have separate access roads and separate cameras, so one trip can cross two charged zones and produce two notices. Each is its own case with its own deadline, and in practice one of a pair often fails a test the other passes.
Wrong terminal, two charges
North and South are separate sites with separate access roads. A driver who heads for North, discovers the flight leaves from South, and drives across can trigger a chargeable event at each. The operator treats them as unrelated events; you are entitled to make them justify each notice on its own.
Gatwick also has free waiting available away from the terminal forecourts, and drivers who used it are sometimes charged anyway because of how the camera zones overlap at the approach roads. If you never entered the paid drop-off zone, say nothing about who was driving and let us put the operator to proof on where the vehicle actually was.
Grounds we run on Gatwick charges
Checked in this order on a Gatwick notice, because this is the order that decides cases here.
The single most common Gatwick complaint. Drivers head for North, find the flight leaves from South, and drive across - triggering a chargeable event at each. The operator treats them as unrelated; you are entitled to make it justify each notice separately, and to challenge the double charge itself.
With no ticket on the vehicle, the Notice to Keeper must be given within 14 days of the day after the event, and a posted notice counts as given on the second working day after posting. Miss it and keeper liability is gone outright, whatever happened on the forecourt.
Gatwick has free waiting away from the terminals, and the camera zones overlap with the approach roads that lead to it. Drivers who used the free option are sometimes charged anyway. If you never entered the paid zone, the operator has to evidence where the vehicle actually was.
The recorded window runs from the moment the camera sees you to the moment it sees you leave, which takes in the approach queue and the manoeuvre out. That is not parking, and a notice presenting two timestamps as a period of parking is open to challenge on exactly that.
Schedule 4 sets out what a Notice to Keeper must contain - the creditor, the period, the keeper-liability warning, the route to name the driver. Because these are generated from a template, a missing element usually affects every notice of that batch rather than just yours.
What to gather before you appeal
Worth doing now rather than later - some of it gets harder to obtain as time passes.
- Your flight confirmation, which shows which terminal you were genuinely heading for
- Both notices if you received two, and the timestamps on each - they often overlap in a way that helps you
- Photographs of the signage at the point you entered, and of the free waiting option if you believe you used it
- The envelope the Notice to Keeper arrived in, since the postmark speaks to when it was served
Who issues it, and how the appeal runs
Gatwick's drop-off zones are camera-enforced with charge notices handled by APCOA. As a private operator on private land they depend on POFA Schedule 4 to reach the registered keeper, and our APCOA appeal guide covers their process in full. Read the APCOA guide.
If you were charged twice, appeal both rather than paying either. Two notices mean the operator has to prove its case twice over, and it is far more common than people expect for one of the two to be defective.
Before you reply to anything, run the dates through the deadline calculator and the wording through the Notice to Keeper checker. Both are free and neither asks for an email address. If you would rather not deal with any of it, a real person here will handle the whole appeal for £10.
Gatwick Airport appeal FAQ
Gatwick's terminal drop-off zones are camera-enforced with charge notices handled by APCOA. As a private operator on private land they depend on POFA Schedule 4 to pursue the registered keeper, and the usual 14-day deadline applies.
This happens constantly because North and South are separate sites. Two notices means two separate cases the operator has to prove, each needing a compliant Notice to Keeper served in time. In practice one of the two often fails the test even where the other does not.
Not directly, since the charge applies to the forecourt either way. But pick-ups involve much longer waits, which makes the recorded period more likely to include time that was not parking at all - and that goes to whether the notice properly specifies the period of parking.
Other airports we cover
Related parking appeal guides
How airport drop-off enforcement works across the UK, and the grounds that apply wherever you were charged.
Airport notices arrive by post weeks later. Check whether yours was served inside the 14-day limit.
Luton was one of the first UK airports to charge for terminal drop-off and enforces it tightly with cameras.
£10 flat fee. Money back if a covered appeal is unsuccessful. Takes about two minutes.