PATAS - avoid Saturdays

If Mr Mustard's 10am Appeals are quickly over, he can be found in here, hic

Now here are some interesting statistics (or maybe not?); the success rate of motorists versus Barnet Council by day in the second half of 2014

Mr Mustard's advice is forget Saturday, just don't go to PATAS that day, take a half day off work and go on a week day as things are much more likely to be satisfactory if you do this. It won't turn a no-hope case into a racing certainty but at the margin it seems that adjudicators are more kindly disposed in the week.

Mr Mustard had 85 PATAS cases in 2014, of which 42 were in the second half of the year but of those only 26 were for Barnet and not all went to a hearing (the council might have thrown in the towel just beforehand) and so may not have been marked against Wednesday so he may not have overly distorted the Wednesday statistics. Mr Mustard likes Wednesdays as they are the day when the public hearings usually only go on until lunchtime.

Thursdays are late night opening but not that late; you'll still have time to do some shopping in the West End but this factor probably accounts for the high number of Appeals.

That just leaves Mondays to mention with the highest number of hearings when perhaps more adjudicators sit than on any other day (Mr Mustard will ask at PATAS reception next time he is there to see if that is the case).

So broadly, "any day but Saturday" should be your mantra for a personal hearing, which is better than a postal one by the way as you get a better opportunity to highlight the strong points of your case.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard