Six of the best for a teacher

 

Another random tribunal decision which Mr Mustard came across.

 

The whole point of 'school streets' is to prevent through traffic not to penalise people with good cause to visit the location. There was no traffic management purpose to these PCNs, they are just revenue raisers.

Mr Mustard doesn't think that a council treating its employees in this way is the best way to retain existing talent or to attract other teachers to Tower Hamlets to fill its vacancies.

Trying to cane a teacher for £960 was clearly unreasonable. (There is no guarantee that another adjudicator would take the same decision, tribunal decisions are not precedents but may be legally persuasive although the facts each time may well differ. You can ask another adjudicator to follow this decision).

The end.

Permit me to explain - not broken / broken

 

This is a story about a PCN and demonstrates the power of persistence.

The motorist made an informal challenge, a perfectly reasonable one. People who are regular users of visitor vouchers should be given the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong, not hammered for a penalty.

Here follows the informal rejection

The response ignores the fact that if the problem is with the council's system the payment system might also not be functioning correctly. Councils also take no responsibility if the system they force you to use, no matter how cumbersome or ineffective, is faulty it is you who has to do something to get around the problem.

The Notice to Owner duly arrived and this time Mr Mustard made the representations. They were short and to the point and completely different.

This time, the PCN was cancelled but not for the reason Mr Mustard put forward, even though he had hit the bullseye, but because the previous challenge had been revisited and Hackney Council did a reverse ferret.

Suddenly a permit system outage, on 17 July 24, had been found. Now why wasn't that noticed when the first challenge was made. Was it because apathy rules and most people don't stick at the fight and give up after one rebuff, Mr Mustard has to be knocked back twice and then he goes off to the tribunal for an independent decision.

Hackney Council probably didn't want to admit that all the code 12 PCNs they give out, when signs are like this one and don't say 'residents' are liable to be beaten.

Off you go then and fight yours.

Don't give up, you have to persist to win.

The end.

 

Unfairness built into the PCN system

 

You park your car up for 10 days as you know you won't use it in that time due a personal matter and use an unrestricted bay. It is probably only marked out to keep you away from junctions and to keep passing traffic more central. You return to your car and find that during your absence it has had a 24 hour disabled bay painted around it and you have two PCNs. You make informal challenges to the PCNs which get rejected and then you make formal representations against the Notices to Owner and one of those is rejected (and the other was pending).

The motorist started an Appeal at the tribunal, who are independent, and as soon as he did that Ealing Council cancelled both PCNs.

Lots of things wrong here to think about.

Firstly, why did a 'traffic warden' (Civil Enforcement Officer) issue the first PCN and why was the second PCN issued?

Taking the second one first, when a bay operates continuously you only commit one contravention when you park. You do not magically commit a fresh contravention each day. The second PCN was therefore unlawful from the off.

There are an awful lot of traffic wardens who do not see the obvious clues.

Firstly, they should come out of the base each morning armed with a list of about to be painted bays so that they can be aware of them and not issue a PCN in this situation rather than give out clearly unfair PCNs which the public have to spend their time fighting and not everyone is as robust as this motorist was. Anyone of a nervous disposition might just pay up, anyone who can't afford to pay the full penalty value would rather pay 50%, or anyone with a lease car might see the lease company pay it and recharge them and add a fee. The concept of innocent until proven guilty does not work in parking, here the burden of proof is reversed.

Secondly, the traffic warden is required to check that signs and lines are correct. Surely they must see how crisp the lines are as compared to the free bays, they should also see the chalk lines which are placed so that nice straight lines get painted and chalk lines are quickly washed away so the clues are there if you look for them.

Thirdly the traffic warden will have a mental map of their patch and should know this disabled bay wasn't there last time they came this way.

Fourthly they should notice that the bay has been incorrectly painted as there should be two transverse markings, one to mark the end of the bay pay and one to mark the end of the disabled bay.

The traffic warden (s) get 0/10 here.

Now we look at the Notice of Rejection. Is that perfect?

The council knew when the bay lines were painted and the motorist told them that when he parked the disabled bay was not there (it really isn't something you would make up). Did they check the list of vehicles which were parked there when the lines were painted, by the same council (Ealing) or their contractor. That is a logical thing to do. Many authorities do it when they suspend a bay. The letter does not say if they checked the notes of whoever installed the bay. If Ealing Council don't have such a procedure they are being unfair to the public.

The paragraph which starts with 'Although we sympathise...' is utter bunkum. They have been told the bay had not been painted and thus there was no sign to face and you cannot comply with a sign which does not exist. Their sympathy is crocodile tears.

Pretending that they are somehow prevented from cancelling this PCN due to a need to be fair is self-serving nonsense. No-one else knows if your PCN is cancelled or not and every PCN has to be considered on its own facts. The Statutory Guidance of the Secretary of State says that a council can cancel a PCN even if it is correct. Ealing Council were being unfair to this motorist.

Even a decision by an independent adjudicator, a qualified lawyer, doesn't set a precedent so no decision by a council employee, or their contractor, will do so. It is a sentence included to try and make out that the council are hidebound 'we would love to cancel your PCN but our hands are tied...' no, they aren't.

Then comes the very generous offer, oh so tempting. You did nothing wrong so you can pay 50% of the penalty for being innocent. Luckily this motorist said no.

There is a threat which follows closely. If you take us to the tribunal we will come after you for the 100% the whole £130.

So that's 0/10 for the Notice of Rejection.

Many motorists give up at that point as they think the tribunal might be a scary place with judges in wigs and gowns and a lot of formality which they won't be able to cope with. It isn't at all like that. The hearings can now take place by video call so you don't have to troop into central London, as Mr Mustard has been doing nearly every week for a decade. The hearings are informal and if you did attend one in person it is just you sat across a large desk from the adjudicator on the other side and you have a chat about the PCN, that's it.

As soon as the Appeal was started at London Tribunals, where the independent adjudicators work, Ealing Council threw in the towel, cancelled this PCN and the other one. What happened to precedent? surely this is unfair on all the other motorists whose appeals they are still contesting?

What do you know? it was all a big bluff. If you think you are in the right ignore all the bluff and bluster which the council come out with, start down your chosen course and challenge the PCN, make representations against the Notice to Owner, and then go to London Tribunals with your Appeal against the Notice of Rejection. Put all thoughts of the discount out of your head except the notion of having a 100% discount.

Ealing Council are no worse than any other, they are playing the system as best they can to maximise their income. They had all the facts about this PCN at this disposal from the off, or at least they should have done. They tried to crowbar 50% out of an unfair PCN, it didn't work and they burned a tribunal fee of c.£30 in the process.

Never take a council at face value, put your PCN on www.ftla.uk to receive independent expert advice from multiple experts which includes Mr Mustard.

The end.

Rotten eggs in Newham

 

A strange case which Mr Mustard stumbled upon.

 

This is a really strange PCN given that the location does not exist and Mr Mustard thought that all of the locations within a borough are pre-loaded into the equipment used by 'traffic wardens'.

Cannon Cars don't appear for any other case in the register of PCNs taken to the tribunal so are not habitual offenders.

How Newham Council thought they would win at the tribunal given that the address could not be substantiated will probably have to remain a mystery. The first duty on a council at the tribunal is to prove their case which was clearly impossible.

The end.

Seeing round corners - scientific breakthrough in Barnet

 

A US soldier tries to aim an StG 44 with a Krummlauf attachment over a cover. (Creative Commons)

Many motorists think traffic wardens are sniping at them as they appear out of nowhere, issue a PCN and disappear again in less than a minute.

In a recent case brought to him by a local resident with whom Mr Mustard is acquainted the resident in question was expected to see around a corner as the traffic warden clearly had.

The car was parked in this short bay, it has room for 4 average cars but this being Ravenscroft Park, a very desirable address in High Barnet, many residents can afford better than average cars.

Residents parking bay in Ravenscroft Park, EN5

Note that the bay is labelled as being for residents and although the image cuts the end off the bay is about 20m in length. A car within that bay was given a PCN. Although there were signs for roadworks, no suspended bay signage was visible from the bay.

Around the corner to the right is Blenheim Road, a cul-de-sac so unless you are visiting a friend or playing tennis there is no reason to go there.

The sign on the bay looked like this:

Thus it is clear that the bay in question, the suspended bay, is in Blenheim Road not in Ravenscroft Park. The 'side' of 17 Ravenscroft Park is the left as you look at the building i.e. as you would read a sign which was actually in Ravenscroft Park, which is the boundary of Blenheim Rd.

The number of required spaces is 7 (these are imaginary spaces as only pay only bays in Barnet are divided by painted lines) and you can't fit 7 spaces into a 20m parking bay as they are generally held to each be 5 metres long.

The type of parking space which is suspended is a Pay to park space. Here is the sign in the bay from around the corner in Blenheim Road.

and the bay itself

It is abundantly clear that this is the suspended bay, it having the reference 9189 and looking to be about 35m.

One can also see that a suspended bay sign on the pole in that bay could never be seen around the corner in Ravenscroft Park except by a stupidly keen traffic warden (no. 798 who is newish and needs retraining).

This was an obviously invalid PCN. The resident challenged it, not wanting to bother Mr Mustard with such an obvious error which they expected to be cancelled without demur. No such luck. Mr Mustard hasn't seen the challenge that was made as he didn't need to and it was to the effect that an error had been made but it was rejected. This may be evidence that nowadays there isn't a proper consideration of informal challenges, as ones before the Notice to Owner are known, they are all just rejected as apathy rules and most people then give in. Mr Mustard isn't most people.

Mr Mustard doesn't mess about. He emailed a parking manager at 09:36 on Valentine's Day. The message contained just 110 words and a photograph. It included a complaint about the traffic warden, a request for retraining and a suggestion that the council might want to avoid the tribunal and cancel the PCN.

As a measure of the reverence in which Mr Mustard is held by the council, or maybe the opposite, he received a same day reply at 10:04 confirming that the PCN was being cancelled and management would be looking at the CEO's actions.

Everyone in the borough should get the same prompt and high standard investigation of the challenges they make to PCNs.

If the legislation included a penalty to be paid by a council if they blunder like this the quality of PCNs and of the consideration of representations would markedly improve.

Don't take a chance when parking, the traffic warden might be just around the corner, you can't see him, but he can see you, apparently.

The end.

Phone payment signage ambiguity

 

The machine referred to has been bagged over so has no effect and the signs on the meter are not authorised by The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 in any event.

This was another decision which Mr Mustard read randomly.

 

A decision by any adjudicator, including the Chief Adjudicator, is not binding on any other adjudicator or even on themselves i.e. they are not precedents but they may be legally persuasive. This means you can state that your circumstances are the same and on all fours with that adjudicator decision so ask the current adjudicator to follow it. It is their choice if they do so or not, they may differentiate your case on the facts. You can use it to support your representations to the council which will show them you have a certain knowledge, likely to go to the tribunal and cost them a fee and they may thus be more inclined to cancel.

The end.

Enfield take the wrong line

 

Mr Mustard usually finds that if there are multiple PCNs at Appeal there is an interesting story behind them and so it was in this case.

Here is the 'offending' vehicle in 2011

and a bit later in February 2022 by which time it has sprouted a trailer.

and again in 2024 by which time there are bay markings which stop just short of the front of the vehicle.

Clearly Mrs Sattar has had some expert help as she refers to TSRGD.

Mr Mustard doesn't know if a council can order a resident to move a vehicle but clearly it hasn't worked. Giving out 5 PCNs to a vehicle isn't the solution in this particular situation, if one PCN didn't prompt a change of heart it wasn't likely that 5 would. Two of them were issued less than 24 hours before the previous one which councils don't normally do.

Mr Mustard can see that the motorist doesn't want lines painting to complete the residents parking bay (as his vehicle is probably too long and/or heavy to qualify for a permit) but unless he never moves the vehicle, so why have it?, they will be on the day he eventually uses the vehicle as the council should simply drive that way every day (or ask the dustman to report once a week?) and then paint the lines when the vehicle has moved.

One does wonder sometimes about the problem solving abilities of the council.

Bay markings have to be a minimum of 1.8m wide which is tight for modern day cars and so they may be painted a little wider if the road will take them. Disabled bays must be 2.7m wide. The standard bay is to drawing 1028.4 and there is no maximum width. If Mr Mustard was faced with this problem he would paint this one bay 2.7 or 3m wide, whatever is necessary to clear the truck and put a sign at both ends and in the middle.

He suspects the truck would then move. He would then paint a standard width bay and burn off the wider markings. Simples.

If not it is then reasonable to start ticketing each day for it not having a residents permit and the truck will have to move to another place where parking is not restricted as those PCNs will stick.

The end.

Clock this

The below is the blue badge and clock which was on display.

The clock in question was supplied by Motability many years ago although they are usually supplied by a council with the blue badge and are meant to be blue in colour and are usually a light shade. This clock has been used for years without a problem (and will now be replaced, you can buy clocks on ebay if you are in a rush).

If the cover is removed this is what is left:

Mr Mustard can't see that it matters the colour of the outside of the clock, it isn't there to look pretty but to indicate the time of arrival, within 15 minutes.

The first challenge was rejected:

It is incorrect. A parking clock was displayed but it was of the wrong colour which is what the rejection should have said.

The motorist didn't wait for the Notice to Owner but wrote in again as many people do and it must annoy the council as they have to take time in responding (it can be argued that you can write in more than once before the Notice to Owner is issued as the back of the PCN says that representations before the Notice to Owner will be considered. The statement is not in the singular).

A second rejection was received.

Another error, the clock was correctly set.

In due course the Notice to Owner arrived, was challenged and at the third time of asking Barnet Council cancelled having wasted everyone's time.

What this nonsense tells you is that persistence pays.

The end.

 

AirBnB per person pricing

Mr Mustard didn't know this despite using AirBnB 30+ times.

He took a month off and went abroad over Xmas and New Year. At different times there were 1,3,4 or 5 people in the 3 bedroomed flat. The price was the same regardless of the number who were staying.

One thing he had learnt due to a suggestion made by his partner, was that if you book a month instead of a shorter period you sometimes get a discount and it might be as high as 50%. Therefore if you only want 3 weeks somewhere, check the price for a month and if less, book it and simply leave earlier and you have made a saving.

When he then looked to have another long trip away he knew he would be alone some of the time, with his partner some of the time and possibly another friend would come out for a few days to do some cycling or her son would also arrive for a few days. To start with he looked at there being 2 people in a two double bedded flat and was quoted £2,503. Sometimes there would be 3 people and then having seen a varying price Mr Mustard set the enquiry to 4 people even though there would never be more than 3 in the flat. At this location there is a per person per diem tourist tax so he would also be overpaying for that.

Mr Mustard then had a look around the AirBnB website and found that this was a pricing model which AirBnB offered whereby a host could charge an extra £10 per night per person above a base number.

As Mr Mustard didn't know his final arrangements he wanted to be upfront with the host and so he messaged them.

