TfL bully boys ?

 

This PCN is the first that Mr Mustard has seen with this new layout. If TfL find it improves the rate of payment you can be sure that other enforcement authorities in London will follow suit. To Mr Mustard's mind the red section is all wrong.

Certain information on a PCN is statutory and anything else can be added by TfL. The enforcement process items it must contain are the full price of the penalty and the 50% discounted price. It must also tell you that if you do not pay or make representations within 28 days of service (=receipt) that TfL may increase the balance by 50% and send you a charge certificate to that effect.

Given the parlous state of the payment system the PCN may not arrive very quickly and it could easily be 4,5 or 6 days before you receive it especially as first class post is no longer mandatory for this type of PCN (which is a backward step given the state of the Royal Mail). Therefore, TfL should not put a fixed date (2 October) within the PCN which could make you think you are out of time when you are still within it. Mr Mustard posted a Power of Attorney to his Solicitor recently that took 8 days to reach Godalming, by first class post. He could have cycled there and back in 2. Keep the envelope in which your PCN was sent if you want to ask Mr Mustard about the PCN.

What bothers Mr Mustard even more are the next two red sections for Debt Registration and Enforcement Agent (bailiff). No-one sensible ignores a PCN but the assumption should be that the recipient will choose to deal with it. This just looks like bullying to Mr Mustard. He needs to obtain the other 3 pages of the PCN and the 2 pages of notes before he can decide how unfair the whole thing is but his first reaction is that this is bang out of order.

If you disagree with the PCN make sure you fight it and do it now, don't be a last minute merchant.

More soon.

Just been sent the rest, look at this page. 

From the very start you are being threatened, this is completely unacceptable, you are allowed 28 days in which to act and take advice. Mr Mustard will be fighting this PCN (it has already been at the county court stage once and TfL have cheated so this should end up going away and nowhere near a bailiff) which the recipient of is happy about and will take his chances (Mr Mustard wins 90% of the time) which might cost him an extra £90 but he knows and accepts the low risk.

Yet more soon. 

Suspect suspension

 

A resident, let's call him Mr G, received a PCN at this location on 10 July having observed that the works were complete. What really should happen is that to be helpful to the public the workers should be empowered to take down the sign once works are complete but that doesn't happen in Barnet.

Mr Mustard advised Mr G to ask some questions of the council as he thought the sign looked a bit amateur and not in line with the version authorised by the Secretary of State.

The questions and answers were as follows:

The photos have not been published. However, what appears to have happened is that a certain period of suspension was requested but a different one was advertised. The CEO (traffic warden) isn't to know that, they rely entirely on the erected sign and assume it will be correct and clearly that isn't always the case.

Separately Mr G received another response which quite fairly cancelled the PCN as it wasn't sustainable, the advertised suspension not being the authorised one. Mr Mustard has not known this happen before.

What this tells you is that it is worth asking to see all of the records about the suspension to make sure it was properly arranged as if it wasn't the council will cancel your PCN. Properly typed up 3 sided signs bearing reference numbers are likely to be correct (but could still be wrong) and dodgy looking handwritten signs are the most susceptible to challenge.

You can submit your questions by email to foi@barnet.gov.uk

The end.

 

 

 

Unusual process error in Barnet

 

The above is Claverley Villas in Finchley Central. It has a single yellow line restricted from 2 to 3pm to stop all day parking and local business people park on it a lot and maybe move to avoid the hour or just take a chance. One such local professional person spotted the warden at 2:05pm on 16 February got his keys and scarpered rapidly. A PCN was not placed on the car or in his hand.

Let us call him Mr Bolt. The next thing he knew of a PCN having been issued was the receipt of a Charge Certificate dated 27 April. He had not received a Notice to Owner.

It was open to the council to send a PCN in the post due to the driving away but it seems the 'traffic warden' (CEO) must have recorded it as served at the scene.

If you want to fight there is nothing to do with a Charge Certificate except to wait for the Order for Recovery. That arrived at the end of May. The door is opened at that point to filing a witness statement that the Notice to Owner (or postal PCN) was not received. A signed witness statement was duly filed on 29 May that a Notice to Owner was not received. 

The Traffic Enforcement centre cancels the Charge Certificate and authorises the council to serve a fresh Notice to Owner. It duly arrived dated 16 June 26. Mr Mustard looked at it and was confused. It alleged that the vehicle in question was parked in a restricted street (i.e. one with a yellow line) being Claverley Villas but on 6 March 2026 at 09:51

There were two errors there, the council had no photos taken on 6 March and it isn't a contravention to park on that single yellow at 09:51

Someone had used some fancy footwork at the council and got two different processes mixed together. Mr Mustard was pushing at an open door when he made the representation denying the date and time. Barnet Council rapidly caved in.

Funny stuff, detail, it has to be correct. This was a new error which Mr Mustard had not seen in his 17 years of fighting PCNs. 

 

Newham Council are Cheats - #54

 

This is, pardon my French, a clusterfcuk

What Mr Dada has demonstrated is the advantage of good planning and preparation and presenting a clear, simple argument which is well documented. That makes it easy for the adjudicator to find in your favour.

This isn't one of Mr Mustard's cases but there is enough description for him to identify the bay in question.

Looking on google the far bay is also one without a sign which must be cluster 1.

The adjudicator noted the presence of single yellow lines which bookend cluster 3 in the middle of this square. They should not be there as they can only be placed at the edge of a carriageway.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, Newham need to do better. Mr Mustard presumes this is to stop motorists parking in invisible spaces 6 or zero (i.e. at each end of the 5 bays) but no lines are required to enforce if someone parks that way, they will have their entire vehicle more than 50cm from the edge of the carriageway and not within a marked out bay so a PCN can be issued for that.

Back to the PCN in question. There being no sign adjacent to the bay in which Mr Dada parked he was at liberty to park there for free and a warning PCN would have been unfair. What Newham should do when they erect the new sign is to make a note of all vehicles in those 5 spaces at that time and not ticket them until they have left and returned (if they do, making note of tyre valve positions facilitates that knowledge).

The traffic warden (CEO) having taken a photo of a sign from a different bay had cheated and the back office had reinforced this by rejecting a perfectly valid representation and then contesting the Appeal at the tribunal. Cheats all of them and found out. 

The end, but not of cheating.

Newham Council are Cheats - #53

 

Well done Ms Reid you were a thorn (sorry) in the council's side.

This not being one of Mr Mustard's cases he doesn't know exactly where the car was parked but can hazard a rough guess from what google street view shows him.

The image above shows a bay without a sign. That makes it a free bay as the rules for every bay can be different and as the onus is on the council to erect and maintain adequate signage.

The next bay along has a sign but is separated by a disabled bay (which would be better with a sign and/or 'DISABLED' painted on the carriageway where it still can be seen after parking in that bay and by a section of pavement so the sign in this bay doesn't apply to the other bay or any other bay.

 There is no sign to say you can't park here, best for stretch limo owners.

 

 

Yet another location in Newham which has suffered from sign vandalism.

The PCN was unlawfully issued by the CEO, that is cheating.

The representations were clearly rejected by the back office, that too was cheating.

The tribunal is independent and free to the motorist, if your case is legally correct it should prevail.

The end. 

Newham Council are cheats - #52

 

Platinum are a company whose registered office backs onto Nursery Lane and so the explanation as to why their car was on a single yellow line is perfectly plausible. 

Now if we look at the location, it is a narrow cul-de-sac and so because of the numerous comings and goings that will doubtless take place from neighbouring properties this isn't a place at which you can leave a vehicle parked for more than a minute or two.

Newham Council may have breathed a sigh of relief that this series of cheats blogs had come to an end earlier in the year but that was only because Mr Mustard had bigger fish to fry in real life. He is now on top of his work again and so has time for public awareness campaigns. This series will only eventually stop when the council start to behave with the utmost probity. 

You might also be wondering, as is Mr Mustard why there aren't double yellow lines on both sides of the lane and no loading marks as any parked vehicle will cause an obstruction. Only Newham Council in their 'wisdom' can answer that question.

This looks like the sort of PCN that Mr Mustard calls a hit-and-run one as a 'traffic warden' (CEO) seems to drop out of the sky, issues a PCN and scarpers like a kid playing knock down ginger. The complaint in this case is that the CEO operated at a distance and only approached the car after having printed out the PCN. There is nothing unlawful about that even though the public may regard it as unsporting or even cheating. If a CEO can read your number plate from 100m and has a belief that you are in contravention he can record the necessary information and then slap the PCN on the vehicle and leave and it is entirely lawful. 

There doesn't have to be a single photograph but here there wasn't a photograph of a sign and as they are often missing or defaced (especially in Newham) then should a motorist put a council to proof at adjudication a council will be in difficulty. They can rely on library signs although they mustn't be too old. Often google street view is relied upon and Mr Mustard has driven virtually down this lane and not found a single sign.

Mr Mustard suspected that this is a location inside a controlled parking zone and after going for another virtual drive away from the location along Upton Lane he found some dated images of CPZ entry signs (and some temporary Event signs) which tell you the rules for unsigned single yellow lines which you might meet further along your journey. Those zone entry signs are at least a quarter of a mile away around a couple of turns which the public will likely regard as a cheating system (many drivers don't understand this point, Mr Mustard doubts it forms part of the driving test or training, please tell him if he is wrong).

There is a lot to take in on those signs whilst moving and repeater signage would be useful but that would make the entry signs obsolete. Mr Mustard's view is that it would be a more compliant world without cpzs. Of course, if the car had been out on hire and was then moved by a Platinum driver who came to work on the train, he/she wouldn't have been on notice of the restriction in any event.

The end.

Barnet Council double lash up

 

Mr R was a bit surprised to receive the above PCN when he parked in a location he knew well, on a single yellow line but outside the restricted times, and thought he could sort it out himself given that it was an obvious error.

Mr R made his own informal challenge and was, to his even greater surprise, rejected. At that point he came to Mr Mustard. Here is the absolute load of tosh which was the rejection letter and the usual generous offer to accept £80 for a penalty that is not due (why would you pay that?):

 Here is the car in question and the bay sign.

You can just see a hint of a single yellow line in front of the car.

Next is an image from google street view which clearly shows the vehicle was to the left of the sign and the disabled bay is to the right. The photos taken by the CEO ('traffic warden'), whether by accident or design, didn't include any which showed the painted legend 'DISABLED' on the carriageway.

Here is an older google image which also makes the situation clear. These images can of course be looked at by back office staff of the council (or its contractor APCOA).

All of the parking restrictions in the borough of Barnet are recorded on a map based system which is freely available to the public here and this shows exactly where the disabled bay is located. A traffic warden in doubt could equally look at that and it ought to be on his hand held equipment based upon the co-ordinates of where he is standing at that time.

Note that the rejection letter states that the car was parked outside no. 10 and clearly the disabled bay is outside no. 12

The problem was quickly fixed by Mr Mustard logging the formal representations and sending two complaints to the parking manager who, to his credit, always responds pretty quickly and usually agrees with Mr Mustard. What other choice did he have here? The two complaints were about the actions of both the CEO and the back office and the PCN was cancelled a week later. For a nervous type this could all have been too much and Mr Mustard knows that completely wrong PCNs do get paid by people who can't afford to pay 100% if they are wrong, who think the council must be correct despite the evidence of their own eyes, or whose knees buckle at the slightest hint of trouble. Mr Mustard isn't one of those types.

The two big questions about this PCN are:

1. How the heck did the CEO get this wrong ? 

2. Does the back office reject all informal challenges without looking at the facts as they know many people will give up at that stage ?

Is there cynical behaviour inside the council PCN factories ? You decide.

The end. 

 

 

 

Hammersmith & Fulham Council - delay: avoidable & otherwise

 

On 30 June you lend your car to a friend to pop to the chemists for you and they drive this way as they are from overseas, don't know the area very well and have cognitive dissonance when it comes to open roads which aren't open. The blue must go left sign doesn't help.

On 10 July H&F issue a PCN by post. The motorist sends it to Mr Mustard.

On 26 July Mr Mustard makes the formal representations on line. He then watches and waits whilst checking the PCN value each week so he might know if something happens (not a foolproof system).

On 14 November H&F decide to reject the representation. There is a 56 day time limits for parking PCNs but not for moving traffic ones. The council need to act with reasonable expedition.

On 2 December Mr Mustard starts a tribunal Appeal, one of his points is the unreasonable delay (motorists never getting more than 28 days to do anything).

The tribunal set a hearing date of 13 May . At least 5 days before then it is the duty of H&F to provide the tribunal with all of the paperwork. There is a completely redacted email on 2 May about the case but the contents are top secret for some unknown and unfathomable reason.

On 4 May H&F produce the evidence pack. They have to serve it by post on Mr Mustard as he can legally insist on printed evidence.

On 5 May H&F manage to get it into the post.

Mr Mustard was working away from home and so only received it when he returned on Saturday 9 May after a 200 mile drive. Dealing with it had to wait for a short while.

On Monday 11 May he filed the skeleton argument which was certainly faster moving than H&F. What he didn't know about was the emailing going on about him at H&F which has only recently come to light & is a post-mortem of the hearing.

 

Mr Mustard has asked H&F to note that he is not and does not claim to be a solicitor. The complaint that he asks for a PCN to be cancelled if the evidence pack isn't sent to him but to the motorist is because the tribunal ask the Appellant (the motorist) to provide their proper address for service. Naturally and quite properly Mr Mustard uses his home address as most motorists are overwhelmed by 50-100 page evidence packs. That comment by H&F displays their ignorance of procedure and law.

It is wrong that Mr Mustard does not submit arguments. You have to tick a box stating the category of your argument in order to start an Appeal at the tribunal. He does add extra arguments if they arise from the evidence pack, he would be failing the motorist if he didn't. The law allows for that.

At the hearing an employee of H&F started by trying to get the skeleton argument struck out but the adjudicator was having none of it, it being clear it had been produced in very short order indeed. The delay by H&F however, was fatal to the PCN:

 

Finally, Mr Mustard does not look for loopholes as suggested. He looks for mistakes by councils and as H&F abundantly demonstrate, they make loads of them.

If and when he is sent the unredacted internal emails, there will be another blog. Doubtless the emails paint Mr Mustard in as black a light as the redacting ink. 

Hammersmith & Fulham Council: following Mr M for ages

 

Following on from an interesting PCN tribunal hearing in May 2026 which tried to paint Mr Mustard in a bad light, Mr Mustard asked to see all emails which mentioned him, in the parking department, from 1 January 2025. He didn't expect there to be any from 2025 as he doesn't fight many H&F Council PCNs, he has records of 12 in 9 years. Here is the PCN in question.

That location description should be much simpler, who knows that CANw stands for Clean Air Neighbourhood west? (not many people). 

Why did Mr Mustard 'complain' about the signage? as it was turned away and couldn't therefore be seen by a driver.

Of course he will 'complain' (make representations about inadequacy) about the signage if it is invisible to drivers and leads then into error. He would not be representing his client very well if he didn't do so.

What H&F forgot whilst poking at Mr Mustard's behaviour is that there is a legal duty on them to erect and maintain adequate signage. 

They need to put their own house in order before they write sniffy internal emails about Mr Mustard who barely bothers H&F.

More to follow on this topic later given that an unredacted copy of the email has been requested, reasons for the redactions not having been given.

(Mr Mustard is not and has never claimed to be a 'lawyer' in the legally qualified sense of the word.  Elsewhere H&F described him as a 'solicitor' and he has objected to both descriptions being in their records which should only contain accurate data).

Hammersmith & Fulham Council: bluff then fold

 

Scaffolding lorry stationary in a yellow box

Sorry about the poor quality image, Mr Mustard didn't grab a full sized one before the PCN was cancelled and he can't then access photos.

The driver clearly made an error and was in contravention. He could and should have changed lane and had he planned a bit further ahead he could have exited in lane 1 but Mr Mustard deals with PCNs which are due to such errors and has to make the best of them.

In this case the alleged contravention took place on 18 March 26. For 'moving traffic' contraventions like this one (even though ironically the lorry isn't moving) a council must serve (not just send) the first PCN within 28 days (there may be more than one PCN if a vehicle is hired, this one is owned). The PCN was dated 15 April and in the absence of other evidence about delivery was deemed served on 17 April, which was day 31.

H&F failed to issue the PCN in legal time. Mr Mustard handles all the PCNs for this small scaffolding company who wouldn't cope without help. He looked at the dates and smiled. He then made the formal representations. Mr Mustard took his own advice and kept it brief:

Now you might hope that the local authority, whose duty it is to respond to the representations which were made, would simply cancel at this point. They didn't. They decided that sophistry was the way to go:

Here is the substance of the reply which does not counter the legal point:

 

That unsophisticated non-reply gave Mr Mustard a second basis on which to argue, a complete failure to consider the representation which was made, it considered one which the council found easier to reject (had the PCN been in time Mr Mustard would have advised the scaffolding company to pay at 50%).  

He nearly had a third one as the representation was made on 28 April and not rejected until 24 July and Mr Mustard recently won a case based upon a delay at H&F of more than 3 months (there is no legal time limit for moving traffic PCN rejections) being procedurally unfair - a point which exercised an employee at H&F and about which a blog will appear soon.

H&F did offer the 50% reduction which they weren't legally required to do and which many councils don't now offer as they think they will make more money that way. It has very little effect on Mr Mustard's strategy which is to go to the tribunal 99% of the time. Again he kept the grounds brief:

The Appeal was started on 27 July. The tribunal processed it on 28 July and H&F would have been notified of it on 29 July.

On 29 July H&F wrote to the scaffolding company.

Total denial, however, is still in full swing. The vehicle was 100% in contravention but miracle of miracles H&F have decided to use their discretion to cancel. They don't say why and the without prejudice statement is absolute nonsense, H&F are trying to say that there was a contravention but they are forgiving it with no clear reason as to why, it wouldn't be that they 100% understand they have broken the law and don't want to commit that to paper, would it, surely not?

Now as it happens the council employee (or 'officer' if you like the grand titles that councils seem to favour) was in the tribunal hearing in May (voice only they were both attending without turning on the video feed) at which they launched an attack on the methodology employed by Mr Mustard to fight PCNs at the tribunal alleging, in effect, ambush and 'looking for loopholes' - Mr Mustard struggled to not laugh at that, a blog for another day. It got them nowhere and didn't even warrant a mention in the decision. 

There is no need for councils to think of Mr Mustard as the enemy (and some don't, they have an open dialogue from which both sides benefit). He fights less than 300 PCNs a year and in London there are about 9,000,000 being issued annually. Calm down dear is his advice. If councils simply follow the law and make no errors Mr Mustard will lose, easy enough surely?

The end but not as more H&F stories to follow. 

Nationwide - well done

 

Mr Mustard took a walk the other day and started by going along the High Street in High Barnet. We are probably all used to the site of defibrillators on our streets now but there was a new box mounted on the wall outside the Nationwide. It was a bleed control kit. Now sad though it is that we need a bleed control kit available to us, it could be useful after a vehicle crash or a fall rather than after an act of violence.

Mr Mustard just wanted to say well done to the Nationwide Building Society for the plan to put both of these outside every one of their 605 stores which will be done by the end of the year.

A costly bank statement

 

Mr Mustard had his attention drawn to this tribunal case by another expert. Both play with a straight bat with the tribunal as anything else would undermine your future credibility. Mr Mustard has accidentally said things which turned out not to be true and if that comes to light he puts his hand up during the hearing to admit he was wrong and to explain why or even in a later hearing with the same adjudicator. That is why his unsupported word as to facts can be accepted.

Not so in this case. One problem for the motorist is that if there were a league table of enforcement authorities and their diligence with PCNs Camden Council would generally be in the top 3.

The initial Appeal hearing did not go well for the motorist (often in the Court system an Appeal is against an earlier Court decision but in PCN circles it is an Appeal against the council's refusal to cancel).

The payment was thought of as a user error. The story could have stopped there with £160 to be paid. The motorist decided to ask for a 'Review'. These are rarely granted as that is how the system is designed because one hearing is proportionate to the penalty at issue. That hearing went badly for the motorist.

A back pedalling motorist isn't a good look. It looks like a narrow escape to me. Camden Council however, had done a lot of work and although costs are, by law, rarely awarded, they had put a lot of work in and wanted a contribution. There therefore had to be yet another hearing and the motorist was still keen to be heard:

The motorist's behaviour was found to be 'wholly unreasonable' which is one of the legal tests, frivolous or vexatious being the others.

Trying to hoodwink an adjudicator is pretty stupid, they do hundreds of PCN Appeals. They also have to be legally qualified and have been so for 5 years before they are eligible to become an adjudicator, they have doubtless assessed lots of evidence during their careers and won't easily be fooled. Just tell the truth and pay your PCN if you are bang to rights.

The end.

Station Parade - Willesden - Unlawful use of cctv

 

Miss B stopped in the taxi bay in mid March 2026. Mr Mustard does not approve of that, not even for a minute. The sign says 'No stopping' so 2 seconds is enough to commit a contravention.

Had Miss B been issued with a PCN by a 'traffic warden' on foot he might have told her that he is too busy with work to assist (which is true, he still has over £5m to collect on his latest work assignment so arguing over your £160/£80 PCN is not a good use of his time at present) but Brent Council sent a PCN by post relying on cctv. Mr Mustard knew that was unlawful and so he acted.

Mr Mustard did three things:

1. He made formal representations against the PCN on 25 March 26. 

2. He made an Information request to find out how long and how much this had been going on.

3. He sent an email to the monitoring officer, the council official who is responsible for ensuring the council follow the law.

#1 For this type of PCN a council must reject representations within 56 days or they have accepted them by default. Mr Mustard checked the on line balance every week or so. On 12 May it was still £80 and the finishing line was fast approaching. On 21 May, day 56, the balance had been set to £zero. Hurrah. Brent did write to Miss B saying they had missed the deadline but that was a tactical move, to not admit they had erred in the first place.

#2. The information was supplied on time.

 

As the error was spotted so quickly by Mr Mustard no PCN had reached the tribunal or a bailiff. 

On the face of it that is only about 3 people a week getting caught, pretty good compliance on the whole. However, the cctv only started on 6 March and ceased on 3 April so that was about 6 motorists a day getting caught. If you are not in a proper London black cab stay out of these bays, they are not for you.

#3. Nothing had come back from this official by mid-June but they may have been off sick, the out of office response not being 100% clear. Someone else should be covering. Mr Mustard was wondering about an email to the Chief Executive when the explanation arrived on 19 June.

This is an excellent response. The council could have acted slightly quicker as Mr Mustard pointed out the grave error on 23 March. Putting that aside the council have still moved reasonably swiftly and most things in councils aren't rapid. They agree with the legal analysis, they have stopped acting unlawfully, they have cancelled all unpaid PCNs and they have refunded all payments received (some of which will be from lease or short term hire companies and those companies should pass on the refund to the client and cancel the administration fee). You cannot ask for much more than that.

Well done Brent Council (they don't like Mr Mustard much as he keeps putting them to the sword at the tribunal but Mr Mustard doesn't care) thank you for your corrective actions.

Miss B had donated to the North London Hospice at the beginning.

The end.

Double trouble

 

Barnet High Street, towards the common, had been left to get in a terrible state with potholes everywhere and lines absolutely worn away. You can't be sure if this is where a bay is meant to be marked or if there is a single yellow line nor where one changes to the other. In such a situation no PCN should be issued but of course it was, to Miss B who takes advantage of free parking when she can.

The receipt of the PCN is unclear, Mr Mustard came to this at the Notice to Owner stage. It was dated 17 February 2026

 

Mr Mustard posted the formal representations off on 24 February. Barnet Council get 56 days, by law, in which to respond.

Come 26 March nothing had been heard in response to the representation, that the lines, whatever they were, were too far gone. What did arrive, and this had never happened before, was a second Notice to Owner, which Mr Mustard felt must be a procedural impropriety which is a guaranteed cancellation at the tribunal:

 

Fortunately Mr Mustard has the ear of a parking manager, even if the manager doesn't like anything arriving in it, but he nearly always reacts very quickly and fixes things which are wrong. Mr Mustard suspected this was a software error at APCOA who had taken over enforcement on 1 December 2025 and just 3 days after the pointed out the unusual event the PCN was zero and Mr Mustard was told the matter was being looked into. 

It can't have been a large number of errors as otherwise more people would have come to Mr Mustard.

The end.