Barnet Council - bizarre

 

This wasn't one of Mr Mustard's cases and he directs your attention to paragraph 5. As the council (via their agents) use a lot of standard paragraphs instead of writing letters from scratch and as they are printed remotely the staff don't get to see the totality of what they have produced i.e. it is signed remotely and electronically. Thus glaring errors slip through the net as this one did.

Even if a contravention occurred you may win on technical grounds such as these and you should especially give the tribunal a go once the discount has been lost for any reason.

No-one should receive a bizarre letter from a council. 

Barnet busted in a bus lane

 

Looking at the above image and deciding whether or not to issue a PCN for a bus lane contravention (always assuming a person actually looked at the footage rather than letting the computer automate the whole process) you would, as would any reasonable person, assume the car was in contravention (assuming the cctv was taken during the operative times of the lane). The person making the decision is probably in Dingwall (or another office of NSL) so will have no idea is behind the car as they would even have to look on a map to find the area and they know nothing about local traffic.

 

However, this was the view behind the car (cctv is sneakily set up to only cover the last section of a lane, the part most likely to be contravened).

Now you have a completely different view of the PCN question. The above photos have been borrowed from a PePiPoo post. The reason is to illustrate the next decision which is in a different part of the A5 and 3 months later. Clearly Highways should be telling the PCN issuing department (often simply referred to as the 'Parking service' although service is a misnomer) when a bus lane is partly closed (or the signs are obscured by building works, as below) and PCNs should not be issued. Mr Mustard will refer this topic to the relevant councillor.

Not a good day for Barnet Council burning £114 of our money and they gave Mr Chawla and Mr Wachal an unreasonably terrible time. It is an easy matter to check if a bus lane has roadworks going on alongside it.

Local authorities are required, at law, to be procedurally fair. To want to use the motorist's own photographs against them and to buttress the council's own case was to place them in an 'impossible position'. Had the council provided contemporaneous evidence of the bus lane signs, at the start of the lane, they would indubitably have disclosed the roadworks.

Here is the adjudication decision itself:

Costs awards are very rare but thoroughly deserved in this case.

Sadly, many motorists will have paid up in this situation, especially those with leased cars as bus lane PCNs in London cannot be transferred so the lease or hire company will probably just pay them.

End.