Leaves on the lines

There are a lot of leaves on the ground at the moment, Barnet being so rich in trees, and this can lead to people thinking they have parked where there aren't lines, when there are.

The same goes for snow.

What the public are entitled to is clear information as to where a restriction starts and ends and what it is. This can be conveyed, since 2016, by signs or lines or both (a different road surface can be used to demarcate a restricted area nowadays, with Camden making great use of this near the British Museum).

The above car received a PCN as he found the lines to not be clear enough but as Mr Mustard could clearly see a yellow line both in front and behind the car he suggested not going to the tribunal as he expected the motorist to lose. Adjudicators take different views on this question and it is one within their factual judgment. Here is one such decision which Mr Mustard thinks is a bit harsh, there is nothing in the law that says motorists have to carry a broom with them:

On the other hand, Mr Mustard has a decision in which the Adjudicator said that if the council want to enforce in the snow, they need to clear the roads first. Here it is:

should read 'not visible'

Snow may have melted away between the time when the car was parked and when the traffic warden came along later (although Mr Mustard thinks they should not be sent out in the snow and ice for their own personal safety).

There have been a few frosty mornings. Occasionally Mr Mustard's girlfriend, who lives outside of a cpz, forgets to obtain a visitor parking voucher from him to display in the windscreen and then suddenly remembers at about 9 on a Saturday morning, an hour after the zone has started. So far the luck has been on her side and she has not been ticketed. One morning Mr Mustard looked out of the loft room window at the cars parked in the street and noted that all the windscreens were frosted over. That isn't a problem for residents vouchers as they are now electronic but for cardboard scratch off visitor vouchers and blue badges, they won't be visible after a hard frost and the traffic warden isn't likely to clear your screen for you. Logic, reasonableness and common sense would be that they have to walk on but no, Mr Mustard will bet you a pound to a penny that he will soon be dealing with cars displaying a visitor voucher, that have a frosted windscreen and a PCN tucked under the wiper blade, if it can be prised off the glass.

In fact, here is one of Mr Mustard's successes from 2012

Now Mr Mustard believes in playing with a straight bat and telling the truth but if traffic wardens are to start going about giving out patently unfair tickets when they don't have the grounds to believe a contravention had occurred, as they can't see if there is a voucher on display or not, then he won't be surprised if residents start saying there was a visitor voucher on display when there wasn't, as the council will not be able to disprove that assertion. Sauce for the goose and all that.

Let's see if Mr Mustard's inbox sees any of this type of unfair PCN landing in it.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

No thaw in relations from Barnet Parking

By Kabelleger / David Gubler

Mr Mustard didn't have to wait long before he was asked to advise about a snow related PCN issued to a resident who thought, from memory, that they were parked within a bay on the next road to their own. It turns out they were slightly outside it but given that the whole road was snow covered when they parked they cannot be criticised for being slightly outside the bay, which is what the PCN was for.

This PCN was issued just after 11am on Wednesday 13 December. The road in question, a quiet cul-de-sac, had not been gritted. It is evident from the snow on the pavement that traffic wardens should not be sent out by management in these conditions.

Barnet Council keep worrying about the reasons why residents are unhappy with the performance of the parking department. It won't take a report by an external consultant to tell them that if you send traffic wardens out to ticket cars which have been parked as well as possible in the snow, or even abandoned and not yet collected (we can't all drop everything the minute the snow goes), that the public are rightly going to feel hard done by. Yes, the ticket can be challenged, but motorists should not be put through unnecessary processes.

What should the council do? They should send traffic wardens out, suitably equipped, to grit the pavements and not send them out to issue PCNs until at least 24 hours after all pavements are 99% clear of snow throughout the borough. Anything else looks like profiteering from the council's own failure to properly grit the borough, which shocking story you can read at the Broken Barnet blog here.

Mr Mustard will take this PCN all the way to the tribunal. He has a decision in which an adjudicator says that if councils want to issue PCN they must clear the snow first.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Update 28 February

The informal challenge, the one in response to the PCN, said the snow prevented the end of the bay from being visible but the council rejected it, as Mr Mustard suspects they reject almost all informal challenges as the council know from experience that people have busy lives and can't be fagged with going through 3 rounds of the battle. Mr Mustard's friend could be bothered.

When the Notice to Owner arrived the resident penned an excellent formal representation, as follows:

I believe that PCN AG12345678 should be cancelled for the following reason:

Vehicle AB12CDE was parked in Sunset View on Sunday 10th December 2017 during a period of heavy snowfall. Sections of the M25 were closed due to the unprecedented amount of snow that had fallen.

Sunset View had not been cleared or gritted and the road was covered in thick snow. The road markings of the CPZ were completely obscured by the snow. This can still be seen on the photographs taken on 13th December. Sections of the road markings are still obscured by the snow/ice and the volume of snow can be appreciated by the pile visible on the pavement.

The car was parked in the parking bay close behind another vehicle, close to the curb.  No obstruction to other vehicles or property was caused.

I was unable to safely move the car prior to 13th December as Sunset View was unsafe for vehicles due to the icy conditions which followed the snow.  The first day on which this was possible was 13Dec. Upon returning to the car on that day I was very surprised to find that a PCN had been issued given that it was obvious that the car had been parked on thick snow and was just marginally outside of the bay marking.

I live within a CPZ area (the next street) and understand why PCNs are issued, but cannot understand why the operative did not use common sense.

Feel free to crib any parts of the representation after changing the references and locations to meet your actual circumstances.

The council, recognising the tone of a determined motorist who was going to take them to the tribunal, which would cost the council £30 they would not see again, gave up.

