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.

Newham Council - missing manners

 

 

The same road as in the previous blog, this time for Mr H who has probably annoyed Newham Council by persistently parking in free bays and over-turning every single PCN, we are into double figures.

11 July - parked as above, given a PCN.

17 July - Mr H made his own challenge, that there was no sign.

14 August - Newham Council rejected it on the same nonsense basis as in other rejections.

Mr Mustard took over at this juncture. He took a different tack, a complaint, sent to Newham Council in the post, on 17 August. It socked it to Newham Council who get far too few such complaints.

 

 

What happened next? Nothing, it is discourteous and doubtless breaches some council policy on speed of reply but Mr Mustard knew that the council wouldn't want to commit an admission of their unlawful acts to paper so were never likely to answer in any meaningful way. What they did do was to put the PCN on hold and that played into the hands of Mr Mustard. He waited until 14 February and then wrote this:

Suddenly, Newham Council leapt into action and sent a most polite response, probably relieved that this was all over:

Mr Mustard likes to see the PCN value online set to zero so he knows the PCN won't come alive again later on. 

Councils should all respond to complaints about PCNs even though they try to tell you that you should follow the enforcement process but when a council is doing wrong you should both follow the process and tell them what they are doing wrong as the enforcement process does not contain a complaint mechanism.

More people should complain rather than accept bad council behaviour.

Feel free to crib any useful points from what Mr Mustard has written.

The end.

Newham Council - misleading 'Help' offered

 

So here we have Mr M's car in a bay without a sign on 1 August 25. That makes it a free parking bay. As it happens Mr M lives in a different road within Newham which is subject to frequent vandalism of its sign and this road, Holbrook Rd, is one where Mr Mustard has fought a dozen PCN none of which have had to be paid.

Mr M thought he would point out by himself the absence of a sign and not trouble Mr Mustard and so he did this on 4 August 25.

On 3 September Newham Council rejected the informal challenge of which the gist is below:

It is specious.

They accept ('noted') that 'one of the nearest time plates was missing'. They didn't notice that this bay in their traffic order is meant to be 25m long (a resident has illegally repainted the bay in order to get access to their yard) nor that the bay only ever had one sign so once that sign is missing there is no sign.

The car was within a cpz but the zone entry signs only set the times for single yellow lines which don't have their own timeplate and they do not set the time for bays, each of which must have its own sign and may have its own type and times.

There is a legal obligation that every bay must have a sign.

Councils have an obligation to erect and maintain signage so that motorists can find out what the rules are.

Looking at the next sign, or the one on the other side of the road is very bad advice. Image 3 consecutive bays from which the signs have been stolen. Bay #1 is a motorcycle bay, bay #2 is a residents only bay, bay #3 is a bay for blue badge holders. Bay 4 is for people paying to park, the sign is of no use in informing motorists in the other 3 bays what the rules are.

At this point Mr Mustard was instructed.

On 30 September 25 a Notice to Owner was sent but didn't arrive.

On 5 November 25 a Charge Certificate was issued and the balance claimed increased from £160 to £240.

This certificate is misleading nonsense. It does not need to contain reasons 1-3 and Newham Council knew that options 2 & 3 did not apply so why include them? All a charge certificate needs to say is that the penalty has been increased by 50%

The council tell you in bold that you are stuffed.

They then go on in the next paragraph about the County Court in an attempt to frighten the recipient still further. They give you no details about the options which will be available at the Order for Recovery stage which include the ability to roll the process back, get a fresh Notice to Owner and then once more have the right to make representations. Newham Council have been selective in only presenting the bad news.

Laughably they rendered the £10 court fee as zero.

The 'strong advice' which the council give is highly selective and largely biased in their favour and it is no part of Newham Council's role to give out advice on a matter in which they have a financial interest.

Mr Mustard gave advice to Mr M that he should await the Order for Recovery but might get another document first as he was aware of the stunts that Newham pull.

Thus it was on 24 November 25 that Newham Council sent a letter purporting to offer help. Here it is: 

What utter tosh. Newham Council not thinking they could help with the cost of living crisis by cancelling the PCN that they should never have issued.

Mr Mustard decided to have a bit of sport and complete the online enquiry form knowing he would write things that Newham Council didn't want to read.

Mr Mustard only had to wait a few days for a response although it was utterly useless.

Mr Mustard was not amused at the refusal to provide any help so given that Newham Council didn't like his first effort he crafted a much longer and harder hitting enquiry:

Did this result in a reasoned and complete response, no of course not, it received the same standard letter saying Mr Mustard couldn't use the enquiry service in this way.

Mr Mustard waited patiently.  He had put the PCN into the too difficult pile and Newham Council decided to burn £10 and register the PCN as a debt at Northampton County Court which is really just a big filing cabinet for PCNs.

It was on 8 January 26 that Mr Mustard checked online and saw that the balance had increased to £250 so the Order for Recovery had been issued. Without waiting to see it Mr Mustard filed a 'witness statement' which declared that the Notice to Owner had not been received. As the statement was in time the 50% surcharge and the £10 fee were both taken off the online balance.

On 9 February 2026 a fresh Notice to Owner was issued.

On 10 February 2026 the formal representations were made online in the following words: 

The council are under a legal duty to sign a bay.

There is no sign alongside the bay.

The motorist was therefore not on notice of the terms of any traffic order. 

The PCN is too vague. It does not state which of the types of bay is concerned, is it a residents bay or a shared use bay. A motorist is entitled to know exactly what they are accused of, not to have to undertake research. 

The council sent a letter on 24 November which not authorised by the 2022 Appeals or General Regulations and is a procedural impropriety. 

The council's behaviour has been wholly unreasonable and vexatious throughout.

The final line was a clear warning that costs would be applied for if the council rejected the representations and an appeal was necessary to the independent adjudicator.

This time some-one with at least half a brain thought about them as they were accepted and the PCN was cancelled. Their thought process was still flawed and the majority of the acceptance letter was utter tosh and churlish.

Mr Mustard wonders if the council will learn anything from this. Once Mr Mustard decides a PCN is wrong he will fight it all the way to the tribunal and if he does that the council will incur the tribunal fee of c.£32. Newham wasted the £10 in this case for the TEC registration, Mr Mustard did warn them.

The problem, and the reason councils do this, is that many unlawful PCNs get paid, often by lease companies (try not to lease, just buy yourself a smaller older car with a straightforward loan if you can) and so there is no stick to balance out the carrot. If councils issue an unlawful PCN they should have to give the amount of the penalty to the recipient. That would make councils think before they shoot.

The end.