Nutsville explain about parking tickets on private land

As you know Mr Mustard helps people with their Barnet Council parking woes and the appeal process. When friends get a private parking ticket he simply tells them to throw it in the bin. Here in this guest blog by Nutsville, visit their website for this particular post here (on Mr Mustard's visit to the home page all of the youtube clips played at once which is an assault on ones ears and he will mention it to the anonymous author of Nutsville) and then why not look back through their other very interesting and accurate blog posts.

Solicitor (S): Good morning Mr Weasel. What can I do for you today?

Parking Weasel Ltd’s Chairman (PWC): I would like to get my hands on the money Nutsville owes me for overstaying in a private car park where me and my company run the parking enforcement.

S: Ok. Just a couple of questions. Are you or your company the land owner?

PWC: No.

S: Do you have permission from the land owner to enforce on their land?

PWC: Yes

S: Do you have a contract with the land owner that establishes their loss?

PWC: It’s not their loss I’m worried about, it’s mine. That Nutsville bloke took me through the whole of that poxy Popla procedure, which incidentally cost me £27 + VAT that I will never see again, and even though his appeal was disallowed by Popla and he was ordered to pay me, he is now ignoring me and telling me that I should sue him in the courts to recover my money.

I’ve sent him loads of letters with BIG, RED SCARY WRITING on, and he still insists that I need to sue him. What I want to know is, now I’ve got my Popla judgment, why can’t I just register it with the court like the local authorities do with their Patas and TPT judgments, and then send my bailiff mates round to threaten him with menaces and make him cough up?

S: Unfortunately for you, Mr Nutsville is right. I will explain. You see, the ADJUDICATORS at Patas and the TPT draw their powers to make judgments on parking issues fom the Traffic Management Act 2004. Under that Act they can effectively make the equivalent of a judgment that a county court judge might make in civil proceedings. It is these equivalent county court judgments that are then registered with the county court (the TEC in Northampton) and which makes them enforceable, normally by way of sending the bailiffs round.

However, no such powers devolve from any Act of Parliament when it comes to Popla. Therefore the Popla ASSESSORS, (who incidentally the No To Mob have found out are actually 4 law students doing a bit of moonlighting) cannot order you to do anything. If someone like Mr Nutsville loses an appeal to Popla there will be a decision that says something like “In order to avoid any further action by the operator, payment of the £80 parking charge SHOULD be made within 14 days.

PWC: That’s right! That’s exactly the decision we got from Popla in the Nuts case, but he won’t pay up and insists I take him to court. So what exactly did I pay all that money to Popla for then?

S: Well nothing really. You see any Popla decision in the operator’s favour isn’t worth the paper it’s written on because it cannot be enforced in a court of law, either against Mr Nutsville, or anyone else come to that. However, if Popla had allowed Mr Nutsville’s appeal then you, like every other BPA Ltd operator in the Approved Operator Scheme, have no other right of appeal and you are bound by the decision of the law student that gave it.

PWC: So basically, what you’re saying is that Popla is just a smoke screen put up by the BPA Ltd in the hope that we can bully people into paying up, and that it has no real power?

S: That about sums it up.

PWC: So what did I pay £27 + VAT for then?

S: Perhaps you should ask the BPA Ltd about that. But anyway, all is not lost. You can still sue Mr Nutsville in the county court provided you can prove you have incurred a loss.

PWC: Now you’re talking! How do I do that then?

S: Well since you are not the land owner, you have to have a contract in place that proves that the land owner has lost money as a result of breaching the contract Mr Nutsville entered into with the land owner when he agreed to pay a Parking Charge for overstaying in the land owner’s car park.

PWC: And for those of us who speak English?

S: (Sigh). Right. Let’s break this down. Who is the landowner?

PWC: Morritesclidainsbury

S: Do you have a contract with them to enforce parking on their land?

PWC: Yes

S: In short, what are the terms of that contract?

PWC: They let my company dish out as many tickets as we want, then we get to keep most of the profits, and give them the rest.

S: In that case you can’t sue Mr Nutsville.

PWC: Why not?

S: Because you have no loss.

PWC: There you go with that bloody “loss” thing again! I’ve told you, I’VE LOST EIGHTY BLOODY QUID!!!

S: Who did you lose it to?

PWC: I keep telling you. Nutsville!

S: And how did you lose it to him?

PWC: Right! Well he came to the car park and arrived at 11.00am. He admits he read our signs which say that there is free parking for one hour and that if he stays longer he will contract with my company to pay an £80 Parking Charge. Nutsville stayed until 12.30pm and we are now enforcing that contract.

S: So far, so good. Now, if you want to sue Mr Nutsville for recovery in the county court you have to prove in your claim that you have actually lost something. You can’t have lost anything because you are not the landowner. Only the land owner can say they have lost something. You have lost nothing so you can’t sue Mr Nutsville. QED.

PWC: What about if I take him to court anyway, cos I still reckon Nutsville owes me under the contract terms?

S: (Sigh). Ok. Where’s your “genuine pre estimate of loss”.

PWC: There you go with all that legal mumbo jumbo again. What are you on about now?

S: Have you read the BPA Ltd’s code of practice?

PWC: Course I have! I had to sign up to it before I could get access to the DVLA database, which is where I get all those lovely vehicle keeper’s details which allow me to send my scary debt collection agency and solicitor’s letters with BIG, RED SCARY WRITING on.

S: Then because you have read it, you will know that at rule 19.5 of the code of practice it says “If the parking charge that the driver is being asked to pay is for a breach of contract or act of trespass, this charge must be based on the genuine pre-estimate of loss that you suffer.” Obviously the BPA Ltd are aware of this issue or they wouldn’t have put it in their code of practice and then make you sign up to it. So I repeat, where’s your “genuine pre estimate of loss”?

PWC: I dunno. Maybe we ain’t got one.

S: Oh dear! It would seem that YOU are the one in trouble then. I have just proved to you that you cannot prove that you have suffered a loss, and yet the BPA Ltd have made you sign up to the BPA Ltd code that says you have genuinely estimated a figure of £80 as your provable loss. If the DVLA find out about this you will be struck off immediately.

PWC: What! Do the BPA Ltd know about this!?!?

S: Well obviously they do, otherwise they wouldn’t have covered their backs by putting it in their code of conduct. Wait a minute though! There is something the BPA Ltd and you could do to remedy this.

PWC: Please, please tell me what it is. I can’t lose my livelihood.

S: Well I can’t say that it will save your livelihood, but it might help save other BPA Ltd members from making the same mistakes as you.

PWC: Well I do have a load of mates in the industry, so if there is anything I can do to help them, I’m sure it would be much appreciated.

S: In that case, this is what you do. You fess up to the BPA Ltd that you have made a mistake, and tell them that you are trying to rectify it. I hear the No To Mob have a few good ideas about this and that they are already advising some other BPA Ltd members about setting up an alternative to the BPA Ltd. You will have to take your medicine, and hope that because you have owned up, the DVLA will allow you to access the database again once you have cleaned up your act.

PWC: Ok. What then?

S: Then you lobby the BPA Ltd and ask them to invoke their powers to audit each of its members in order to establish whether they have a proper and genuine pre estimate of loss. They could do this by invoking rule 19.8 of their code of practice which states: “If you are asked, you must be able to justify the level of parking charges to the AOS Board, a member of our compliance team or to their specified agent.”

PWC: But what if the auditors find out that none of the BPA Ltd’s members can prove a loss? What happens then?

S: Well then the BPA Ltd would have to report this to the DVLA, and they would have no choice but to suspend any offenders from using their database.

PWC: But why didn’t the BPA Ltd warn me about this? What am I paying them for?

S: Those are questions for the BPA Ltd Mr Weasel, not for me.

PWC: Well how about I let Nutsville off, but continue to send out tickets to others in the full knowledge that some of them won’t be as smart as Nutsville and will pay up under threat of issuing court proceedings, even though I know that I can’t ever bring a successful prosecution in a court of law?

S: My professional opinion is that if someone were to find out, then such behaviour could very possibly be classified as committing a fraud and that you and others could end up going to prison, or at the very least paying a hefty fine.

PWC: Yeh, but you can’t tell them what advice you’ve given to me because of solicitor client privilege, so I can have plausible deniability for a while at least.

S: That’s true, but you have forgotten one thing. What if the BPA Ltd do a proper audit of your books and discover that you don’t have a genuine pre estimate of loss?

PWC: Are you ‘avin a laugh pal!?!? Why would they ever do that when they know that what they might find could result in the vast majority of its members being suspended, possibly permanently, both from the BPA Ltd and from using the DVLA database. Nah mate. Just send me your bill and keep your mouth shut. We just have to hope that Nutsville doesn’t get wind of this, or we’re all up a shit creek without a paddle.

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Three cheers for Nutsville and their fab work.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Parking outsourcing - innocent favouritism ?

Barnet Council don't have a permanent head of parking. Perhaps this is because they think that once the service has been privatised they won't need one. Mr Mustard thinks they will need one more than ever. Below and left there is a copy and paste of the linked-in page of the Interim Head of Parking.

He is ready for a new challenge. But Barnet's parking service is in a right mess Mr McArdle. Shouldn't you stay and sort that out before you drive off to new pastures ?

Who is that former employer of yours? National Car Parks. What are they called now ? NSL isn't it? It is always hard to keep up with corporate life but part of NCP became NSL, see here.

Now who are in the running to provide parking enforcement services to Barnet Council but NSL.

Sadly Mr Mustard does not seem to find the time these days to meditate ( the worst possible sin of a meditator ) but he does remember from his days of practising Transendental Meditation that you had to clear your mind and yet still think of your mantra ( Barnet Council councillors and staff have to repeat One Barnet is Good over and over again ) and the way that one did this was to "innocently favour" the mantra.