Hi Florence. I was thinking of booking this apartment for a month. I noticed that the price varied according to how many people are staying despite the advert being for 4 people. This surprised me as I would have the same space all the time. For the first week my partner will be with me and then she will go back to the uk to work. For 5 days she will come back with her son and then again go back to work. Therefore for half of the time there will be one person, for a week 2 people and for a few days 3 people. I proposed therefore to pay the rate for 2 people. Is that ok? Thank you

He received a response quite quickly.

Thank you for your message and clarification. Yes no problem if you are only 3 people for 3 or 4 days we leave it like that but If there is a change I will have to make you pay the difference, i.e. €10 per day per person beyond two people.
We look forward to entrusting you with the keys to my apartment. Kind regards,

No reduction is offered for the days when only one person is in residence. Mr Mustard doesn't think the costs of the flat will be much different between there being one person or 4 people in residence. What he didn't like was that the pricing structure is not explicitly mentioned in the description of the place and that he blundered over it by chance. The host can have whatever pricing policy they like but it should be open and transparent.

You have probably already guessed that Mr Mustard hasn't booked the particular flat and he looked around in the same town and found a one bed flat with a sofa bed (as well as the double bed) which would meet his needs. There are no extra charges if you use the sofa bed and the 1 bed flat is 52 sq m whereas the 2 bed was about 50 sq m so he is getting the same amount of space and is paying half of the 2 bed flat rate for 2 people. Result.

Mr Mustard hopes this blog may help you one day not be over-charged when you are under-occupying.

The end.

Too many vehicles

This looks like it is a nice place to live although the presence of the security car shows us that it is an area which may be prone to burglary.

Mr Mustard doesn't expect his readers will be overly sympathetic to this situation if they are struggling to pay their own bills and a £130 PCN would stop them eating properly as they are then short on their budget.

 

Mr Mustard can see why an adjudicator would decide the PCN is valid. No observation time is required on a single yellow. Should you argue that you are loading/unloading or boarding/alighting a person who needs assistance then the lack of observation time would work against the council. Having more cars than your carriage drive can accommodate isn't a defence. Stopping on the road to obtain access through a secure gate would probably lead to a cancelled PCN if the time taken wasn't too long but that isn't the case here.

The adjudicator is spot on, he cannot 'let off' a motorist, his job is to apply the law, which will be bent in suitable circumstances but not on this day.

The end.

Barnet Council are unfair

 

This is a decision which Mr Mustard found on the register.

 

Whilst Mr Mustard understands the benefits of school streets the over-riding consideration, based on what rejection letters say, seems to be the penalty charge revenue. You can't easily contact the council to obtain an exemption and given that only permanent employees of schools are eligible for a permit according to council policy it wouldn't help in any event.

I contrast this approach with that overseas, such as in Bordeaux which Mr Mustard recently visited. Restricted roads there are impossible to drive into as they have rising bollards and adjacent to that is an intercom on which you can explain your need for access and, if accepted, the bollard is lowered for you.

Could it be that because such arrangements cost money instead of raising it, British style, councils don't use rising bollards? Surely not.

The end.

The Hackney Council wrestling club

You have all seen and probably been annoyed by council vehicles parked on the pavement which you know is wrong and a case of do what I say not as I do.

A Hackney Council vehicle illegally parked on the pavement.

In this case Hackney Council issued a PCN to Hackney Council. Could councils have budget pressures because they are wasting money? This would suggest so.

The internal wrestling match went the distance with the PCN being challenged and a formal Notice of Rejection being issued. Hackney Council then started an Appeal against the actions of Hackney Council for which Hackney Council paid a fee of about £30 and following the creation of an evidence pack by Hackney Council of probably 50 pages Hackney Council won and Hackney council lost. A score draw of a sort. In the alternative, a definition of futility.

Here is the decision.

 

Looking at the width of the road there was no need to put the van's wheels on the pavement in the first place as the road is wide enough for cars at least to pass in both directions simultaneously.

A lesson for all readers. Stay off the pavement in your car, it is for pedestrians & wheelchairs users (and sometimes cyclists).

The end.