Islington sign up

Regular readers will remember Mr Mustard blogging about the above confusing sign outside the Lilian Baylis studio, adjacent to Sadler's Wells. The effect of the no loading sign is to make it illegal for a blue badge holder to park there at any time.

Mr Mustard likes to be accurate and so he wrote to Islington Council and asked them, basically, if he was confused or if they were. They promised to see if they could make the signs clearer for the public. In the context of an email from a local government employee the word "clearer" meant "legal" which it would have been better to write in the first place. Despite Mr Mustard going to the trouble of bringing incorrect signage to the attention of Islington Council they didn't write and thank him nor tell him that they changed the signage to the below version on 15 November 13, which isn't very gracious of them.

This is clearer. The blue badge holder can now park there from 10am until 4 pm and overnight from 6.30pm to 8am (no lie in then? and please note that the above sign is a library sign, the actual times are probably the same as they were, Mr Mustard will check for you) and the rest of the time no-one should be parking there. The disabled can now safely park for a lunchtime or evening show but in the late afternoon they'll have to find somewhere else. It seems a bit of a waste. The position appears to Mr Mustard to be OK for a 24 hour disabled bay.

Now Mr Mustard wonders if the reason that Islington council didn't reply to him isn't that they lack basic manners or organisational skills but because they thought that if they kept quiet Mr Mustard wouldn't ask if they were going to voluntarily refund all the tickets that were issued when the signage was incorrect. Bad luck Islington because you were asked that today, weren't you?

Please do the decent thing and refund every PCN at this location for as long as the sign has been wrong, up to 6 years ago (the normal cut off for liability). If you don't Mr Mustard has a feeling that you might be reading about yourself in places with a much wider readership than this blog and an Islington resident might object to this year's Accounts being signed off as you have no lawful right to the income. It won't hurt that much, probably only a few hundred PCN.

Mr Mustard is grateful to the blue badge holder who got stung here and paid up. They might get their money back if they were to write in to islington Council now.

If there is a ridiculously complicated set of signs in your area, feel free to send a photograph and the location details to mrmustard@zoho.com

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard