Newham Council are cheats - #52

 

Platinum are a company whose registered office backs onto Nursery Lane and so the explanation as to why their car was on a single yellow line is perfectly plausible. 

Now if we look at the location, it is a narrow cul-de-sac and so because of the numerous comings and goings that will doubtless take place from neighbouring properties this isn't a place at which you can leave a vehicle parked for more than a minute or two.

Newham Council may have breathed a sigh of relief that this series of cheats blogs had come to an end earlier in the year but that was only because Mr Mustard had bigger fish to fry in real life. He is now on top of his work again and so has time for public awareness campaigns. This series will only eventually stop when the council start to behave with the utmost probity. 

You might also be wondering, as is Mr Mustard why there aren't double yellow lines on both sides of the lane and no loading marks as any parked vehicle will cause an obstruction. Only Newham Council in their 'wisdom' can answer that question.

This looks like the sort of PCN that Mr Mustard calls a hit-and-run one as a 'traffic warden' (CEO) seems to drop out of the sky, issues a PCN and scarpers like a kid playing knock down ginger. The complaint in this case is that the CEO operated at a distance and only approached the car after having printed out the PCN. There is nothing unlawful about that even though the public may regard it as unsporting or even cheating. If a CEO can read your number plate from 100m and has a belief that you are in contravention he can record the necessary information and then slap the PCN on the vehicle and leave and it is entirely lawful. 

There doesn't have to be a single photograph but here there wasn't a photograph of a sign and as they are often missing or defaced (especially in Newham) then should a motorist put a council to proof at adjudication a council will be in difficulty. They can rely on library signs although they mustn't be too old. Often google street view is relied upon and Mr Mustard has driven virtually down this lane and not found a single sign.

Mr Mustard suspected that this is a location inside a controlled parking zone and after going for another virtual drive away from the location along Upton Lane he found some dated images of CPZ entry signs (and some temporary Event signs) which tell you the rules for unsigned single yellow lines which you might meet further along your journey. Those zone entry signs are at least a quarter of a mile away around a couple of turns which the public will likely regard as a cheating system (many drivers don't understand this point, Mr Mustard doubts it forms part of the driving test or training, please tell him if he is wrong).

There is a lot to take in on those signs whilst moving and repeater signage would be useful but that would make the entry signs obsolete. Mr Mustard's view is that it would be a more compliant world without cpzs. Of course, if the car had been out on hire and was then moved by a Platinum driver who came to work on the train, he/she wouldn't have been on notice of the restriction in any event.

The end.

Free chances at PCN adjudication - London Tribunals

If you have a Notice of Rejection from a council in London and are unsure of your chances of winning at adjudication then the following statistics may help you make your mind up. Councils bluff all the time and reject challenges against PCNs which they know will lose if an adjudicator sees the arguments so also knowing that most people pay up like lambs the Councils have nothing to fear by rejecting your representation.

There is no cost for the public to go to London Tribunals and the council will have to pay £32 which they never see again. There is a very slim chance of costs being awarded against you if you are vexatious, frivolous or wholly unreasonable. In the year to 31 March 25 there were only 74 awards of costs against the public out of 42,907 Appeals which is 1 in 580 so very rare (as the legislation says they should be). The total awarded was £5,080 so an average of £68 per case.

If the council does not offer the 50% discount in the Notice of Rejection (there is no legal requirement for them to do so) and given that you do not have to pay a fee to go to Appeal at London Tribunals and as the chances of being made to pay costs is almost zero, why wouldn't you do it?

The fact is that many cases are won by default. Here are the statistics for the year 2024/25.

There is a 75% chance that Hillingdon will not contest your Appeal at London Tribunals and so they will have to cancel the PCN. That is therefore the borough that motorists should fight every time. There is only a 4% chance that Greenwich will throw in the towel so you do need a half decent case in that Borough. Overall there is a 26% chance, 1 PCN in 4, that after starting the Appeal you won't have to do anything else.

Looking at your overall chances of winning they are as follows:

You should certainly fight the top 8 authorities in the list every single time as your chances are better than 50/50 and you have a one in four chance against the best authority, Southwark, a borough that has a good team of officers dedicated to attending the tribunal hearings.

To save you time looking here is the alphabetical list.

The meek will not inherit the earth, they will meekly pay out for PCNs which they could beat.

The number of PCNs issued in the year 2024/25 in Greater London was 9,457,848 (thanks to a massive increase in the number of restrictions on driving down certain roads which are still invitingly left open to traffic movement and monitored by cameras) and so the 42,907 PCNs taken to Appeal at London Tribunals is a piffling 0.5% or only one in every 220 PCNs issued.

If the 45% beaten at Appeal is overall representative of whether a PCN was correct or not that is four million PCNs which aren't being over-turned which could be.

Stop giving up people, be like Mr Mustard, learn everything you can about the subject and get stuck in and fight. The more you fight the more you learn and the better you get.

The end. 

Newham Council think of the money

 

The Health Emergency Badge is a concessionary scheme for NHS workers undertaking urgent care in the community. It is explained here.

It is necessary to infer that Newham Council wanted a penalty because the car was near the keeper's work base. One cannot use the badge between two patient visits if you return to base and need to park for 30 minutes, you must find a pay bay or some other place to park.

The rules allow for the badge to be used when visiting a patient. If the patient happens to live  near to the place of work of the emergency care provider that isn't a bar to using the badge. These days workers don't go round on bicycles (Call the Midwife is set in the 1950s) as there is far too much medical paraphernalia to carry. You may have noticed that cycle based paramedics have a number of large bags which are equipped purely for emergency situations and so have a carefully assessed set of equipment. In that case the paramedic will often be working right next to his bike and so the kit isn't likely to be stolen so much, unlike someone going into a home for a longer visit, (although sadly anything can get stolen in 2025).

Hewham Bough is 36 km² which keep you fit if you covered it on a bicycle.

What Newham Council failed to do here was to give proper consideration to the reason for the visit, which put the lady into an exempt position. Usually, these challenges are supported by a letter from the NHS Trust (or similar) confirming the urgency of the visit and without providing confidential personal health information. A council should trust a Trust but they struggle to cancel a PCN even when they should.

An aside about the Health Emergency Badge is that the worker has to write the house number on it and hang it on the rear view mirror. Mr Mustard saw such a badge in his own street a few years ago and was concerned for his neighbours so phoned up to check the couple were OK and to see if he could help. They didn't have a health visitor! It must be coincidence that the Spires Shopping Centre is at the end of the road the health visitor's car was parked at, not near the number they wrote on the badge.

The end.

Barnet Council - pursuing a trifling matter

 

A pragmatic decision by the adjudicator which Mr Mustard will save to bring out in the future if he meets another case with similar facts. Councils try to punish motorists for really minor errors, this one with a penalty of £80. The adjudicator has stopped their cunning plan by bringing into play the long established doctrine of 'de mininmis non curat lex'. Courts don't use Latin so much these days but it roughly means that the law is not concerned with trifling matters.

Barnet Council should have exercised their discretion, at least the first time, but money talks. This time the motorist paid nothing and the council wasted c. £30 in tribunal fees.

The end.

Throwing a brick through your own window

Mr Mustard always looks closely at council v council PCN tribunal cases and doubly so if it is the same council taking itself to adjudication. One adjudicator takes the view that a council can't penalise itself and refuses to hear an Appeal.

In this case the council took itself to adjudication and then declined to continue.

Mr Mustard did a little digging and found this to be the location. A clear sign but which is little known, it means 'no vehicles' (as it helpfully says) so no cycles as well as no motor vehicles.

Brick Lane

Mr Mustard then took a cheeky look to see if there were any other live PCNs and found five for this vehicle which are all now settled.

The most shocking PCN is the first one, Tower Hamlets Council sent the debt for a Tower Hamlets Council PCN to a bailiff instructed by Tower Hamlets Council and then, given that the balance shows as negative £130 (it was probably £zero) the PCN was paid. Whether they paid the extra £75 for the first bailiff letter as well as £235 for a bailiff visit and whether or not a council vehicle was clamped isn't clear.

What a weird world we live in. Common sense is clearly out of stock in Tower Hamlets. 

The end.

Redbridge Council - Bullies and cowards

 

A legally parked Oakmont minibus

The sign in the bay: blue badge holders are exempt.

Mr Mustard wrote previously about miserable Redbridge Council and Oakmont Social Education which is providing valuable opportunities. What he didn't know when writing it was that there were a monumental 97 other PCNs in the wings (and this may not be the end).

Here is the first page of the list of cases decided this week, PCNs which had the council prevailed on all of them, have cost Oakmont £7760, money which would be better spent on education.

Now, the adjudicator's decision, which was probably the same for all of the PCNs which Redbridge hadn't conceded before the hearing. If Redbridge had thrown in the towel no location will show in that column.

 Mr Mustard has the following brief comments to add.

Failing to show at a tribunal when your attendance has been requested is dumb behaviour. Mr Mustard suspects that there will be some comment by the adjudicator on some future date when Redbridge do choose to appear.

 

The question of costs has not been mentioned here but they can come into play if a council has been frivolous, vexatious or wholly unreasonable. Mr Mustard thinks the behaviour of Redbridge Council fits squarely within the last two categories.

It is completely unacceptable that the CEO (= traffic warden) recorded a blue badge as not being on display. The image Mr Mustard looked at shows the badge in a security wallet secured by a substantial chain.

 

In order to issue a PCN in the belief that the blue badge did not apply the minibus would have had to be seen arriving at the school premises, which are in The Shrubberies, without a disabled person on board and leaving similarly. That, of course, didn't happen.

 

It is an utter disgrace that these minibuses were targeted. If there had been a scintilla of truth in the thought of fraud the perpetrators would have changed their modus operandi and the senior management of Oakmont would have been too afraid to go to the tribunal, as senior management of Redbridge Council were, as it appears.

 

It is clear that Oakmont know the rules and respect them or, if they err, they pay the penalty.

 

Each Appeal incurs a fee of c. £30 which is not recoverable by a council even if they win. On this bonfire of nasty PCNs the council have burnt almost £3,000

Now follows the other cases.

 

Will Redbridge Council learn something from this and be less vicious in future. Mr Mustard hopes so.

The end.

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.

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.
 

Automated unlawfulness - Redbridge Council

Here is a recent tribunal decision about a PCN

Councils make enormous use of automation to keep their industrial quantities of PCNs on track, or in this case to run it into the buffers. This is not as rare as you might think. A Notice of Rejection informs the recipient that unless payment or an Appeal is made within the period of 28 days beginning with the date of service of the Notice of Rejection that a Charge Certificate may be served. Thus the public know what should happen but probably don't realise the effect of the council failing. Actual service is the date when the Notice drops through your letterbox and deemed service is 2 working days after the Notice was actually posted (which may not be the date on the Notice if councils are slapdash or something went wrong). The state of postal deliveries is well known at present, they could be better.

In this case the Notice of Rejection was, it appears, posted on 17 June.

That was a Monday.

In the absence of evidence about actual service it was deemed served on Wednesday 19 June.

That date, 19 June counts as day 1.

Thus day 28 will be a Tuesday and the motorist had up until midnight on Tuesday 16 July to start an in time Appeal (adjudicators have discretion to accept late appeals if there is an acceptable to them reason).

An Appeal was started on 14 July but would take one or two days to be registered (the tribunal are usually very efficient) and so just as they were about to be told about the Appeal, which freezes further processing until 28 days after the hearing decision has been served, Redbridge Council had, two days too early, already issued a Charge Certificate. Although they can't serve a charge certificate the mere issuing of it early would count against them as the council don't yet have the right to serve.

If this happens to you always point it out to the adjudicator and produce the Charge Certificate you were sent as that is absolute proof of it. That should then be the end of your PCN. You can quote the above decision number as being legally persuasive (adjudication decisions are not precedents).

How could a Notice of Rejection be issued in error? Mr Mustard hears you ask. 

Of course it should never happen. There are various scenarios which include the next progression date being manually wrongly set, the wrong next progression status being applied or the software having the wrong number of numbers set for the next stage. This happened in Islington not long ago and as that is a council which listens to Mr Mustard he suggested they add a few more days to the standstill interval in the automatic process in a certain situation and they agreed. Win, win. Mr Mustard doesn't have the same good relationship with Redbridge who are near the bottom of the table, in his opinion, when it comes to the parking process and complying with the law.

In summary, don't be mugged by a council, learn everything you can about PCNs and you will save money.

The end.

 

 

 

Load(ing) of baloney from Barnet Council

If loading on single or double yellow lines is prohibited then that will be indicated by single or double kerb stripes across the kerb and for part time single mark restrictions by a sign on a pole, viz:

Mr Mustard came across a tribunal decision concerning loading when he was idly looking through the public register the other day. It was for loading in Beverley Gardens on 29 February 2024. Probably here, or on the opposite side:

It is slightly surprising that loading isn't banned at a junction but is isn't so you can park your vehicle there and get on with unloading without, in theory being bothered by a 'traffic warden'. Theory and practice can be different. Here is the gist of the written decision 2240238199:

Barnet Council have twisted themselves in knots to refuse the representations. They have not banned loading and they don't appear to have disputed that loading was taking place but say you can't park on yellow lines to load or unload. Poppycock.

The council's traffic order says this:

and further on in the Order the time is limited to 40 minutes.

The Highway Code is a document the council love to quote from (although it is a mix of guidance and repitition of the law) and they should have taken heed of rule 247

but it was inconvenient so omitted?

There weren't any yellow markings on the kerb or upright signs so the motorist did nothing wrong and had evidence of his delivery by way of an invoice. Councils should not abuse their power by rejecting perfectly valid representations. If this happens to you, trust in the adjudication process and go to Appeal, adjudicators make impartial decisions.

It wouldn't be the money would it that causes councils to depart from the law & get things wrong in their own favour?

The end.

Capita exceed their brief

This is the question that NSL (who issue PCN for Barnet Council and provide processing services) sent to Capita who provide customer support activities which include fielding calls about parking permits (Mr Mustard has lost track of who actually processes permits nowadays).

So all that NSL wanted to know was whether the resident was told they had a permit which was valid on 15 December 15 or not.

Here is the response:

So this response doesn't set out what occurred in the conversation of 19 November which is the crux of the matter and concludes by expressing an opinion 'this ticket would therefore stand' and the decision about formal representations in response to a PCN isn't part of the job of a contractor, not even NSL who actually process PCN, so definitely not Capita's role. Any decision about representations being accepted or not must be take by a council officer (contractors can do the spadework, present facts and write decision letters under instruction, they cannot make decisions and should not therefore try to influence a decision).

If you phone up about a PCN please tape the call. If a call centre operator tells you that your challenge will fail and you should pay your PCN, please send a copy of the call to Mr Mustard and he will make the appropriate complaint. It is your statutory right to challenge any PCN you receive.

One final point is why evidence being submitted to the tribunal is being redacted (pretty pointless when Mr Mustard knows who the people are) as you can't give anonymous evidence. If the adjudicator does not pick this up Mr Mustard will be sure to mention it.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard