Lying - Barnet Council policy or just ignorance?

Mr Mustard doesn't, as usual, know if a Barnet Council employee actually wrote the above Notice of Rejection or if an NSL employee did, although formal representations are meant to at the least be decided upon by an employee of the council.

The part that is not the truth is the statement that you cannot board or alight (on a double yellow line) where loading/unloading is banned (as notified by double marks across the kerb stones). It is true that no loading also means no blue badge parking but this wasn't such a case.

What the car owner told the council was that his wife who was driving and was collecting him and two small children left the car in order to help him because he has a disability. That is perfectly proper behaviour. The rules for loading or unloading are different to those for boarding or alighting.

The council set the rules for each section of road. This is what they say about boarding and alighting.

The passenger was disabled and therefore as long as necessary is allowed for the purpose of boarding.

How do Barnet Council not know about their own Traffic Management Order? They should have known, particularly in this case, as the formal representations included this huge clue

Needless to say an Appeal is now being made to the independent adjudicator at London Tribunals. Costs can be awarded in cases where the council has been wholly unreasonable. The bar is set very high but ignoring the exemption in your own traffic order may well be seen to be.

Thus in this case Mr Mustard comes to the conclusion that ignorance can be no excuse. It looks like a cynical and deliberate refusal to accept the obvious.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard


 

PCNs - due adjustment

LGO report 17 019 196 by MisterMustard on Scribd

Mr Mustard found the above decision on the LGO website which he takes a look at from time to time. He has previously been critical of the LGO for not having teeth but they have bared them to Southwark and the decision is of application to every PCN issuing enforcement authority within England.

The entire report is well worth reading in full but if you are short of time Mr Mustard draws your attention to the critical elements on page 11

Mr Mustard considers that the PCN should tell you that if you cannot write in for any reason that you can telephone in order to make your challenge. In Barnet he suggests that until such time as Barnet catch up with this decision you should telephone 0208 359 7446 explain your disability and say that you want to make a representation by telephone in line with the LGO's decision. If you get a refusal that may well ultimately be enough to get an adjudicator at London Tribunals to cancel the PCN although given the difficulties with challenging you may not get that far as you are unable to write, without help, within the deadlines.

Mr Mustard has previously tried to use a council's failure to offer due adjustment as a point of Appeal to an adjudicator but has been rebuffed on the grounds that written representations and the Appeal were done on time (which was only because Mr Mustard did them and he cannot help every single person) which is a Catch 22 response. If the person with the disability fails to write on time they get timed out of the process. If they get someone else to write for them (assuming they can get help) they have followed the system so all is well. The question of prejudice is irrelevant. The council must offer due adjustment to every motorist as they do not know when they issue a PCN if the motorist suffers from a disability or not.

You should add the failure to offer due adjustment to every challenge that you make regardless of whether or not you have one. This way the council may act sooner.

The LGO's decision is very pleasing. The government is forcing more of the population to do everything using the Internet which contradicts the Equality Act legislation hat they themselves made law. Perhaps this decision will tip the playing field back to a level status?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

An abysmal rejection

It was dark and wet in the Golders Green Road, the motorist missed the wide yellow line which is a clue that you might be in a bus stop. An understandable error rewarded with a PCN for £110. A copy of the PCN was sent to Mr Mustard. Hold on he said, the PCN says you were stopped in Russell Gardens, so the PCN is a nullity for want of an accurate location. Make the challenge on line and tell the council you were not in Russell Gardens and when they see you are correct they must cancel (a fine theory). 

Here is the representation, as made:

Kindly note that the alleged parking contravention did not take place as the road stated on the ticket does not have any bus stops. 

You have already guessed what happened next, yes the council rejected the representation. Here it is.

The letter starts with an untruth 'we have considered carefully'.

Firstly many Barnet residents will already have said to themselves that there isn't a bus stop in Russell Gardens because buses do not go down that road.

The council (and most probably NSL staff in Dingwall who are the processing back office) could have looked at the longitude and latitude of the camera at the time that the pictures were taken. That would have provided the location very precisely. Clearly they didn't do so.

The member of staff could also have looked at their own publicly reviewable records which now most helpfully provide a dropped pin of the approximate location. Clearly they didn't do that either.

 They could also have looked at google maps for Russell Gardens

where the red pin is and noted the absence of bus stops (the blue bus symbol). Clearly that third opportunity to verify the accuracy of the challenge was not taken.

What did the council do?

They issued a rejection letter with a standard templated wording.

What didn't they do?

Actually consider whether there was a bus stop in Russell Gardens or not.

Luckily the motorist has Mr Mustard's knowledge, experience and determination to see the PCN out.

They will though now have to wait and worry for the Notice to Owner to arrive and then go through the challenge process for a second time with no guarantee that the council will look at the second challenge any more seriously than the first one.

They may also have to make an Appeal to London Tribunals to get this matter put to rest.

It is a shockingly abysmal state of affairs that the council, whether via their agents NSL or not, rejected a perfectly valid challenge.

It can't be their addiction to revenue can it that has blinded them to reason?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Update 6 November 2019: Mr Mustard told parking senior management of the error and logic and common sense have now prevailed and the PCn has been cancelled.

Consultations by government

Electronic Collar Manufacturers v SS for Environment 24 Oct 2019 by MisterMustard on Scribd

The consultation process has a chequered history in Barnet and Mr Mustard thought you might find the above judgment of interest if you are looking at any consultation that Barnet Council decide upon in the future. It is a long read, there being 222 paragraphs, but Mr Mustard thinks you can skip some of it and he suggests you focus on paragraphs 3, 18, 27 and then read from 139 to the end but by all means read it all if you like this sort of thing.

The summary at para 27 is a good outline to have in your mind from the off.

Enjoy this bedtime reading. If you think Barnet Council have failed in any future consultation please consult a solicitor who is an expert in local government law.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Sainsbury's - North Finchley

Last week Mr Mustard's alter ego had to pay a cheque into a Lloyds bank account for his work. There is no longer a Lloyds bank in High Barnet. He chose therefore to use the North Finchley branch. He thought he would park in Sainsbury's, do the banking and do some shopping at the same time. He needed milk, light bulbs, napkins, loose tea and he would probably have picked up some other items (red wine, always red wine on his shopping list) as he walked around the store.  It used to be the case* that you could park and leave within 2 hours without any fuss. Not any longer. Now you have to faff about paying £2 and then getting it back in store.

Guess what happened next? Yes, as soon as he saw the payment signs Mr Mustard drove straight out of the car park and parked on the edge of the cpz for free, walked to the bank and back, the exercise having done him good, and he bought what he wanted at his local Waitrose once home. Regular shoppers are probably going to get bored with wasting 5 or 10 minutes of their life lending Sainsbury's £2 each week for an hour and some will start shop elsewhere.

What else did Mr Mustard notice on a Wednesday morning at 09:40?

There were fewer than a dozen cars in the Sainsbury's car park.

When sales drop and stay dropped expect things to change.

If you can't live without Sainsbury's you will find that the New Barnet store does not have this rigmarole and has the same two hours free parking limit. It also contains an Argos which is quite handy and was very efficient when Mr Mustard used it last weekend, it being on his route.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

* possibly longer ago than Mr Mustard recalls.

Bins - as you were

Advance notice surely, not advanced?

One of the drivers for changing the bin rounds a year ago was to save money by getting rid of Saturday collections and thereby make a saving on overtime. Almost a year later the 'teething troubles' are still ongoing not helped by a collapsing depot. To reduce the pressure on the depot by having fewer vehicle movements each day Saturday working is being reintroduced on certain rounds.

This will, of course, lead to increased staff costs and the planned savings from the bonkers big bang changes of 4 November 2018 are yet to be achieved.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Barnet Council - serious breach of duty of full and frank disclosure to a Court

In the matter of JDO by MisterMustard on Scribd

Mr Mustard draws your attention to the Important notice at the top of the written decision of Her Honour Judge Hilder. Mr Mustard does not know who the parties are and does not seek to know. If you know, tell no-one and don't publish any names or addresses. You could get in seriously hot water for contempt of court which carries the risk of an unlimited fine or up to two years in prison.

Mr Mustard has reproduced this decision which is public as it may help others to stand up to Barnet Council if they are not behaving as they should in any other legal matter.

The whole decision has been reproduced verbatim. Mr Mustard has carefully read it and notes the following points in particular, using the decision's paragraph numbers:

'the Applicant' = London Borough of Barnet

3 - the Applicant demonstrated a serious beach of the duty of full and frank disclosure 

(in contrast at the tribunal last week when the Adjudicator picked the dvd out of the evidence bag she found it was broken, as a number had been for Harrow Council recently. Rather than let her adjourn the hearing for another dvd to be supplied Mr Mustard volunteered his own copy even though it proved the contravention had occurred and he then lost).

8 - this application was 6 months late (Barnet Council's application)

11 - when we try to contact social service's (sic) about this we contact the office and we get no reply on ringing us back who looking after my son.

35 - Barnet Council are accused of 'a lack of insight, even with the benefit of hindsight' (ouch)

48 - the Applicant's scope of consultation argument is misconceived.

49 - the Applicant's subjective view argument is a fundamental misunderstanding of the duty of full and frank disclosure. If it were to be up to the Applicant to determine whether a view which differs from its own is valid and therefore to be brought to the attention of the court or not, the duty of disclosure would be neither full nor frank.

51 - I do not accept that JDO's placement ....in November 18, could reasonably have been considered by the Applicant as non-contentious.

52 - the review process is not a rubber-stamping exercise

53 - In my judgment, the information available to the Local Authority by November 2018 strongly indicates that there should have been doubt.

54 - In my judgment, it is not appropriate for the body with consultation obligations to 'present' OD with a pre-prepared statement.

In this matter it amounts to a breach of the duty of full and frank disclosure.

56 - However, having received a response which was not the Applicant's liking, the Applicant then failed to put the result of the consultation before the court fully or indeed at all.

Thereafter, the Applicant went to extraordinary lengths to seek to avoid the Official Solicitor's participation in proceedings, including apparently choosing an alternative solicitor for JDO.

57 - The very real consequence of the Applicant's approach was delay and a longer period of unauthorised deprivation of JDO's liberty.

Clearly this is a difficult matter but Barnet Council have fallen woefully short of the standard of behaviour required of a public body. Hopefully they will learn from this decision and change their ways by improving their consultation approach and fulfilling their duty of full and frank disclosure to the court.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard