Newham Council are Cheats - #11

 

Here is a genius bit of cheating / incompetence. It would be funny if the effects were not so draconian and probably a breach of the Human Rights Act.

Newham Council removed a vehicle a day before they were legally entitled to, at a time when it was evidently 100% legally parked.

They then somehow managed to fight the tribunal Appeal rather than realise their blunder, apologise, pay compensation and cancel the PCN and immediately refund Mr Clark.

Not only are Newham Council cheats, they are prize chumps.

Newham Council are Cheats - #10

 

PCNs are used these days as a blunt instrument of revenue raising to fill holes in council budgets. Humanity, service to residents and fairness seem to be alien concepts in council parking departments these days (Mr Mustard does get to see them when he approaches senior management but those cases are the exception, he can't deal with the 5m+ PCN issued a year in London). 

Mr Umar is a good man helping his elderly and disabled grandmother into a wheelchair and to transfer to the car. He has been abused by Newham Council. Luckily he has a backbone and a sense of right and wrong.

He was cheated out of a Notice of Acceptance.

He was cheated out of hours of his time:

- in starting an Appeal to the tribunal which he shouldn't have had to fight

- spent in considering the voluminous evidence pack, probably 100 pages

- spent in preparing his case and appearing on line and explaining his case, clearly in quite a lot of detail, to the adjudicator

- spent worrying that surely a council must surely be right and he would end up having to pay £130 as the discount was long gone.

Councils need to reflect upon the results of their actions and 99.9% of what they write should be accurate, not the usual sleight of hand responses which Mr Mustard gives a good kicking to because of his profound knowledge.

Newham Council are Cheats - #9

 

The reader might think that Newham Council have cheated themselves in this type of case rather than be the cheat but they are 100% in control of the sum demanded. Paying on line gives the council complete control over the amount that can be paid, you cannot for example pay £110 on line if the PCN has advanced to the £165 stage, except by posting in a cheque and that won't stop the process whereas paying on line usually does.

This is not the only case in which £1 has appeared. In another case, which might appear later, Newham Council denied that it was possible for their system to demand the incorrect sum but of course sensible motorists have taken screen shots of the error and the usual band of experts knew of the glitch.

What was cheating was to object to the settlement that Newham Council had themselves offered, which had been accepted, and put the motorist through the tribunal system.

Newham Council are Cheats - #8

 

This is the greatest cheat so far of the lot. What the adjudicator has picked up on here, as he wrote about it in a different decision, is that the event which took place on 15 June 2024 took place in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park but not also in the London Stadium. The traffic orders contains a provision which enables Newham Council to give out event day PCNs on days on which there is an event at the London Stadium deemed by The Traffic Manager to be large enough to warrant an event day and he so designates it. By accident or sloppiness that traffic order has been interpreted as if also applying to events taking place solely in the park.

Here is the relevant part of one such traffic order:

This clearly limits events to those taking place within The London Stadium the park and postcode being its address.

Mr Mustard having picked up on this nuance asked Newham Council for the amount of  income thus derived. It is a shocking amount.

The odd 32p is odd.

So that is £216,429 of cheating.

Now that Newham Council know that their actions are unlawful (thanks to the other tribunal decision) they will surely fall over themselves to do the right thing and make immediate refunds?

Mr Mustard doubts it as they are serial cheats.

 

 

Newham Council are Cheats - #7

 

Mr Mustard is of the view that if the length of bay suspended is more than a car or two and the bay sign is not adjacent to the affected area then councils should bookend the suspended area so that anyone who parks in it is highly likely to spot one sign or the other. All suspension signs are authorised by the Secretary of State in broadly similar form which is a 3 sided affair so that it can be seen at a distance. This is a good example, from a Barnet case which Mr Mustard lost, visible for quite a distance:

Here is the one which Newham erected:

 

Parked 10m or 20m away to one side and getting out onto the pavement there is zero chance of seeing that sign edge on. It is cheating to use an authorised sign in an unauthorised manner.

The PCN was also for the wrong alleged contravention. It should have been for being in a suspended bay. A 'restricted street' is one where there is a single or double yellow line or no lines and a number of no waiting signs to notify the temporary traffic order.

The end, but not of this cheating series.

Newham Council are Cheats - #6

 

This alleged contravention, and a PCN is just that, a document which alleges a contravention which is unproven unless you accept it or an adjudicator confirms it, of being 'parked causing an obstruction' relates only to off street car parking and is a rarely seen allegation. Barnet Council, for example, haven't used it at all for years, if ever.

Given the rarity you would think there would be very good records of such an event but no, not a jot as to what was being obstructed.

The adjudicator correctly noted the absence of evidence of obstruction and that the Notice Board did not warn the motorist against it. What the adjudicator has not told us and will have checked was whether or not 'obstruction' is listed as a contravention in the Traffic Order. Probably not is Mr Mustard's guess.

In summary Newham Council issued an unjustified PCN, rejected one or two challenges by the motorist made directly do them and then fought the case at the tribunal all the while without a scintilla of evidence in support. 

 Mr Mustard calls that trying to cheat a motorist out of £130. 

Newham Council are Cheats - #5

 

Mr Mustard has had the same discussion with an adjudicator about the lack of signage and the effectiveness of a warning Notice. It ended the same way with a cancelled PCN. It might appear in this series later on.

The role of the adjudicator is to apply the law. The law requires that a council erects and maintains signage in bays and so 99% an adjudicator will cancel for inadequate or non-existent signage. One reason is that you had a warning a month ago but the rules of the bay might have changed since then and that is why you have to be informed of the rules every time you park within a bay.

Note the adjudicator said he 'must' allow the Appeal which was entirely correct and proper.

More cheating by Newham Council.

Newham Council are Cheats - #4

 

Towing a car from a road in which there wasn't a restriction might not be cheating but simply rank incompetence.

Either way an innocent Mr Flacco had to go to the car pound, lend, as it happens, Newham Council £265 for 3 months, fight the PCN and generally be put through the wringer and have hours of his time wasted all whilst worrying he could be innocently out of pocket..

Removal of a vehicle is a serious step which is clearly not taken seriously enough in Newham. 

Newham Council are Cheats - #3

 

A very clear decision here that a CPZ entry sign does not dictate the hours of or rules for a bay which could be any sort of bay: residents, business, market trader, doctor etc etc and have different days or hours to the single yellow lines within a zone.

The sign within a bay will probably be the big blue P for parking sign whereas the one on the cpz sign will be the no waiting roundel, the blue background with the red circle around it and the red line sloping down from top to bottom, left to right. One sign permits and the other one forbids, they are incompatible.

Mr Cipriani was not put on notice of the rules relating to the bay and is therefore entitled to carry on and park for free. You are well advised to take a photo of the entire bay when you park as proof as it may just be that day that a new sign goes on, although Newham take months.

The PCN issued to Mr Cipriani and the removal of his car were both unlawful.

Newham Council know this as they have told the Local Government Ombudsman that they know the rules, ironically when defending their reason for not enforcing which a resident had complained about.

Newham Council are Cheats. 

 

Councils need to watch out for enthusiastic amateurs - Philip Morgan in this case

Mr Mustard first encountered Phillip Morgan over a decade ago when Mr Mustard was new to 'parking tickets' (Penalty charge notices) having been given one for the wrong reason. Mr Mustard's thoughts, as a former civil servant and local government temp himself, was that councils wouldn't be doing much wrong. That naivety is long gone. Councils make lots of errors and have not stopped doing so for a decade. Sometimes they correct one error only to introduce a different one.

Parking, bus lane and moving traffic PCNs are all based on different laws and the minutia of the additional Regulations, Orders and Acts set traps for the unwary. For years there were only a couple of individuals who helped the public to fight back and the famous/infamous Barrie Segal has now retired from the fray.

There are now a dozen or more self taught experts who have little time for socialising being as they are, under the burden of hundreds of PCNs at any one time. Lots of them give their time for free on this website.

Until this year there was the choice at London Tribunals, the home of the independent adjudicators of having a postal hearing based on the papers alone (a bad a choice as the single justice procedure in the Magistrates Courts) or, if you really wanted to win, an in person hearing in Furnival St in the Chancery Lane area (the legal district of London) where you basically sat across the desk from the adjudicator and argued your case (techncially you assist the adjudicator to make his/her decision).

After the hearings were concluded & if another expert happened to be there on the same day and you both had finished you might repair to a local hostelry and toast your successess and drown your failures. Thus it was that Mr Mustard would sit and chat with Phillip and talk about PCNs and anything else in the world. Nowadays with all hearings by video there is less opportunity.

Sometimes experts don't agree and you try to dissuade them from their chosen course but all the experts are headstrong and likely to stick to their guns.

Phillip Morgan though was spot on when he noticed that Southwark Council's bus lane PCNs were issued under the wrong legislation.

Bus Lane enforcement in London came about with The London Local Authorities Act 1996 (as amended since then). The 2003 Act relied upon by Southwark is the primary legislation for alleged moving traffic contraventions (turning left where you shouldn't, stopping in yellow box junctions etc) and the 1991 Act whilst relating to traffic matters and driving penalties wasn't do do with bus lanes and was 5 years too early.

Phillip obtained the penalty income data using the Freedom of Information legislation:

The pedantic answer to Q1 could have been zero but that would have been a silly answer and just caused more work in dealing with the follow up reworded question.

The council was under the threat of a Judicial Review their hand and rather than spend tens of thousands on defending a legal action they wisely decided to refund everyone, a decision doubless helped by their contractor picking up the bill.

 

Mr Mustard thinks the contractor is APCOA, who are about to take over in Barnet as it happens. Mr Mustard will be looking out for their errors.

There is lots of profit in parking. The last published results for Apcoa Parking (UK) Ltd* showed turnover of £124,947,119 a gross profit of £33,982,300 and a profit before tax of £7,438,686 (*not sure if this is the correct APCOA identity but the underlying message is they aren't small and can afford to pay out half a million for a cockup). Mr Mustard wonders if councils generally are driving a hard enough bargain?

Well done Phillip.

The end. 

Newham Council are Cheats - #2

 

Newham Council removed this car to the pound. Google street view is dated but there are lots of bays without signs at this location. If there isn't a sign alongside the bay in which you are parked the rules have not been communicated to the motorist and no PCN should have been issued, let alone the car removed.

Newham Council are penalising innocent motorists instead of catching vandals who damage or remove signs. They need to start dealing with criminal behaviour and stop issuing unlawful penalties.

The motorist did well to produce better evidence than the council. Clear photos from all angles showing the lack of signage is all you need.

The end.

Newham Council are Cheats - #1

 

Mr Mustard has come to the conclusion, based upon evidence of the PCNs he has fought this year in Newham, that Newham Council are serial cheats. The above decision by a highly experienced adjudicator, a qualified lawyer, an expert in signs, is the first decision of many similar ones which Mr Mustard is going to show you many of which won't be ones that he fought.

It flies in the face of a decision by the Local Government Ombudsman in which Newham Council admit that (obviously legible) signs have to be in place in order to issue a PCN.

That decision is here.

What traffic wardens often do is to take a photo of the CPZ (controlled parking zone) entry sign (which don't apply to bays) or a photo of the sign from the next bay (which may have different rules) or one from across the road, which never applies although could by coincidence have the same rules.

Councils always have to prove their case and fail surprisingly often, at least they do when Mr Mustard puts them to proof.

The end. 

Don't try it on with the old broken down story

 

A random decision that Mr Mustard looked at.

Mr Mustard's phone number gets passed around a lot (he would rather you just gave out his email - mrmustard@zoho.com - as Mr Mustard decides if he needs to talk to a motorist based upon the paperwork) but if you do have Mr Mustard's phone number, please do not pass it to the person named in this case. 

Mr Mustard does not know exactly what happened but is sceptical at the very least.

The end.
 

 

Islington Council - how much to tell a lie? - £80 - £160

 

A motorist who had been helped previously by Mr Mustard decided his case was so obviously acceptable that he sent in his own proof of delivery glass panels worth £450. To his probable surprise Islington Council said no. At that point he consulted Mr Mustard.

Mr Mustard dug out the relevant traffic order (there are only two sets of wording to cover the whole borough although several hundred pages of maps to go with the refreshingly short wording).

Mr Mustard read through the order (and also searched for the word 'private' which did not find anything relevant) and found this exemption which applies in pay bays:

Nowhere in the traffic order does it draw a distinction about the type of vehicle you are loading/unloading from (it would be different if a private car was parked in a goods vehicles only loading bay but that is not the case here).

Now, if the motorist didn't know Mr Mustard he would probably pay the penalty which is currently £80 but would rise to £160 after 14 days (and not everyone has £80 spare before pay day) but he certainly isn't going to be paying this time.

The council are writing untruths and the PCN will wend its way slowly towards the independent tribunal if Islington Council don't cancel it when Mr Mustard's complaint arrives.

The end (for now).

 

You can look at the wording of the traffic order here 

Click on 'View our 2023....'

Update 11 August 25.

Mr Mustard has been helped by Islington's parking manager before. They are always helpful.

They responded to his complaint over the weekend, which was a bonus and not expected, and the PCN is no more.

Here is some of what one of their team said:

I can confirm that the PCN should have been cancelled and that a mistake has been made by the staff member who dealt with the appeal. Just to reassure you, the officer responding to the case has not intentionally lied. They are relatively new (started around 1 month ago) and they have mistakenly rejected the appeal. I have asked for more training to be provided to this officer as it should be clear that loading/unloading exemptions do not only apply to commercial vehicles or when loading is taking place for business use. 

Regarding the other questions, I can confirm that the email has been logged with our FOI team, but I am able to provide answers with this response. 

There is no section of the traffic order which draws a distinction as to the type of vehicle which can unload in a pay by phone bay. 

The paragraph used is not a standard paragraph and the paragraph will not have been used in other letters. I must caveat that though as it is possible the officer may have made the same decision in another case and therefore used the same or similar wording. I am going to ask that the officer’s correspondence is reviewed to ensure that similar decisions have not been made.

Mr Mustard was concerned that this was a standard response and is pleased that it wasn't. Unfortunate for the enw employee to meet Mr Mustard so soon !