5 November 2024

Barnet Council are 'surprising' (not a good thing)

Another random decision Mr Mustard fell over.


 

When a Solicitor expresses surprise it doesn't necessarily mean they are surprised. Legal people often employ withering under-statement to get one over their opponent in Court and this is what Mr Mustard thinks is happening here. Most of the time adjudicators don't make remarks about the viability of the case itself confining themselves to the factual rational of their decision.

Mr Mustard isn't sure which High Road this PCN was issued in (possibly East Finchley) so can't look at the bay markings for himself but clearly one bay ran into the other. 

What doesn't surprise Mr Mustard is that the council and their enforcement agents NSL could not see for themselves that the location layout was not clear enough. Traffic wardens are meant to check signs and lines before they issue a PCN so this 'ticket' was clearly wrong from the off. Rejecting perfectly good representations is a daily occurrence in the back office.

If we look at 2024 and representations rejected by Barnet Council Mr Mustard has taken 44 such cases to the tribunal. He has won on 38 occasions. The council should almost never lose, they need a radical overhaul.

The end.

23 October 2024

Barking v Newham (Newham won).

 

Van starts to turn at about 7:52:42

Always fun to read the infighting between two traffic authorities to see who wins and why but many readers will think it is futile point scoring at a cost to the public purse.

This was the register entry from the independent adjudicator which caught Mr Mustard's eye.


Here, from the text of the decision, we can see what happened. One could be forgiven after stopping for failing to remember you passed a no u-turns sign a few minutes ago.


Mr Mustard obtained much of the file from Barking Council because it was caught under Freedom of Information as both parties are subject to FOI. Newham were pretty sure to lose at the tribunal because the restriction was well signed and the van did end up facing in the other direction. You might think it a bit unlucky to be caught at 7:53 a.m. but operators will be on duty if there is money to be made and computers don't sleep, they watch you go wrong 24 hours a day.

Here is what Newham's defence was 

'I did not perform a u-turn. The vehicle was stationary for 5 minutes. I then performed a legal 3 point turn. Under current legislation it's called a u-turn because you are able to turn your vehicle round to face the other way in one movement without using a three-point turn manoeuvre.'

That was a self serving interpretation of the mischief that the sign is intended to prevent. The flawed approach means that someone at Newham (it might be the driver or the council) has had to pay £130 to Barking of which c.£30 went on a tribunal fee. Still a hefty and simple net profit for them but Mr Mustard checked and it hasn't been paid.

Barking were on the case with the processing. The adjudication decision was made on 12 September and provided that email was chosen for communications the decision would have been served on Newham on 13 September. They then had 28 days to pay up, starting with 13 September as day 1. They didn't and on the 29th day Barking issued a charge certificate and put the bill up to £195 where it remains today.

Get the popcorn in, this may end up with a bailiff and the van will be hunted for to be clamped.

The good news for the public is that councils don't discriminate in whom they pursue, they will take anyone's money including another council's.

The end, for now.
 

13 October 2024

Targeting the disabled in Redbridge

Another decision which Mr Mustard stumbled upon


 

Mr Mustard had forgotten that organisations can have a blue badge. It is entirely sensible as if you have a minibus with, say, a dozen spaces for wheelchairs and/or the disabled, picking up and dropping people off all day, having to display new personal blue badges for each journey, it would be an administrative burden that would be likely to go wrong.
 
Redbridge Council have given this social enterprise a burden they didn't need or deserve and two people had to use time to attend the tribunal which they could have better used to further their work with the disabled. Mr Mustard notes that the council didn't send a representative to argue their case, that may have been because they knew they looked bad or that they didn't have any proof of wrongdoing.
 
Mr Mustard notes two things:
 
1    The adjudicator was clearly satisfied that the badge was not being misused (and councils often throw out accusations with no proof whatsoever).

2    Oakmont aren't hiding away. They have asked for a meeting to discuss the matter and Redbridge Council has failed to meet them.
 
Councils that continue to behave badly will continue to feature in this blog. There isn't a shortage, the only problem is Mr Mustard doesn't have enough spare time to blog them all.

The end.

Barnet Council play with loaded dice

Another random tribunal decision which Mr Mustard fell over:


It seems that the council are assuming that all drivers are built like tanks and can easily lift and carry 20kg. Mr Mustard couldn't do that easily, he would have done two trips. What does 10kg look like?

24 cans of a soft drink


A car tyre


This could more easily be carried as it has an easy to grip rim and can be carried just off the ground.

8 bottles of wine (750ml)


The adjudicator would have had in mind two key cases on the tribunal website regarding loading. The older one is Jane Packer Flowers and a more recent one is Bosworth & Other v LB Tower Hamlets. These are publicly available and councils can therefore read them as easily as the public can. Here are some of the useful principles that the adjudicators provided to help everyone know how they think:



Given the size of the load in this case and that it was an evidenced commercial delivery the motorist should not have been forced to the tribunal in this case. The message for other readers is to never be put off by a council's response if you think it was wrong. This decision is a subjective one, Mr Mustard thinks Barnet Council were massively offside but others may adjudge otherwise.

The council should also have had regard to its own traffic order, which contains the following exemption:


 and 'goods' are widely described as follows:


although adjudicators will probably use the less wide principles they have decided upon and require one off deliveries to be bulky or heavy.

Mr Mustard hopes this will help his readers to know when they might fall within the definition of loading (or if it might be better to pay to park for 5 minutes which is effectively 15 as you get 10 extra minutes during which you should not be given a PCN) or whether they should deliver by some other method (bus, cycle, walk with a trolley etc). Mr Mustard's neighbour is a delivery driver and he bumped into him on the tube last week. Rather than take his huge van to Tottenham Court Road to deliver a 4 foot long roll of material about 6 inches think and an item which was in a carrier bag for another customer (overall weight less than 10kg) he picked up his freedom pass and had a more relaxing tube journey and did his job less time than had he driven. Food for thought.

The end.

10 October 2024

Happy New Year from Barnet Council

Mr Mustard reads random decisions on the parking PCN tribunal website. When he saw one was for 1 January 24 he took a look.


 

This is the road in question


As it is within a controlled parking zone, for which you pass zone entry signs as you exit the A5, the single yellow sign is 400m away around a corner and the hours are 9:30am to 4:30pm on Mondays to Saturdays (including bank holidays).
 
Thus the single yellow was in force but Mr Mustard suspects that many motorists wouldn't understand (time to learn which you are doing now).
 
What the adjudicator could have allowed on, if the motorist had raised it as an argument, is that because of the obvious inference that it is ok to park outside of the zig zag hours, is that the single yellow should have its own sign in accordance with guidance.

The role of the adjudicator is to decide upon the arguments placed in front of them although they will sometimes pick up council errors of their own volition.
 
That is the reason why every motorist should learn all they can about PCNs as with Mr Mustard's help this PCN might have been defeated.
 
Mr Mustard decided to ask Barnet Council a few questions about PCNs issued on 1 January as it isn't a day when there is likely to be much requirement for traffic management, with many motorists beached on the sofa watching the TV, and so he expected numbers to be lower (spoiler alert, they weren't).

Here are the questions and the response:

Mr Mustard was grateful for the hint that the Open Data portal had been brought up to date as it had not been updated for years (the income part is still two years behind).

Mr Mustard then extracted the data for himself, and broke it down by contravention type:


What we see is that for traffic wardens, 1 January is just another day, they can fill their non-existent quota of tickets (giving out zero PCNs during an 8 hour shift would probably lead to the sack after a difficult conversation with your supervisor) by focussing on specific contraventions.

In order to make up for not being able to issue PCNs to cars parked in residents bays and pay to park locations the daily amount of PCNs is made up by people making innocent errors on single yellow lines on a day when it doesn't really matter. You know what to do on bank holidays, park in residents and pay-to-park bays and car parks.

The end.

3 October 2024

Redbridge red route income

Mr Mustard blogged last month about the plight of private hire drivers on the red route in Cranbrook Road which is under the control of Redbridge Council rather than TfL.

He decided to see how much money Redbridge were making at this location and the answer is 'quite a lot'

Don't help Redbridge raise even more money, do not stop on a red route, wherever it is.

The end.


27 September 2024

DVLA - terrible at data management

Mr Mustard made a Freedom of Information request to DVLA. He did this because a lady, let us call her Jayne, purchased a used car, and posted in the V5C with her complete and accurate address. Mr Mustard has a copy of what was sent to DVLA. Somehow her car got registered to a non-existent address in Mansfield, a town she has no connection with and has never visited.


Let us suppose the motorist lived at 4 Shakespeare Court, 111 Woodville Road, Barnet EN5 4LX (Mr Mustard's former address by way of illustration as he can't use the actual one for Jayne).

Using the Royal Mail postcode checker we can see the following:


Mr Mustard surmises that because the flats had a block name which precedes the street number, blocks don't come up when you search using the DVLA's method. Staff also can't be expected to know every location. There are 1.3 million postcodes and goodness knows how many blocks of flats.


Searching by road name alone brings up the correct address as the fifth choice. An under strain or slapdash DVLA employee might select the wrong one.

It is only by inputting the complete postcode, a maximum of 8 digits, that you can be sure of getting the correct locale.


The system that the DVLA are employing is more likely to end up in error with their partial matching method, which looks to have a huge flaw within in.

Mr Mustard is going to ask a follow up question to test his hypothesis.

In Jayne's case, she correctly wrote on the form an address in London N2, which is a flat in a block which block has a street number. Somehow, perhaps because of the name of the block, her car was registered in Mansfield.

What is worse is that it was registered at an address which doesn't even exist. Using a different address as an example. If the physical address used was 12 Regina Court, West End Lane the postcode used was for 12 Regina Court Lane which did exist but still wasn't Jayne's address and gave the postman a delivery problem.

The first she knew of the PCNs was when the bailiff knocked on her actual front door and demanded £2,000 at the risk of having her car removed and so she paid up even though she had received nothing at all in the post. It has taken Mr Mustard 3 months to ascertain the cause of the problem, which is one he hadn't ever seen before. He much prefers to keep PCNs out of the hands of bailiffs. It isn't clear that the bailiff had a valid warrant as it may have still had the out of date (and obviously invalid) Mansfield address on it. That is a blog for another day.

Some of you might have noticed that you had purchased a car but not received the 'logbook' from DVLA a month later, others wouldn't. As you don't need it unless you travel abroad or decide to sell your vehicle Mr Mustard thinks the non arrival is an entirely understandable oversight. If you buy a used car, make a note for a month later to chase up the missing registration document ('logbook').

Having watched much of the Post Office Horizon Inquiry Mr Mustard is no longer shocked by the incompetence at high levels in large organisations but DVLA's data processing disaster method is of the same ilk. He has seen complaints on the internet in which a resident complains that an unknown person has registered a vehicle at their address. The suspected rogue clearly isn't always a scam artist but could be the DVLA.

The end, for now.

26 September 2024

Baywatch

A motorist has come to me who parked here and missed the low level sign which was behind a tree and received a PCN for parking in a permit bay without a permit.


I looked at Barnet Council's photos and here is the showreel.



A traffic warden (CEO) is meant to check that signs and lines are adequate before issuing a PCN. This one clearly didn't as there aren't clear lines, faded lines or even lines at all. The answer here is that the CEO should have reported the missing lines & not given a driver a problem, an undeserved PCN. Mr Mustard will lodge a complaint about them. You should do the same if this happens to you.

The end.

24 September 2024

Newham Council - not staffed by Knights of the Road

This story concerns a road near the Tate and Lyle factory, not all that far from the Thames Barrier.  It is a rather industrial area sandwiched between the river and docks.

It could do with a weekly wash.


The sign that was there in 2020 was nowhere to be seen two years later. Local workers will naturally and legally take advantage of free parking. It seems that signs at this location disappear or are vandalised quite often. The council's solution is to put new signs up, send a traffic warden or two down there straightaway, issue PCNs and then tow en masse. Naughty, as they should wait a day before enforcing, but an adjudicator had their measure.


This is Mr Goring's only entry in the PCN Appeal register so we can be fairly sure he is a victim not a sign stealer.


Mr Mustard doesn't know why he read this particular decision on 22 August but he did and it piqued his interest so he sent Newham Council some questions.


Very sensibly, the response was provided by way of a table which Mr Mustard has rearranged into PCN time order.


Look at that efficiency, 6 PCNs issued in 12 minutes. One traffic warden could do that but more likely there were 2 or 3. Removals also at pace. There must have been two lorries as there were removals 4 and 5 minutes apart.

The second PCN is that of Mr Goring. Two other people made representations but then didn't fight the rejection at the tribunal. If they had, they might have got their money back. 

Four motorists didn't even bother to try and challenge their PCNs. If all seven had gone to the tribunal three or four at least would have won. There was no risk of having to pay further monies. If you are towed you pay the 50% in order to release your vehicle, which freezes the PCN and you also pay £200 for the tow. If ever you are towed you must make representations as they are a free throw of the dice (unless you are monumentally stupid or selfish and parked on a zebra crossing).

Assuming everyone recovered their vehicles on the same day, so didn't pay £40 for overnight storage, Newham Council raked in £265 * 6 = £1,590

This is what parking has become. An immoral machine for sucking money out of the wallets and purses of innocent people. We need an independent external body to police the behaviour of councils and contractors and to force them to behave in a proper manner.

This ridiculous logo was on the bottom of the council's letter:

Best start building Newham Council as you are patently and obviously unfair.

The end.

Redbridge Council - don't pay 15p to park for free

 

Parking meters have been bagged over since January. One would think that removing them would be quicker than this.

The lack of a quick and easy way for drivers to obtain proof that they are within the free hour led a Mr Conlan to the tribunal. Well done, sir.



You don't have to give RingGo anything to pay nothing at all. Go into settings on the App and turn off optional SMS reminders or anything else that they charge for. The session has a countdown clock if you click through to it.

Redbridge Council have compounded their incompetence by not amending the signs. A sign which incorrectly advises you might be found to be a procedural impropriety by an independent adjudicator. The council have had 8 months to change the signs and should have planned for them in advance.

There is further hopelessness as the council plan (although not very well) to bring in the ability to use PayPoint in certain local shops but a driver wouldn't know that if he/she isn't informed by signage. It would of course be necessary to leave your vehicle in order to pay by that method, which the council will then criticise you for.

Redbridge make a bundle out of issuing PCNs to people during the 'free' hour.

The end.

Rentals - councils suspicious of overseas renters

It stands to reason that some of the drivers who rent a car in the UK will be from a different land. Mr Mustard himself rented cars last year in Canada for work as of course he couldn't take his car with him.

Here is how it ended up at the PCN tribunal when Harrow Council (it could have been any enforcement authority) refused to accept a perfectly proper request for transfer:


 


The 2 month rule had never featured in any of Mr Mustard's cases but the council would not be any better off in enforcing even if they knew the address as the person would no longer be there by the time a bailiff was instructed (if the PCN was not paid) or if it was a hotel there would be nothing to distrain on.

The situation is the same if the car in question was registered overseas as that is outside the remit of the bailiff (an England & Wales court authorised bailiff can't even enforce in Scotland).

This case is symptomatic of the distrust with which the public is often viewed by council parking departments.

The end.

23 September 2024

Barnet Council : double not quits

 


Always something new for Mr Mustard to deal with. These from a motorist who luckily sent him both Notices.
 
Mr Mustard asked a few question of the council on Sunday 8 September, as follows, and the council answers are there, a reasonably swift response.


Someone beat Mr Mustard to the draw on the Friday 6 September.

This isn't the first local authority to double print a batch of documents. On would hope they tell each other, at least within London, of problems and more importantly, solutions, but Mr Mustard thinks this can't be happening, or if it is, it doesn't work well enough.

It is no surprise that the council didn't want to cancel all 690 PCNs as they would not then rake in tens of thousands of revenue. 690 PCNs at £130 would be £89,700 (but budget for say a 50% recovery).

Another PCN expert gave Mr Mustard his opinion, which which Mr Mustard concurs:

There is no statutory power to serve the second NTO, a second NTO can only be served on another person and only in limited circumstances (such as where a previous NTO is cancelled by the county court, the tribunal or the authority itself). There are no circumstances where the council can randomly issue a second NTO on the same person while a previous NTO issued to that person is still outstanding.

Unfortunately there is no body, apart from the council itself, that a member of the public can go to to suggest a different outcome. It is a failing in the system that councils are trusted to self police. The only outcomes they appear to be interested in are positive cash flow ones.

The end.

19 September 2024

Barnet Council 56 day error

 

Mr Mustard recognised the name Michael Strom and when he searched the register he found 13 Appeals of which Mr Strom had only lost one. Chapeau. It therefore didn't surprise Mr Mustard that Mr Strom knew the law better than Barnet Council do.


The council always manage to count 28 days when that leads to the next step they can take to move a PCN along but have not programmed their computer to prevent themselves from breaking the law. The law, for parking PCNs, says that a formal representation, one made in response to the Notice to Owner, is automatically cancelled if the council have not served a response within 56 days of the date of receipt of the representations.

The lack of an external overseer for PCNs is becoming more critical by the day. There is no sanction for this council failure although Mr Strom might be able to claim costs for vexatious or wholly unreasonable behaviour but the costs bar is a high hurdle as costs are rarely awarded by law.

The end.

10 September 2024

Persistence pays - all councils, not just Haringey

Mr Mustard was contacted by a motorist who put the health and safety of his father before petty parking considerations. The bay was a pure Event Day one. If the motorist has described the facts in a good manner there is no need for Mr Mustard to rewrite them. On 1 June he made the informal challenge (the one in response to a PCN placed on your car or put in your hand):


 It was 5 July before the challenge was rejected. Here it is:

Mr Mustard expects that you find it hard to believe that there is any real sympathy otherwise the PCN would have been cancelled. The (un)Fitness for Work note confirmed that the patient was not fit for work, suffered seizures and had been referred to hospital for tests. How much more sick do you have to be to get Haringey to exercise their discretion?



Mr Mustard advised the motorist not to pay at the 'bribe' rate of 50% as he was fairly confident that he could beat the PCN on the basis of inadequate signage. Councils offer this discount even when they don't have to (it was required in this case as the challenge was within 14 days of the PCN) as they know that motorists worry about it and that the vast majority of motorists do not have sufficient determination to see things through and may mistakenly think they cannot re-use a challenge which has been rejected. They can and they should for consistency.

On 24 July the Notice to Owner arrived.

Mr Mustard made representations against it, known as formal representations as they are the ones described in statute, and the heading apart, they repeated the earlier challenge and were made on 26 July:


 This time, the same challenge met the opposite outcome, acceptance.


This was done by a different council staff member.

Mr Mustard finds Haringey Council now accept most of his challenges either because there has been a change of management or someone has analysed all of Mr Mustard's cases and discovered that he almost never loses against them.

What the public should learn from this experience is that if you want to get a PCN cancelled, and you have a half decent argument, is that you have to see the fight through. You might also have to start an Appeal at the independent  Environment and Traffic Adjudicators. Decide at the beginning, pay or fight. If the idea is to fight don't be put off by the first council rejection, it is all about the money.

The end.