22 February 2020

Saracens zone / Barnet Council / signing scandal

The independent tribunal which may ultimately decide the fate of a contested PCN is obliged to publish a register of decisions. You can find it here (select Statutory Registers). That is how Mr Mustard fell over the decision (he reads the Barnet decisions daily).

This PCN was placed on the car. The driver may or may not have made a challenge at that stage. At the Notice to Owner stage representations must have been made (otherwise you cannot get a tribunal hearing) and clearly Barnet Council rejected them. As the signs are changed to reflect the next match date, photographs are taken to prove they were done. Thus, the council had the evidence that at least one of the signs on which people rely was not correct. In this case the car was parked in Bittacy Road which can only be accessed from Bittacy Hill so it was one of the main signs on the north eastern edge of the zone which was not updated. Thus it was patently unfair to even issue PCNs within the zone that day when the council knew that people could innocently enter it, their actions were entrapment.

Barnet Council therefore rejected a perfectly good representation.

The motorist then made an Appeal to the tribunal. At that stage Barnet Council could have done the decent thing, the honest decision, and not fought the Appeal. Instead they have the effrontery to admit they didn't update the signage, the only legal method by which the date of the match can be communicated to passing traffic, and still maintain they are entitled to £110.

Mr Mustard would have asked for costs if this was one of his cases (there may well yet be one if the motorist thinks about it) as he thinks that the behaviour of Barnet Council is both vexatious and wholly unreasonable, which are two of the three criteria which can lead to costs being awarded (costs are rarely awarded, the third limb being 'frivolous').

Mr Mustard wanted to compare the number of PCNs doled out on 2 November 19 (the match day in question) with previous match days in 2019 but he couldn't as the council have so far only published the data up until September. Come on Barnet.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

No comments:

Post a Comment

I now moderate comments in the light of the Delfi case. Due to the current high incidence of spam I have had to turn word verification on.