Festive refunds - thank you Mr Reasonable

Barnet Council once again excelled themselves in December when the awfully mean 2 hour free parking that was offered during the weekend of 22/23 December (and the 23rd was a Sunday when parking charges are rarely due) was not sufficiently advertised and motorists stumped up £9,000 in error.

This problem was picked up by the ever vigilante Mr Reasonable who cleverly asked a Freedom of Information question ( the same question would have been deemed vexatious if Mr Mustard had asked it ) to find out the extent of the fiasco which you can read about here.

In the local Barnet Times newspaper today, on page 2, you can read an article headed "Refunds over festive parking confusion" where confusion means "complete and utter shambles" and we are asked to believe that the council spotted this problem on the day and ordered immediate refunds. What they didn't order was Verrus, who run the hated pay-by-phone system, to stop taking money in and so now we have the council making 5,200 refunds when they could have stopped the payments coming in at all.

If you paid for parking on 22 or 23 December and have not been automatically refunded for the first 2 hours which were free, send an email to parking.clientteam@barnet.gov.uk and get your money back. 

If you received a parking ticket and had parked for less than 2 hours (which the council can't prove one way or the other as they only observe for a minute or two) then you are equally due a refund if you have paid. Apply for one, or for unpaid parking tickets send in an appeal, at barnet@nslservices.co.uk and send a copy to parking.clientteam@barnet.gov.uk to make sure the message gets through. Give them the parking ticket number (usually starts with AG) your vehicle registration and your name and address and the amount you would like to be refunded.

Have fun.

Please let Mr Mustard know (mrmustard@zoho.com ) if you hadn't been automatically refunded or if you encounter any problems with the council.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard