The 56 day law

Mr Mustard had a PCN cancelled by Barnet Council parking management yesterday on the simple basis that they were acting ultra vires (outside of its powers).

For parking PCN (not for moving traffic contraventions or bus lanes where there is a 90 day guideline) where you have made 'formal representations' (just a challenge in plain English) against a PCN received through the post (as it acts in effect as the Notice to Owner) or where you have made formal representations after receiving a Notice to Owner the council get 56 days, starting with the date on which they received the said representations, to write and accept or reject them. If the council fail to respond they are deemed to have accepted the representations and the PCN cannot be chased further. (The fact that the public only get 28 days to respond to a Notice to Owner is an inbuilt system unfairness).

Mr Mustard had submitted the representations by email (you can do this to barnet@nsl.co.uk - set a delivery receipt) on 15 June and that is day 1. The council therefore had to serve their response by 9 August. What they did was to post their negative response (Notice of Rejection of representations) on 9 August and service is, unless shown otherwise, presumed to have occurred on 11 August. The council were therefore late and their Notice of Rejection was an unlawful offer to make an Appeal to the Adjudicator or to pay £110.

Mr Mustard counts the days (is 8 weeks) on a printed calendar or uses a spreadsheet to calculate 56 days but there is a useful on line calculator here

and Mr Mustard has given you the worked example for 56 days from 15 June

As this calculator counts the start date you choose as day 0 not day 1 you only add 55 days and you should do the same with your chosen date.

Mr Mustard is now waiting to find out the answer as to why there are not systems in place to stop the council from breaking the law in the way they did. This case will not be the only one in which they have acted illegally, they just tried to defraud £110 from the wrong victim this time.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

CPZ refunds coming soon

Manyana (beach)

Mr Mustard always thought the 8 weeks and everyone will be paid out promise was going to be hard to meet and since his claim was acknowledged on 5 August (one of the first to claim probably) he has heard diddly squat.

He is grateful to the friend who brought this Delegated Powers Report to his attention (are they not still numbered nowadays?)

Civica - Parking Refunds Contract Award by MisterMustard

Mr Mustard is well known for pulling officers up who break the rules and issue single supplier purchase order arrangements (they often forget the actual contract) but in this case he perfectly understands and agrees with the logic. In addition, the Civica proposed fee seems reasonable and they don't look like they have tried to abuse their monopolistic position.

Mr Mustard notes that of four officers mentioned on the front cover of the DPR, two are interims. He does hope we are soon going to have an absolute minimum of interims and consultants now that most of the "transformation" has been decided upon. Using the paragraph numbers of the report Mr Mustard has the following observations:

3.2 That would be the advertising done by the CPZ campaigners, BAPS, Bloggers and the LidDems in High Barnet (not sure who else). Mr Mustard hasn't seen anything from the council other than on the website which somebody who has moved out of borough is unlikely to look at. Have you had a permit renewal reminder in the last month? Did it have a note saying you might be due a refund? Do please comment below if it did.

3.3 If only the council had said this at the beginning "every effort will be made to contact them" i.e. residents who are due a refund.

5.2 If all 12,000 applications are made that will be a cost of about £7 per refund.

8.7 Mr Mustard doubts that all refunds will be made within 8 weeks of the decision not to contest the judgment, which was made on 2 August. Perhaps this means within 8 weeks of the DPR i.e within 8 weeks of 3 September?

This DPR did set Mr Mustard thinking. Civica will not have entered into a contract which could lose them money and so will doubtless have allowed for the worst case scenario that all 12,000 refund applications will be made. They are therefore confident that they can process a refund for less than £7. 

The council could ensure they get value for money by taking out advertisements in the 3 local papers (include the Ham & High as it has readers from Barnet) one in Barnet First (the odd person must actually read it) put a flyer in with every document from the parking department and NSL, a footnote on every email from the council (instead of that stupid one about saving the environment - Mr Mustard can decide for himself what he wants to print thank you very much) in the advertising hoardings around the borough and on the backs of buses. Traffic wardens could also put helpful leaflets on every car they pass which is sporting a CPZ permit.

The question that we then need to ask is at what cost they could process an application for a permit? There are documents to check so let us allow another £3 for the brief time that should take (a logbook say and a proof of address) and we have a cost to process a permit of £10. We are charged £40 for a permit so aren't they still being used for revenue raising?

I feel a judicial review coming on if the council vote for even an inflationary increase to the cost of a permit.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard