Reject but then accept the same argument - why?

Not the best ever photo but double yellows clearly visible

Mr Mustard's motorist friend spends some of his working life delivering meals for UberEats including from McDonalds (yuk). The delivery in question on this occasion was to Gloucester Rd in New Barnet and the charge for that was £5.42. The motorist told Mr Mustard that he had delivered to Mr Mustard's road which is a 10 minute walk from McDonalds, no wonder fast food makes you fat & apparently lazy as well.

Anyway Mr U as we shall call the motorist drove up in his car, parked outside on the double yellow lines outside McDonalds which is fine as he is a courier and as it was after 6.30pm when the loading restriction at that location comes to an end, nipped into McDonalds and when he came out he found a PCN on his car. The traffic warden had done a ticket and run having observed the car for a mere minute.

Mr Mustard made the informal challenge on behalf of Mr U. Here it is.

 Here is the informal rejection.

'Carefully' possibly means 'for 2 seconds' .

No loading/unloading was seen as the CEO (traffic warden) didn't hang around to see what was happening. That does not mean that loading was not in progress only that the CEO did not see it.

Yes you can wait (=park) on double yellows if any of the following apply:

* loading or unloading something heavy or bulky

* boarding or alighting passengers, including accompanying them if necessary

* told to stop there by a policeman

* broken down

* medical emergency

so what the council wrote is not strictly accurate.

At this point many people worry about the discount, £55 in this case, and the difference between £55 and £110 if you are in the gig economy is huge. Mr Mustard explained the odds to Mr U who trusted Mr Mustard's judgment and so on we went.

The Notice to Owner arrived and the formal rejections were made, in identical form to the previous challenge.

This time the response was completely different

The unanswered question is why it was only at the second time of asking that the challenge was accepted or more importantly, why the first challenge was emphatically rejected along with the 'education' that the council rather self-importantly think they provide to motorists in their rejections, even when they are talking utter tosh.

Possible reasons are:

- lack of knowledge

- lack of application of the rules

- experience, i.e. many people pay at this stage if rejected

- the realisation that if they reject twice Mr Mustard always takes the council to the tribunal where, more often than not, they get found out & every case costs them £30, so they had best accept

- change of person considering the challenge from an NSL one to a council one.

This is wrong though. This is as clear an example as you could find of an informal challenge which has been wrongly rejected. Until such time as there is some sanction against councils for rejecting informal challenges when they should be accepted, the current biased system will continue.

Longer observation periods are also required.

If you are correct, do fight to the end.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard