PCN Issued from a free car park

Hi All,

Quick one on this - I went to a shopping outlet/complex (One of these McArthur Glenn outlet villages) and parked our motorbikes (3 of us) on the footpath outside the restaurant we were going to. We parked on one of those weird bits of paving where it’s more of an in-fill rather than the main walkway. We did not restrict the footpath for pedestrians - our bikes took up approx 25% of the available pavement width, and pedestrians did not have to go out of their way to go around them.

It’s a free car park, and yes with hindsight we should have just parked in normal parking bays.

The Parking Charge Notice was issued for parking in a no-parking area (if there were signs saying this, we don’t see them)

My question is, can we dispute the PCN in the normal way that I’ve seen other people successfully do on unfair parking charges, or are we screwed because of the no parking zone and different circumstances and the PCN?