The PCN offside rule is a lot easier to explain than in football circles

 

Mr L, the subject of the blog dated 3 July, also received a PCN when his car was parked here. This was from Redbridge Council in Kenneth More Road. It was an allegation of being parked in a suspended bay. The car was parked by Mrs L but as the car is registered to Mr L he is the liable party.

Mrs L made an informal challenge as the driver, which is perfectly normal, and was rejected, also very common.

Mr Mustard studied the layout and was 99% certain he could beat the PCN as the view of the driver was thus:

In front of the driver is a standard sign with absolutely no indication that parking is suspended. A driver does not have to be clairvoyant, they are entitled to 100% clear signage, a suspension sign should have been mounted on that pole. The sign mounted off to the side on a site barrier isn't likely to be seen.

Mr Mustard made the formal representations. He was unhappy with some of the content on the Redbridge Council website.

That statement above is untrue. A council may disregard (ignore) late representations but statutory guidance of the Secretary of State says late representations should be considered when there is a good reason e.g. you were in hospital for a month so missed the deadline. The word 'cannot' fetters the council's discretion. The council don't mention that if you don't see certain documents, perhaps lost in the post, that there is a procedure to get you back into due process. Scummy behaviour.

A council should never tell you 'Do not challenge' especially with such misleading guidance:

Reasons why Redbridge Council are feeding rubbish to the public:

1     Leaving your vehicle to drop your child at nursery or school, to deliver or collect a parcel, or stop to help someone who has fallen over are all exemptions from the traffic order.

2     The law allows a 10 minute leeway after a period of paid for parking before which you can be given a PCN (as arranged by the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP).

3     It is not illegal to drop off or pick up your kids, a teacher or a parcel.

4     Perhaps they were unclear or wrong.

It is clear that Redbridge Council cannot be trusted.

Mr Mustard PCN wrote the formal representations, the acknowledgment of them contained more innacurate nonsense:

The PCN was already 70 or so days old.

The representation was short and simple:

As your own photos show there was no suspension sign adjacent to the sign saying the bay is for blue badge holders and therefore no reason not to park. Communication of the suspension was inadequate.

Unlike the informal challenge the formal representations were accepted. The council know that if they reject the formal representation they may be met with a tribunal Appeal which will cost them c. £32 and which they are highly likely to lose. That is why you can be rejected at the informal stage and accepted at the formal one with the identical argument.

Nothing had changed. There were always sufficient grounds to cancel. 

Councils, don't trust them. Fight to the end.

Exercise of discretion - must have an open mind

 

Mr Mustard has long thought that enforcement authorities pay lip service to the question of exercising their discretion in favour of the motorist and have used false logic to justify their refusal i.e. that the contravention occurred and therefore they cannot cancel. This is because he has written to councils about circumstances which would make your heart break and yet a faceless employee or contractor rejects such a challenge. Mr Mustard has had some success with this approach but he only uses it when he can't beat the PCN on technical grounds. An adjudicator can't cancel using their own discretion but can consider if an enforcement authority properly exercised their discretion and the following case seems to Mr Mustard to be a fine example of that:

 

 

If you decide to ask a council to use their discretion to cancel, do not mention the alleged contravention at all.

The end. 

Parked by the garage

 

Well done that mechanic, parking your client's car half on the pavement and half off and next to double yellow lines which apply up to the building line thus giving the traffic warden the choice of two easy tickets both of which would be hard to beat.

Of course the garage didn't tell their customer, Mr L, about the PCN, he found out when the Notice to Owner arrived three months later. Luckily the traffic warden chose a third contravention entirely:

For that contravention to take place all of the car needs to be a long way from the kerb, often known as double parked, and on the carriageway. That wasn't the case here. Mr L had been unlucky and lucky all at once.

Mr Mustard wrote the formal representation:

Tower Hamlets didn't dally, they cancelled the PCN fairly quickly. They probably noticed the veiled threat by the use of the words 'wholly unreasonable' and 'vexatious' that the writer was thinking ahead to the tribunal and the costs rules (rarely awarded but this would have been a deserving case.)

After a blog last week about council error, Mr Mustard wrote that councils go wrong 0.1% of the time. A different expert suggested that the real rate is more like 3 - 4% and he may well be correct, Mr Mustard feasts on errors more often than he first thought and he won a tribunal case on the day this blog was advance written as the wrong traffic order was in evidence and as the adjudicator pointed out the traffic warden didn't take a photo of the sign (an error which Mr Mustard had missed but he still had three good arguments and won on the first one).

The end. 

Mind the gap

 

Residents get very precious about 'their' dropped kerb even if they don't have a car, aren't expecting any visitors or planning to go out. They call the council, Barnet in this case, and say they want enforcement and a Civil Enforcement Officer ('traffic warden') duly trots, cycles or scoots round. Inevitably they issue a PCN to appease the resident even if no contravention has occurred.

So it was on 31 March 2026 in Kingsmead, a location Mr Mustard had never heard of even though it is near High Barnet tube and Mr Mustard has lived in New or High Barnet since 1993.

This is what the traffic warden found:

That looks bad but there should always be a photo taken at 90 degrees to the drop so we can be sure as to the position.

The car must be clear of a line drawn across the road from the weed you can see, that is where the taper kerb, which slopes down to meet the carriageway, ends and only if you pass that point are you in contravention.

It would be courteous to leave a larger gap but that isn't a contravention plus the road is wide and quiet, being a cul-de-sac so not dangerous to join. The CEO should not have issued a PCN to this car. If they didn't meekly issue PCNs every time, residents might phone less often.

Miss T made her own informal challenge. It was rejected. She had read Mr Mustard's earlier blog on the subject. Mr Mustard reviewed the rejection, which included this:

Mr Mustard didn't like it. It isn't any (as in all) footway that can be enforced, only in 3 circumstances: vehicle access, for pedestrians to cross the road or access to a cycle lane.

The writer was hallucinating, there is no tactile paving (aka dimpled paving) in the council's photos nor would there be as this is access to a private drive not a place where the blind are advised to cross the carriageway.

Sympathy, my foot.

Mr Mustard occasionally bothers a parking manager with his viewpoint on low standards of work and this was one such case. He pointed out the lack of a contravention and that the back office were just churning out made up rejections.  Three days later Miss T received another letter:

Amazing how, with a dollop of added mustard, the situation can change so quickly.

If you are being badly treated, in addition to following the process and challenging everything at the correct time, start making complaints.

The end. 

 

 

 

Pothole PCNs

 

This width restriction / bus gate has been in Netherlands Road, Oakleigh Park for as long as Mr Mustard can remember. It used to be controlled by a barrier, the mounting box for which still sits in place but it kept being broken and parts had to come from abroad so Barnet Council changed it from a money spending exercise to a money making one by installing a camera.

In December 25, the daughter of a motorist who Mr Mustard only has to help now and then, came to Mr Mustard with a PCN for having driven through the bus gate. She hadn't, she had stuck to the left of carriageway, gone though the width restriction and then veered to the right to avoid the potholes you can see. The cctv didn't know whether she was coming or going and selected the footage for a human being to check and then issue a PCN if deserved. The human being got it wrong.

Mr Mustard challenged the PCN and after a while it got set to £zero.

In March 26 another motorist came to him, with the same problem

Potholes still there, same cctv system, probably the same incompetent human being checking the clips or going off to make tea whilst the footage runs. Same challenge made but this time Mr Mustard also emailed a parking manager, who he bothers occasionally about the worst excesses. he got a same day response as he usually does and the PCN was toast.

As Mr Mustard pointed out to the manager though if a car is short term hired or long term leased the fate of the PCN can be taken out of the hands of the driver and an administration fee be levied to add insult to injury.

Amusingly every time the mother of the first motorist above and Mr Mustard both now veer to the middle of the road as they exit the width restriction (except today when there was a bus going through!). Mr Mustard has driven in that eccentric way 50 times so far. Never a PCN when you want one.

The end. 

 

 

Persistence pays

 

At the end of 2025 Mr Mustard saw a spate of PCNs issued in Brent Street. The reason possibly being even more enthusiasm than usual from Civil Enforcement Officers on the new APCOA contract with Barnet Council.

You can see for yourself how worn out the single yellow has become, worn below the point of 'substantial compliance' a sort of if it walks like a duck test.

Not only that the single sign for this section is hidden by a small but growing tree.

Mrs A parked there and duly received a PCN. She and Mr A are solid supporters of the hospice in their own lives, without getting a PCN.

Mr Mustard made the informal challenge, 5 days after the PCN was placed on the car. It said the line was faded and the sign was hidden, a challenge which had worked on other PCNs. This time it didn't. The nub of the council rejection follows, it took a month because Xmas intervened although it only stops PCNs from being issued for a single day.

Mr Mustard thinks the 'careful consideration' took all of 5 seconds and the writer has rose tinted spectacles which makes badly faded lines 'clearly visible' which isn't the legal test in any event.

To show something isn't concealed you would need to stand next to the car and look up and down the road, it would be better if there were two signs for this line, one at end each so they can't be missed. The sign was legally compliant in terms of content but not for placement.

The final line is a lie, the council can cancel the PCN, they just don't want to, so they should say 'will not'.

The discount was offered again, not easily bribed isn't Mr Mustard.

Mr Mustard's clients knowing the score everyone sat back and waited for the Notice to Owner. It arrived quite quickly, as soon as the discount had expired.

Formal representations, including a classic spelling error, were submitted and were the same as the earlier ones:

 This time the answer was different

 

Magically the council's photos had faded over a 2 month period, that or the person who looked at them knew the game was up and the council were about to lose a c. £32 tribunal fee if they rejected the representation.

That standard line about precedents is stuff and nonsense, if the lines are bad on Monday and not repainted on Tuesday they are still bad.

What this little story tells you is that you shouldn't be put off when any council, not just Barnet, rejects the informal challenge to an on street PCN, as there is a good chance when you make the formal representations in response to the Notice to Owner that they will be given more serious consideration and a cancellation is much more likely to ensue.

Be persistent.

Mr Mustard decides what his arguments are at the start and then straps himself in for the ride to the end of the line. Do likewise. You may lose the case but you will learn a lot and that will make you a better fighter for the next one.

The end.

 

 

Don't be green in yellow boxes

 

This location on the A1 just north of Apex Corner has had cctv installed to monitor the yellow box.

Mr Mustard knows that the car in the top right of the box received a PCN as probably did the car in front and possibly the cars in lanes 3 & 4 as their rear wheels were in the box. You are fine exiting Marsh Lane, it is the drivers coming south who should all stop at the top edge of the box and then only move forward once they can cross the entire box and make an escape but that would make traffic flow worse so we all have to gamble and pay the price if it goes wrong.

If Mr Mustard realised he had erred and was going to be caught if he stopped he would have turned left into Marsh Lane, not done a U-turn until it was allowed (as there is a ban just as you enter Marsh Lane) and then rejoined the A1 south.

Be careful out there.