Bunns Lane Car Park - ticketing pattern

Having just read an unusual tribunal case about paying once you get to work for your parking in the Bunns Lane Car Park, a method that would work fine in many private car parks, Mr Mustard thought it might be instructive to have a look at the times at which tickets are issued for not paying at that location. The results are graphed above and here is the data for January to August 2018.

Mr Mustard also had a glance at the 12 cases for this location which have reached the tribunal. Apart from the lady who paid from work, with 4 PCNs, the most common reason for the others was that it was Saturday and payment was not due for a stay of less than 3 hours, which Mr Mustard could construct a winning argument for.

As the traffic wardens fall out of Solar House in North Finchley at 8am the earliest PCN issued at this location was at 8:29 and the last at 18:17 (some unlucky person perhaps thinking no warden would turn up after 6pm).

So we can see that there is a bit of a feeding frenzy by traffic wardens between 8.30 and 11am and then all goes quiet until 2pm when there is a flurry of ticketing and then it goes all calm again.

Only 3 people a day fail to pay for their parking and whilst there may be the odd chancer most will actually have paid just for the wrong vehicle or wrong location. The phone signal is poor at this location and there isn't a ticket machine for some unfathomable reason.

All PCN data is published by the council on their data portal, here although Mr Mustard prefers to download the raw data and manipulate it himself as that works better for him.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Bunns Lane Car Park: Free parking costs £60

It is reasonably well known that in the Bunns Lane Car Park on a Saturday you can park for 3 hours for free & then transact your business in Mill Hill. The snag is that you have to have a mobile telephone card and a debit/credit card to obtain the free parking. This is as consistent as parking ever is within Barnet as in the Moxon St car park there is the option to obtain a free parking voucher to put in your windscreen, albeit only for one hour. This means that those people without both a phone & a card can still park for a short while.

Mr D made a classic error in Bunns Lane, which is clearly described in the adjudicator's decision, which is repeated verbatim (bar having anonymised the name of the motorist).

A contravention can occur if a vehicle is parked in an off-street car park during controlled hours, without clearly displaying a valid permit or voucher, or without payment of the parking charge.

There appears to be no dispute that the vehicle was parked in this bay in Bunns Lane car park, or that the Penalty Charge Notice was issued to it, as shown in the photographs/digital images produced by the Enforcement Authority.

Mr D’s case is that he believed that there was three hours free parking on a Saturday having read the notice displayed.

It is correct that there is such a concession on a Saturday but the notice also states, in upper case, ‘free parking session must be registered by phone’. This enables the civil enforcement officer to establish when the three hours began.

The app says that the sign was not clear as he stopped reading it when he saw that it was free on Saturday.

I have had the opportunity of hearing Mr D personally and find him to be a credible and convincing witness. I accept what he tells me. Unfortunately, it does not amount to a valid ground of appeal as it does remain the responsibility of the motorist to check carefully on each occasion before leaving their vehicle, so as to ensure that they park only as permitted and that this will remain the position for as long as the vehicle will be there. This includes making sure that they comply with all restrictions and prohibitions indicated by the signs. In this case the requirement to register the vehicle by phone is in the same panel as the charges and above the terms and conditions of parking.

The Adjudicator is only able to decide an appeal by making findings of fact on the basis of the evidence produced by the parties and applying relevant law. The Court of Appeal has affirmed that the Adjudicator has no power to consider mitigating circumstances of any description and there are no compelling reasons for recommendation to the Enforcement Authority.

Considering all the evidence before me carefully I must find as a fact that, on this particular occasion, a contravention did occur and the Penalty Charge Notice was properly issued.

Accordingly this appeal must be refused.

Too late now but for the benefit of others, Mr Mustard would have argued that the contravention did not occur as the PCN was served at 10:44am and paid for parking starts at 8am so the car could not have exceeded the 3 hours. He would also have argued more about the ambiguity of the board as neither blue badge holders nor motorcyclists have to register for their free parking periods.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The Bunns Lane highway robber rides again

Regular readers will recall this location appearing in the Standard a year ago and after that PCN for being outside of the box simply stopped. In addition, greenspaces trimmed the hedges back and Mr Mustard did see some resurfacing equipment there a few months back so some tarmac upkeep may have occurred.

Thinking perhaps that everyone will have forgotten about the events of November 15, a modern day highway robber, kitted out in his/her NSL uniform and possible astride a white charger (scooter) and waving their paper bullet issuing HHC pistol (hand held computer) decided on 22 November 16 to give the above car a parking ticket. Now it could have been parked a little more tightly within the space but it isn't doing any harm as nothing or no-one parks or walks across the front of it.

This is a trivial contravention and one which a traffic warden should either walk past or helpfully leave a note asking the motorist to park more neatly in future. All that has happened is that the council have annoyed the motorist, the council have suffered more reputational damage, Mr Mustard has more work on his plate and the council will have to pay out £30 for the inevitable tribunal visit which 90%+ of the time goes Mr Mustard's way. The guidance from London Councils is that an entire wheel must be outside of the bay; it isn't.

The traffic warden has a high badge number, approaching 500 so is a newby (there is quite a bit of staff turnover) and has not appeared on Mr Mustard's radar before (he logs every PCN he tackles). The question arises as to how new traffic wardens are informed of all the particular contraventions and locations at which they should not issue PCN - they probably aren't.

Mr Mustard will ask parking management to kill this off. They must be sick of the trouble that NSL cause them. Outsourcing can mean out of control.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Hedge Fund

Update Monday 12 October 15: The parking process manager (he isn't silly) has cancelled the PCN. Poor lad, back off his holidays to tricksy emails from the local blogger. The state of the car park is being referred upwards to his boss.

10 October 15



Mr Mustard is dealing with a PCN in the Bunns Lane Car Park for parking outside of the bay parkings. It is in the following line of cars; all but the tiny Fiat 500 seem to be outside of the bay.

A parking bay in a car park should, based upon Traffic Management Orders for other car parks, be 5.5m in length. If it isn't then the council can't enforce its rule that the maximum vehicle length which can be parked is 5.5m (and a maximum height of 2m).

Mr Mustard went there in his car which is 4.6m in length so should easily fit into a bay. Did it?

At most then the bays are about 4m in length. Mr Mustard did go for a wander around Mill Hill and spent money in 2 shops to give a traffic warden time to pop by and ticket him. No such luck!

Mr Mustard was also a bit miffed that he had to use his phone to get 3 hours of free parking as there isn't even a single parking meter in this car park, unlike the ones in High Barnet (why not?). The sum due was £nil but the 3 digit security cvv/cv2 code for his credit card was mandatory despite nothing being due to be charged to his card.

edited in blue by Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard took other photographs whilst he was there

If you don't have a phone you won't do your Saturday shopping in Mill Hill

Apparently, this is a blue badge holder's bay!

Rubbish, weeds and broken glass everywhere, lines not clear, bays too short & too narrow

This a VW Polo, not quite 4m in length

now this car does deserve a PCN on a busy day although no harm has been done today

The council are making £7m a year, net of costs, out of parking.

The council need to spend some of it on resurfacing 75% of the car park, removing all the rubbish (including on the stepped path which no-one can use), killing the weeds, cutting the foliage back, remarking the whole car park with bays which are all at least 5.5m long and installing at least one parking meter so that people can pay on the spot with a credit or debit card or obtain a printed receipt for 3 hours of free parking on a Saturday.

Has there been much publicity for these three free hours as Mr Mustard didn't have to fight for a space? The main users were driving instructors who could teach novices to park without any danger of hitting a parked car.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Bunn Fight at the car park in Mill Hill

3 hours free parking was recently agreed by councillors for Saturdays (not sure it is permanent but you can look at the sign before you park).

The message didn't properly filter through to the NSL traffic wardens nor to the PayByPhone people who carried on charging £5.10 for 3 hours of free parking and/or dishing out PCN if you didn't pay. The requirement to have a telephone to order 3 hours of something free was unreasonable and Mr Mustard would have beaten the PCN he heard about at PATAS. There is now no need as management have stepped in and out things right. It is doubtless only because of outsourcing parking in the first place that it all went wrong.

Pro-active refunds are to be made.

All PCN should also be cancelled but somehow Mr Mustard thinks that won't happen so make sure you challenge the PCN or wing a copy over to mrmustard@zoho.com and he will get it cancelled for you.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard