Desperate for cash - Barnet Council

The owner of the vehicle (a small amount of which is overhanging the yellow box junction) was somewhat surprised to receive a PCN in the post for the alleged contravention of 'Entering and stopping in a box junction when prohibited'.

A heinous crime obviously (not).

What could he have done or what should you do if you encounter this situation?

1    Move forward as the gap to the car in front is huge.

2    Go up the inside lane

3    Turn right (as is an exemption).

Mr Mustard has made representations that any contravention is 'de minimis non curat lex' i.e. a Court (or tribunal) does not concern itself with trifles.

Looked at from above this is a box which is far longer than it needs to be and the mouth of the junction does not need to be that wide as there is a weight limit on the side road so does not need to accommodate huge trucks which means that a narrower entry would slow traffic down and make crossing for pedestrians (Sainsburys are on the corner) much safer.

The change of political control on 5 May 2022 has not softened the ruthless, relentless and venal issuing of Penalty Charge Notices.

The end.

Councils falling out amongst themselves

 

Mr Mustard wonders if the stress on council budgets is so much worse than he realises when councils start falling out amongst themselves over £130 for what was clearly a trivial matter.

Enfield Council should be well aware of the legal doctrine of 'de minimis'

Enfield Council could easily have accepted the formal representations and suggested the Islington driver left a teensy weensy bit more room in future or one of the two parking managers could, after an amicable chat, have given way but instead we have council tax payer money being wasted in two councils whilst one side thrusts and the other parries and then Enfield throw another £30 down the drain to pay for the tribunal time and facilities.

Our low level functionaries aren't giving local government a great reputation by such behaviour.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

School zig zags - do your 3 point turn somewhere else

The above is the council's justification for school zig zags which have in the main been largely respected by the driving public with only 475 PCN having been issued up until May 17.

Mr Mustard wonders why a location, such as at the school in St Joseph's Grove in Hendon (right behind the town hall as it happens) therefore has restricted hours of 8.30am to 4.30pm whereas other schools have 2 or 3 sets of times, corresponding to the likely arrival and leaving times and possibly lunch times for a secondary school if lots of children are likely to be heading out of school. He can't see a need for a restriction at 11am for example.

Mr Mustard's client was unlucky. He was driving along and then realised he needed to go the other way, he pulled up on the zig zags to use the adjoining piece of road to reverse into and at that very moment another car came along and made it dangerous to continue with the manoeuvre so he waited, which made his stop a few seconds long and then the computer controlled cctv nabbed him. You can watch it here

Mr Mustard didn't think that was cricket so yesterday he wrote to parking management as follows, and he eagerly awaits their reply:

If you watch the cctv the car stops in order to reverse into the side turning and then go the other way. This is a perfectly reasonable manoeuvre but one which your camera picked up and then presumably a human being authorised the issue of a PCN. It is necessary to stop in order to reverse direction and normally it would be for a trivial time (de minimis) but in this case the driver very considerately stopped to avoid an accident as a car was approaching and then he reversed a few seconds later.

I agree that technically the vehicle stopped and that is a contravention but it is not the mischief that the zig zags are aimed at, which is parents/guardians/etc dropping off or collecting their children. There isn't a child in the cctv anywhere. I question the need for all day enforcement.

I think this is an unfair PCN and accordingly should be cancelled.

They might or they might not cancel, we'll see. If not, an adjudicator will get to decide the matter later on.

You, dear reader, will learn from this though, won't you?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

It takes 18 months for Ealing Council to do the right thing

The above image is Ealing Council's reverse date order log of all events for one PCN. If you look at the seventh line from the bottom you will see that it is a statutory document which has been returned. The only document issued at that stage was a postal PCN for a bus lane contravention. That should signal a pause in the process whilst the council establishes why the document came back (somewhere between the DVLA and Ealing Council the address got mangled, it was correctly recorded at DVLA). Did it stop the process? did it hell as like. The very next day the council issued the Enforcement Notice (not to be confused with a Notice of Enforcement) which is the bus lane equivalent of a parking Notice to Owner. From 15 October onwards every action taken by Ealing Council was ultra vires, 'beyond their powers', or just plain illegal to you and me, as well as immoral but council parking departments are often a moral free zone.

Mr Mustard's chronology in forward date order is easier to follow:

Following the filing of a witness statement, the council get the chance to reconsider their position and cancel, the smart choice, or to refer the matter to the tribunal. They chose the latter and then got hit with one of Mr Mustard's skeleton arguments, the type of argument which a certain adjudicator has said looks nothing like a skeleton, it being more than bare bones:

At this point many councils recognise they are in for a battle and gracefully withdraw, especially as failure looked inevitable on the PCN service point alone, but no, Ealing Council let the matter go to a hearing. Mr Mustard had 6 hearings that day and didn't expect that disposing of Ealing would slow him down much. The Adjudicator was more than fair to Ealing, who had been given 7 days notice of the skeleton argument so had ample time to respond to it, and he asked them to clarify two points which was too much for Ealing. Finally after 18 months of almost relentless pursuit (a bit of a hiatus in the middle) they withdrew the Appeal which automatically means the cancellation of the PCN.

Late is usually regarded as within 4 days of the hearing.

What a palaver, one which Mr Mustard is never defeated by, he simply reacts properly and in time to every piece of paper.

Ealing Council were bang out of order in continuing to escalate the case after the return of the postal PCN. Just looking at the file at that time would have revealed the address error and they could & should have sent a fresh PCN to the correct address or cancelled (a fresh PCN might have been out of time but that isn't the question today). The way they were headed the matter would have been with the bailiff before long and bailiffs don't listen to not had the PCN stories, they just take your car (generally speaking). Ealing Council are guilty, in Mr Mustard's view, of an abuse of process. What a pity there isn't a regular external audit scheme to check that they are not misusing their powers.

Councils have more power than they can be trusted with.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Proportionality - or, the cost of one small misjudgment?

So you come home from wherever, there is just about enough space in the residents bay for you but because you don't want to crowd the car in front, so you leave a little bit of your own car hanging out the back of the bay. Then you don't move your car. When you see it 5+ days later, it has 2 PCN on it and the council tell you about the other two when you phone up. One PCN is for being outside the bay which is £60 and the other 3 for being on the single yellow, at £110 each.

How many penalties should the motorist have to pay? 1, 2, 3 or 4 or zero?

Mr Mustard advises you to squeeze into the bay even if you only leave the car in front of you a little space, provided they have at least a foot at the front.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard