A cautious hurrah for Hammersmith & Fulham

Mr Mustard has a tribunal case relating to Imperial Road in Fulham. It is an easy restriction to miss as it just doesn't look like a road you shouldn't drive down.

Researching his case he looked at recent winning cases at the tribunal. One supported his over-signing argument and another a delay in responding to representations argument. Wednesday will tell us if either argument worked.

As a complete aside he found this in decision 2250382511:

The traffic order contains the following exemption so the Bolt / Uber deal is entirely sensible. Mr Mustard made an error, the traffic order exemption does not apply to Imperial Road but to the following streets in Schedule 2

Mr Mustard has just realised that gives him another ground of Appeal at the tribunal as the signs, below, don't tell you that you can enter for Boarding &/or Alighting or for Loading/Unloading.

The reason why the council have made the arrangement with Bolt & Uber must be because they were issuing, say, 100 PCNs a day and they were all being challenged and had to be cancelled which wasted a fee for each PCN paid to London Councils (about 50p a time) and whatever they had to pay the contractor for issuing each PCN and then cancelling it. A simple matter of administrative convenience and finance.

Mr Mustard is now wondering how far the council have made this administrative arrangement know to mini-cab companies within Hammersmith & Fulham and further afield in London generally. Mr Mustard will ask the question of the council.

In the meantime, if you have a mini-cab company in London or have to deliver within the borough (John Lewis must be there quite often and Harrods and other major department stores) you could start emailing your vehicle movements to the council using the email address of enquiries@lbhfparking.com thus destroying the belief in the mind of the council, necessary for the issuance of a PCN, that you have committed a contravention.

The end, for now. 

Hell's Belz in Hackney

The double kerb marks are more prominent now

Mr & Mrs Smith (not their real name) have a young child who goes to nursery in Belz Terrace on Clapton Common. Civil enforcement officers ('traffic wardens') seem to target Belz Terrace at nursery drop off times. Thus it was that a few months ago Mr Smith was driving the family car, registered to Mrs Smith, and during the nursery drop off a PCN was issued. This is fair enough, that a PCN is issued, as it takes a few minutes to walk your child to the nursery, go in and formally hand them over to a member of staff and sign the register, and the traffic warden doesn't know where you are. All they see is a car on double yellows. Perhaps parents should have a small laminated card including the nursery logo to put in the windscreen which says 'Boarding or alighting' just as delivery drivers sometimes have ones that say 'loading'.

What you do expect, or hope for, is that Hackney Council will, when presented with relevant evidence, cancel the PCN without ado if shown adequate evidence.

Mr Mustard challenged the PCN during the 14 day discount period although he wasn't fretting about discount, he would have taken the PCN all the way to the tribunal.

The online representation system didn't offer boarding and alighting but did offer loading and unloading so Mr Mustard chose that as the nearest option and pointed out the lack of choice.

He kept the challenge simple 'The x year old child Jim Smith was being alighted to the Adjacent Nursey. This is an exemption. Please cancel the PCN.' The nursery contract was attached.

Ten days later a rejection was received. The substance follows:

There was nothing careful about Hackney's consideration. No mitigation was advanced so there was none to consider so clearly this was a template response and the council diddn't consider the evidence even though that is their exact duty. A representation isn't a comment, which would be something like 'ooh, that blue dress suits you' which clearly he didn't write. Councils are easily satisfied in their own favour.

At this point he decided to step outside of the formal process which required him to patiently sit and wait for a Notice to Owner and instead to make a complaint, which he did on 7 February.

Just before that complaint a second PCN had been issued and thus it was that 2 days after the complaint Mr Mustard found himself challenging a second PCN issued at the same location in the same circumstances. He expanded upon the challenge to make it idiot proof (it wasn't).

The response really wasn't very good.

Before Mr Mustard could do anything another email popped into his inbox, just one second later!

The next day an explanation arrived in response to Mr Mustard's complaint.

Whilst pleased with the honest admission of error Mr Mustard was concerned about the public in general and so he asked about other possible errors:

The staff at Hackney are getting used to Mr Mustard and so they know it is best to reply as Mr Mustard will see things through.

As one can't force a parking department do the right thing, as they are generally self policing, so Mr Mustard went outside their world and asked the chief auditor to consider having a look. At that point he stopped chasing as audit programmes have to be planned in advance and he had put the germ of an idea there which may bring fruit in the future. That was all he could reasonably do.

If Hackney Council write the same load of old toffee to you do please ask Mr Mustard to act for you.

The end, for now.

Having completed the blog Mr Mustard went to shred the file and found a third PCN he had forgotten about. It was raised just before his email to the Auditor and it should have led Mr Mustard to point out further errors. Here is the gist of the third rejection, written by a third council employee, who also needs retraining as it contains different errors.

Error 1: The yellow stripes on the kerb signify a ban on loading, not on parking (waiting).

Error 2: You do not have to stay with your vehicle, you cannot ask your toddler to cross the road and walk to the nursery on their own. This question was considered by the High Court in the case of Makda, a taxi driver who went looking for his passenger.

Error 3: Never mind 'future contraventions' there hasn't been a contravention.

The end, until Hackney Council issue yet another PCN.

Non-existent rules in 'Haringey'

 

The story starts on 20 October 2023. Here are the words of the psv driver, who we will call Brian:

Generally Mr Mustard would rather be instructed from the off but in this case what Brian had written was perfect and a smart council would have cancelled the PCN there and then. However, this was Haringey who are not the best at PCNs. Their initial rejection letter contained some whoppers:

The first whopper:

The council carefully ignored the law.

The second whopper:

The offending words, as well as the terrible idea of starting a sentence with 'And' were:

'And you must stay with your vehicle'

Mr Mustard waited for the Notice to Owner to be issued and then took over. He wrote this as the formal representations:

This time, the second one of asking, the council decided it was wise to cancel the PCN and duly did so as they were well and truly speared by the law and their blatant lie in the earlier informal rejection.

What motorists should learn from this is twofold, that time spent studying parking rules is not wasted and persistence is key. Councils will reject any number of perfect informal challenges (those made when you initially get the PCN) and only think more carefully when the formal representations are made and thus there is the risk that if the council reject again the motorist will go to the independent tribunal and the council have to pay a c.£30 fee which they don't see again.

The end.

Hackney Council bullying

 

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.

Haringey Council - liars

Mr Courteous (not his real name) is a licensed Private Hire Driver. He had a booking to pick up a fare in The Broadway, Crouch End and take them to Heathrow. He was issued a PCN whilst picking up. He made his own challenge (if you want Mr Mustard to help you it is best you come to him at the start so you don't queer the pitch - luckily Mr Courteous hadn't as not only is he courteous he is smart and truthful).

Here is the vehicle.

Note the no loading kerb stripes, they do not forbid boarding of passengers, nor do single or double yellows.

Here is the sign.

You can see from the time of the photographs that we are within the no waiting and no loading times but they are irrelevant to picking up a passenger as is the suspended bay sign which didn't apply on the day in question.

 

Mr Courteous expected that if he provided proper documentation his PCN would be cancelled and so this is what he wrote:

Hello, I received this PCN whilst working. I am a registered TFL PCO driver and I was parked there only to pick up a client. I went to knock on the door as the customer phone number was not working. I saw the traffic warden who issued the ticket and he just said I have to appeal as it had already been started. As a licensed PCO driver I am allowed to drop off and pick up customer s in restricted bays, red routes and Bus lanes. So I am unsure why this was issued. I humble be ask you to review this PCN. I attach a copy of the PHV license and a copy of the booking as proof.

Anyone who has much experience of council parking departments will know that they reject the first challenge without a second thought, as they duly did.

Mr Mustard has highlighted sections which he does not believe to be true.

 

If Haringey Council had carefully considered what was written they would not have said the driver was not seen as Mr Courteous has reported a conversation and in addition told me that the 'traffic warden' appeared out of a shop (was he 'hiding' there or perhaps just having a coffee or using the loo?). The usual problem is, Mr Mustard thinks, that after the traffic warden has closed the PCN on his handheld equipment he cannot add further notes and he must have already noted 'DNS' (driver not seen) whilst issuing the PCN and that became an out of date entry he could not correct (Mr Mustard will send for the notes).

 

The 'our evidence' statement is probably only meant to be read as their evidence is that the driver was not seen, there is no reason to believe they know anything in the back office about the passenger as the traffic warden won't have made notes about them. This is, of course, a standard sentence, a poor standard as it starts with 'And', because it refers to 'picking up or dropping off' when the council has already been told this was an arranged collection and were sent an unredacted copy of the booking.

The council either don't know the law or are pretending they don't in order to induce the motorist into paying up. This is what the judge said in the case of Makda, a key case on the traffic adjudicator tribunal website:

The council's traffic order contains this exemption

An adjudicator won't strictly apply the 2 minute time period as they recognise that sometimes the passenger may not be quite ready, they want a final visit to the loo perhaps, they need to check they haven't left the gas on, closed all the windows and double checked they have their passport, tickets and money. They may also live on the third floor, there isn't a lift and they have two 20kg bags which have to be slowly carried down. The driver is the servant in this relationship.

Looking at this particular collection, the passenger did not answer her phone and so the driver had three choices. The first was to drive away but it is only 9:27 on arrival (the council's first photo shows) so the driver was slightly early which Mr Mustard regards as being on time and driving away leaves the passenger in danger of missing their flight and the driver £105 down on the deal.

The second is to sit there and see if the passenger appears and the third is to do as he did and go and ring the doorbell. A private hire driver really can't be expected to have all of his passengers waiting on the pavement for him, come rain or shine, because the public will find another driver if that is how they are treated (it is fine for local Uber journeys) the concept of delivering the ordered service seems to have escaped the parking department at Haringey Council.

What is clear from the Makda decision is that time spent looking for your passenger is exempt time. In the Makda case he hung around for a short time and then left but the way in which adjudicators interpret the judgment is like this, which relates to a Barnet council PCN:

Mr Mustard will be making representations in due course against the Notice to Owner and if Haringey Council reject those he will be off to the tribunal and will be hopeful of gaining a cancellation.

There is a duty on councils as expressed by Lord Mustill

Where an Act of Parliament confers an administrative power there is a presumption that it will be exercised in a manner which is fair in all the circumstances

Unfortunately over the years as more and more parking enforcement powers are sub-contracted out to commercial companies, rather then being the sole province of civil servants, there has been a  steady drift away from the concepts of service and the principles of the Nolan code (which include itegrity and honesty) into one of writing absolutely anything you like, whether a truth or a lie, because there is very little in the way of adverse consequences for telling a lie as in this case.

We need a PCN ombudsman to drive up standards of honesty.

The end (for now).