Barnet Council play with loaded dice

Another random tribunal decision which Mr Mustard fell over:

It seems that the council are assuming that all drivers are built like tanks and can easily lift and carry 20kg. Mr Mustard couldn't do that easily, he would have done two trips. What does 10kg look like?

24 cans of a soft drink

A car tyre

This could more easily be carried as it has an easy to grip rim and can be carried just off the ground.

8 bottles of wine (750ml)

The adjudicator would have had in mind two key cases on the tribunal website regarding loading. The older one is Jane Packer Flowers and a more recent one is Bosworth & Other v LB Tower Hamlets. These are publicly available and councils can therefore read them as easily as the public can. Here are some of the useful principles that the adjudicators provided to help everyone know how they think:

Given the size of the load in this case and that it was an evidenced commercial delivery the motorist should not have been forced to the tribunal in this case. The message for other readers is to never be put off by a council's response if you think it was wrong. This decision is a subjective one, Mr Mustard thinks Barnet Council were massively offside but others may adjudge otherwise.

The council should also have had regard to its own traffic order, which contains the following exemption:

 and 'goods' are widely described as follows:

although adjudicators will probably use the less wide principles they have decided upon and require one off deliveries to be bulky or heavy.

Mr Mustard hopes this will help his readers to know when they might fall within the definition of loading (or if it might be better to pay to park for 5 minutes which is effectively 15 as you get 10 extra minutes during which you should not be given a PCN) or whether they should deliver by some other method (bus, cycle, walk with a trolley etc). Mr Mustard's neighbour is a delivery driver and he bumped into him on the tube last week. Rather than take his huge van to Tottenham Court Road to deliver a 4 foot long roll of material about 6 inches think and an item which was in a carrier bag for another customer (overall weight less than 10kg) he picked up his freedom pass and had a more relaxing tube journey and did his job less time than had he driven. Food for thought.

The end.