Thanks for your reply.
I am raising this now as there has not been a reasonable opportunity to deal with it earlier. I'm confident the personal reasons for delay would be valid in court.
I read on CAB website that council has to either accept an appeal or say that they do not and tell one what to do next - as I had post redirection in place at the time I would have expected to receive these so I would be very confident to say they did not send them at all. They just sat on it, waited for time to pass and then sent in the bailiffs despite having my email address and other contact details. Nobody would reasonably ignore a PCN for £70 knowing it will rocket to over £400, well, I didn't.
I am also pretty sure the bailiff acted after the change in the law (change was 6 April 2014) and should have issued an enforcement notice 7 days before action but none was, just the note as previously described. (I have seen what an enf notice looks like and never got anything like that.)
I have asked the council to evidence the dates they claim documents were sent but nothing heard yet.