The PCN was issued in a simple situation. A 3 year old was being alighted to the adjacent nursery i.e. within the same street.
This is the third PCN in respect of the same child/car. All three PCNs have been cancelled, this time in 3 days.
An apology is more appropriate than the bullying content of the Notice of Acceptance. The PCN starts badly because there is zero observation time so any argument about alighting gives Hackney Council a problem. The challenge also included a copy of the nursery childcare contract.
Yellow stripes on the kerb do not mean no parking (which should read no waiting in any event although they are sort of the same) as the law about signs clearly states they mean 'no loading/unloading':
Rule 247 of the Highway Code explains this is an easier to find form, councils are fond of spouting from the Highway Code, Hackney Council staff need to actually read and understand it.
In 'claryfing the rules' the writer introduces irrelevant information about the elderly and disabled. The law does not say the driver must stay with the car, the High Court decided differently in the case of Makda in which a cab driver had to go looking for his passenger who it turned out was not to be found and whose PCN was cancelled by the Court.
Please don't start sentences with 'And', it makes you look like an illiterate, which you are. (I do make grammatical errors but not that one!)
Whether or not the PCN was 'correctly issued' which it was on the face of it, as soon as the facts are accepted that establish that the PCN was not warranted, in the event & unknown to the CEO (traffic warden), then it was no longer correctly issued and in any event whether it was thought to be correct at the time and date in question became irrelevant. This is the council self-justifying the actions of their CEO against whom the only complaint is that he/she should have waited 2-5 minutes in a street where there is a nursery and when the time is between 9am and 10am at which hour it is likely that children are being dropped off for the day.
The simple reasoning for cancelling the PCNs are that the evidence was overwhelming and that Mr Mustard is acting. Hackney Council know from his long history that Mr Mustard will also make formal representations against the Notice to Owner once issued and if those representations are rejected he will start a tribunal Appeal. That Appeal will cost Hackney Council c.£30 which they will never see again and 99.9% of well documented Appeals like this one will be won.
Adjudicators decisions don't set a Precedent (with a capital P, as in a legal precedent) so council decisions certainly don't, but councils should be consistent. All documented cases of dropping off at a time when the nursery is opening (or picking up at closing time) should lead to a cancellation.
When Hackney Council write of 'future contraventions of this nature' they can't be referring to this case as THERE WASN'T A CONTRAVENTION. Please excuse my shouty behaviour. The staff who write letters about PCNs really need to get one thing straight about a PCN, it refers to an 'alleged' contravention, by law, as in this case:
The end, until next week when yet another PCN gets issued, probably.