Now Mr Mustard has never met Mr McArdle and he has no reason to think that he is anything other than an honest man but Mr Mustard does rather think that Mr McArdle will find it difficult to do anything other than to innocently favour NSL. It would be better if Mr McArdle were not involved in the evaluation of the company which will supply parking services to Barnet.

Cllr Coleman has enthused about Westminster's cashless parking. Let us hope that he is aware of the shortcomings of their contractor's performance, by, yes you guessed, NSL.

Please see Nutsville's excellent blog on the subject.


NSL don't seem to understand rules. See this in the Standard.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Guest blog from Nutsville.com

It seems that other blogs have an even better handle on Barnet Council than Mr Mustyard who is such a slacker that he took 5 days off and all hell broke loose and so he can do no better than reprodocue the blog from nutsville.com who feature as one of Mr Mustard's favourite blogs.

Barnet Council told to withdraw parking services tender or face EU Commission investigation

Brian Coleman

Shameless expense claimant Barnet’s very own Brian Coleman, who became infamous for boasting that his council never knowingly undercharges for parking has been caught by Nutsville investigators illegally pushing through a lucrative contract deal.

In a forced through decision Brian Coleman has managed to breach Barnet Councils Constitution, break the Public Contract Regulations 2006 directly violate EU public procurement law leaving Barnet taxpayers facing having to pay more for their services than they do now.

Coleman was branded a bully boy by his own Tory backbenchers when last August he used delegated powers to continue using Paypoint’s Verrus subsidiary to provide a borough wide Pay-by-Phone service. (Download delegated powers report here) Concerns were raised by fellow Councillors that with all of the boroughs pay and display machines being ripped out there would be no adequate alternative for motorists who either could not or would not pay using a mobile phone and credit card.

But Coleman had never made a secret of his intention to follow Westminster Council’s lead by going down the cashless parking road when in October 2010 he said “We are going completely cashless. It’s a common sense modern approach to parking. It works perfectly well in Westminster”. Coleman is in such admiration of Westminster Council’s pay-by-phone cashless parking model that he’s even forced his council to use the same contractor as Westminster, Verrus.

Great fanfare was made about how going cashless would save Barnet taxpayers money. But by not seeking the best fees for its outsourced services it will end up costing taxpayers more, a lot more. Alarm bells sounded when Coleman sneaked the contract award through when many of Barnet’s councillors were on holiday.

In 2008 Barnet Council undertook a trial between two pay-by-phone companies just in their car parks. The costs involved were of minimal value so did not exceed the EU threshold to trigger a tendering exercise.  In 2009 Barnet decided they were going to go with Verrus and awarded them a low value contract in accordance with their procurement code. That contract was for two years, supposedly ending in March 2011. 

In June 2010 Barnet had rolled out pay-by-phone on to the streets of Barnet, making the contract more lucrative to Verrus.  But from around March this year payments from Barnet to Verrus really shot up as the Council took out more of its pay and display machines, leaving Verrus as the only game in town for motorists.

From March until August this year Barnet Council have paid Verrus more than £86,000, which would put their projected spend at over £200,000 expressly in violation of EU legislation and the EU threshold limit of £156,000. Brian Coleman must have been aware he was acting illegally as he even went against Barnet’s own Contract Procedure Rules (page 129 Table 5-2 Acceptance thresholds for contract extensions and variations Greater than £156,422 Authority must be sought).

You would have though that over two years would have been long enough for  Barnet Council to have done a proper legal fair tendering process for the Pay-by-Phone contract, unless they didn’t want to for some reason. Coleman even allowed Verrus to operate in Barnet without any contract in place as their original contract expired in March of this year (2011).

Now Coleman is tendering for a consortium to outsource the whole of the parking service, in the meantime allowing Verrus to continue invoicing Barnet until Coleman’s new super contract worth upwards of £25M is awarded. The new super contract described as a framework contract is asking for a group of up to five operators to form a consortium with one operator acting as lead operator dealing directly with Barnet Council.

The problem with tendering for a consortium instead of say putting out individual services as lots, is that it favours just one economic operator, Verrus. Other pay-by-phone providers don’t have relationships with parking enforcement contractors such as NSL for example, who just happen to provide parking enforcement for Westminster Council, along side Verrus.

Questions need to be asked as to why Brian Coleman is favouring this particular provider. Nutsville understands this matter is to be brought to the attention of the District Auditor and the Efficiency Reform Group of the Cabinet Office formerly the Office of Government Commerce.

The OJEU tender notice 2011/S 67-109281 published on 4th April 2011 for the outsourced parking services is in direct violation of EU public procurement law and Nutsville understands if this notice is not cancelled a complaint will be lodged with the EU Commission.

What Coleman should have done to avoid being caught with his pants round his ankles is to have tendered for a pay-by-phone provider under the normal EU process and then done a separate tendering exercise for the parking enforcement contract.