Note how the power crazy council still want the motorist to think they were in the wrong and the council have kindly used their discretion to cancel. No the cancellation was based upon the facts, that the PCN was unsustainable.

Given the current snowfall traffic wardens will doubtless be out there trying to trap other motorists. Don't stand for it, fight them all the way to the tribunal.

Mr Mustard

FOI all over the place & records destroyed rather early?

Back in September 12, before Barnet Council lost their rag somewhat with Mr Mustard and made question after question vexatious, he was helping a friend who had received a parking ticket in the snow (it has now been cancelled by the independent adjudicator) Mr Mustard started to muse upon the enforcement pattern during times of snow. The safety of traffic wardens ought to be put before the council's grubby revenue gathering. Thus, he sent in the above question.

Here is the answer he received.

This answer was given in deployed hours rather than shifts which was probably because shift lengths varied and so that was sensible. However the average PCNs per deployed CEO was of no use at all as the number of deployed CEO (traffic wardens) was not stated. Mr Mustard asked for clarification in September 12.

Thank you for the reply which doesn't quite answer my question which was the number of PCN issued each day although is helpful as the CEO were not working similar length shifts by the looks of it so the number of hours worked is a better measure.

Could you please also supply the number of PCN issued each day as originally requested.

In January 13 he wrote the following:

I note that an answer to this email remains outstanding. Please now provide an answer as soon as possible.

The council's response was:

Thank you for your request for a review of the civil enforcement officer shifts received on 14 January 2013. I’m sorry to hear that you are unhappy with the council’s response to your information request.

We will now conduct an internal review.

Did Mr Mustard ask for an internal review? not really. He simply pointed out the failure to answer the original question. A response to the question would have sufficed.

The review arrived. The first part surprised Mr Mustard, a former payroll manager.

We are unable to provide this information regarding the number of shifts worked by Civil Enforcement Officers during the period specified as those records were not retained following the transfer the Parking Service on 01/05/2012.

Why not? If there was any query about hours paid then it could not be answered. It is normal to keep payroll backup records for at least a year and preferably 3 (certain records have to be kept longer in case of government inspection). Mr Mustard thought that the records would have been kept in the SAP system and there was no good business reason to destroy them. Doubtless this was a breach of the council data protection policy.

The second part of the answer was:

Mr Mustard looked at the numbers supplied and thought it odd that the number of PCNs issued was remarkably similar to the number of deployed hours and in some cases identical. He didn't believe for one moment that traffic wardens only issue 1 parking ticket per hour so he guessed that Barnet Council had, once again, erred. The answer should have failed the sniff test, it was self evidently and glaringly wrong. Mr Mustard asked for the review to be reviewed. The council responded in due course.

Thank you for your email, and my apologies for the delay in replying.

I have asked the service area to double check the figures they provided and their answer is as follows:

I can confirm that the PCN numbers cited in the email below is correct. This was obtained from a report from the Civica system. There was an error in the previous email where the PCN numbers were incorrectly calculated as being deployed hours. We are unable to provide actual figures pertaining to deployed hours as these are no longer available to us as a result of the transfer of the service.

Therefore the information provided to you in the Internal Review was correct and the previous information provided in the original FOI response was incorrect. I can reiterate the previous apologies for this error. ("I can" is pretty feeble as apologies go because it doesn't say that you do reiterate the apologies.)


I trust that this resolves this issue. 

The "issue" isn't really resolved. Mr Mustard still has no idea what happens about parking enforcement when it snows. Next time it snows he will get his questions in before it thaws.

Barnet Council wonder why they are on the naughty step at the Information Commissioner. Given the speed and quality of their answers, one can't be surprised.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The things bloggers think of

Last week Mr Mustard was talking to one of his neighbours over the usual cup of tea about, of all things, snow. Mr Mustard thought he would check whether the road in which he lives had been upgraded as requested in February because of its proximity to a library, a church hall and a shopping centre and because it is on a slope. That means it should be graded priority 2 which has been agreed.

Thank you Roger at the Barnet Eye

Roger wrote about snow in 2010. Here

Barnet Council has 3 gritting priorities. Priority 3 is the lowest priority and means, in effect, that you won't see a snow plough, unless it is lost.

Priority 2 is for Carriageways and footways in the vicinity of Shopping Centres, Railway Stations, Hospitals, Public Buildings and Schools. Cul-de-sacs with steep gradients. It should be emphasised that Priority 2 roads are treated only in times of heavy snow and only after Priority 1 routes have been treated and found to be clear.

Here is a list of Priority 2 roads

Grit Priority 2 2010 - Barnet Council

Priority 1 is for

main commuter routes and Bus Routes. These total 238 km or 35 % of the network and have been split into 8 routes. Carriageways on these highways are pre-treated with grit (rock salt) when ice or frost may form. Gritting is normally carried out at night, starting when the evening traffic peak is over. In times of snow, Priority 1 routes will be gritted first and until these routes are found to be safe and running, treatment of Priority 2 routes will not commence.

Here is a list of them

Grit Priority 1 2010 Barnet Council

Barnet residents will generally recognise the main roads of Barnet. If you were to look in the right hand column you would find Essex Park N3.

Is it a bus route?; not according to google maps or TFL.

Is Essex Park a main commuter route? no, it is a little side road.

Does the Cabinet Member for the Environment live in this road? Yes he does!

His environment will be OK then. Taxis will be able to get in and out OK.

Of course, this is just a mistake, an unfortunate co-incidence, a typing error on the list. Right.

First stop, Essex Park ?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard