Lack of diplomacy in Westminster

 

One of the benefits of over a decade of PCN fighting experience is that experts get to know arcane information. Mr Mustard knows than an enforcement authority, such as the City of Westminster, has the legal right to suspend parking bays but only for the reasons they write in their traffic orders. Common reasons include people moving home, filming, street events, scaffolding & building works, crane works and the like. Mr Mustard couldn't recall having read an Order which allowed for parking to be suspended so that diplomats could park (presumably somewhere different to usual). It isn't really necessary as they often don't pay their PCNs in any event so they may as well just have been left to park as best they could.

Mr Mustard decided that Miss W wasn't going to be paying the PCN she was given at twenty past midnight, a time when the 9 diplomats were not likely to be in the office in any event. Miss W had been to watch a film, ironically called Predator : Badlands which turned out to be set in Westminster

 

Mr Mustard made the informal challenge on 11 November which was as follows:

The rejection of the informal challenge was issued 8 days later and completely failed to deal with the only argument that had been made:

This is a typical method of trying to fool the public. Write a load of stuff which is true but irrelevant, sophistry in action but not sophisticated and it gets nowhere with Mr Mustard. In fact it helps him as the legal duty on the authority is to consider the representations which were made not ones which were not made.

Mr Mustard asked Miss W to trust him and to send him the Notice to Owner once received. She did so after it was issued on 6 January. On 9 January Mr Mustard made the formal representation.  All Mr Mustard had to do was change the heading from 'Informal challenge' to 'Formal Representations' and change the date at the bottom, the content of the representation was identical.

The rejection was slightly different and went on for longer but it still dodged the only argument that had been raised:

 

Mr Mustard and Miss W swapped some messages:

Mr M:  Had a few minutes gap at work so read the letter. Westminster have not answered the only point I made which is that they have not given themselves the right to suspend a space for diplomats so I would hope to win at the tribunal but can't guarantee it. If I lose the 50% discount goes but I think as a principle we should fight. I do all the tribunal paperwork.

Miss W: Ah okay hmm if you think it’s worth a shot let’s go for it. Have you come across a case like this before do they normally get thrown out?

Mr M:  This is a first but that may be because not many people fight back like I do. I often create new Appeals that are revolutionary and then followed by other experts and vice versa

Miss W: Thanks. I’m open to fighting it, but realistically what do you think the chances are? I just want to weigh that against losing the discount.

Mr M: Chances are 90% win.

So off we went to the tribunal on 12 February 2026. This PCN had moved pretty rapidly through the process.

Grounds of Appeal: The Notice of Rejection contains nothing in response to the argument that the council had no legal right to issue the PCN. That is a procedural impropriety.

There is currently a delay in obtaining a hearing at London Tribunals which is being worked on but Mr Mustard doesn't mind, it gives motorists time to save up in case they might lose. The hearing date set was 10 August 2026.

Miss W had a good attitude: Thanks, I’ve never seen this process before so quite interesting to see it unfold. Appreciate it!

Mr Mustard missed it at the time, as he has 50 tribunal Appeals running concurrently but on 10 June the City of Westminster decided to throw in the towel.

The Council no longer wish to contest this appeal and the PCN has been cancelled.

Mr Mustard surmised that they didn't want a tribunal decision against them on this point as although it isn't a precedent it would make their position precarious for future cases and that they will carry on suspending bays for this reason and issuing PCNs unlawfully.

There was no traffic management purpose to this PCN it was a pure revenue raising tool. Justice has been served. Westminster lost £32 on this (the approximate tribunal fee).

The end.

City of Westminster* and PayByPhone

*This blog will also apply in part to other enforcement authorities.

The sign at the heart of the PCN.

The motorist, 'J', tried to pay by phoning and texting.

He didn't get anywhere and, of course, received a PCN for not paying.

Mr Mustard tested the explanation, texted the number and got an unhelpful response.

If a sign offer the ability to pay by text message the enforcement authority must make sure that it works. Equally, if they offer the ability to pay by phoning a contact centre that must also work and for the same hours as for which payment is expected.

 

Mr Mustard made the representations which included both lots of phone records above.

The good news is that the PCN was cancelled. The bad news is that what was written in response made no sense.

There are seven short paragraphs, imagine they are numbered from 1 to 7.

 

1    A polite introduction. 

2    A pointless sentence.

3    Undisputed so a waste of time.

4    No it wasn't, where did they get this from? 'J' knew where he was as he was in front of the sign. Mr Mustard knew the location in question and put it in his text.

5    Good to use goodwill but offered on a false basis, Westminster's system was at fault. Mr Mustard has tried it again just now, he gets the same message pushing him to the App. Shut up about precedents and fix your system please Westminster.

6    No session was paid for so this is irrelevant standard text and the motorist knew the correct number in any event. No mention of how you get a refund for the unwanted session.

7    Nothing about the responsibility of the City of Westminster to provide systems that work.

Should you end up with a PCN at London Tribunals an adjudicator might take the view that given the App isn't shown on the sign it doesn't matter if it goes wrong as you shouldn't be using it in any event (notwithstanding that it is probably the method used about 90% of the time). 

Mr Mustard would be arguing that neither the phone number nor text messaging works and based upon those being the only methods stated on the sign nothing else is of any relevance. Doubtless the City of Westminster will claim that you should have parked somewhere else but given that they control the whole of Westminster the same flaws would apply and so the suggestion is ridiculous.

Please do let Me Mustard know in the comments section if you do manage to pay in Westminster by either phoning up or texting.

The end.

Electric vehicles bays in Westminster

 

Mr Mustard almost never drives into central London and still has a petrol car and will do so until he is too doddery to drive. He'll then have to be doddery on his bicycle or take the tube using his free (to him, Barnet Council have to pay for his journeys) Freedom Pass.

He thinks the only reason councils are helpful to EV charging operators, or provide facilities in lamp posts, is because there is supposedly money to be made. When he gets a chance he will try and find out the income which Barnet Council are garnering from the provision and what the costs are. It is a bad idea for councils to encourage car use in this way when they ought to be building tramways & better cycle lanes.

Electric cars weigh more than the petrol equivalent and so will cause more structural damage to roads which may only become apparent later as/if the market penetration of electric vehicles continues to grow.

Using his own car as an example, the electric version weighs approximately 45% more so wears out the road faster, emits more noxious tyre & brake particles into the air and is far more likely to result in death if it is driven into a human being.

That's all by the by, Mr Mustard was mostly interested to see how hard it would be for a non-resident to charge their car whilst visiting Westminster. Just over 1 in 7 bays in Westminster are available to visitors. Many people have misunderstood the signs, if it looks like the following you are meant to be charging an EV car and hold a resident permit.

 

Mr Mustard thinks there is a mis-match between the sign and the traffic order, for the sign above the City of Westminster cancelled the PCN as soon as an Appeal was started at the independent tribunal so if you have such a PCN Mr Mustard can help you. Once he has assessed the viability he will ask you to pay £40 to the North London Hospice and then he will take up the cudgels (non violently).

The end.

Big Bus - small box

 

This is another decision which Mr Mustard found at random. It has some interesting points to note.

 Here is an aerial view of the location.

The bus has a problem in clearing the junction as from the driver's seat it is a long way to the back of the bus to be certain you have cleared the box. The benefit of the doubt should be given to the bus driver in any event and also if it isn't certain that the bus actually stopped, an enforcement authority must have a 'belief' that they did so, there should be no doubt.

The problem for the bus driver is that the bus is almost three cars long so whilst the driver patiently waits in lane 1 for a three car length space to appear, any car in lane 2 can perfectly properly change from lane 2 to lane 1 and keep 'taking' the bus's space. Given that this is in Piccadilly, the bus could be there for ages.

The adjudicator has succinctly expressed the problems with the City of Westminster's case. He could also have added, but didn't need to, that the box extends beyond the confines of the junction on both sides, so if you have passed a line drawn across Piccadilly from the kerb line in Bolton Street and you have stopped after that you have not stopped within the junction which is the point of the box. It should not have been painted this way.

The end.

City of Westminster: No, No, Yes.

Mr Mustard's client parked in the West End on 8 April 24. Mr Mustard hasn't asked but you really do need a good reason for it to make sense to drive into central London given that we have lots of public transport choices.

He parked in the bay on the right, where the grey van is.

There was a suspension sign in the bay.

Having looked straight across the road the driver could see that he was not opposite the Comedy Store so he stayed where he was and received a PCN.

There isn't a bay opposite the comedy store, only yellow lines.

It was 17 May before Mr Mustard made the informal challenge. The Notice to Owner had not yet been sent and any challenge sent up until then is known as an informal one. The discount had gone but given the factual error Mr Mustard expected a swift cancellation.

He was wrong, the challenge was rejected 4 days later in full denial of the facts. 

Mr Mustard went into standby mode. On 24 June the Notice to Owner was sent.

On 28 June 24 Mr Mustard made the formal representations on the grounds of the vague location.

It took a month, until 28 July 24, for Westminster to again close their eyes to the facts and issue a formal Notice of Rejection which opens the door to the tribunal.

On 18 August 24 Mr Mustard started an Appeal at London Tribunals.

On 19 August Westminster issued a charge certificate rasing the penalty by 50% to £195. That document could not by law be issued until 28 days after service of the 28 July rejection and only then if the penalty is not paid nor an Appeal started.

On 20 August Westminster noted the start of an Appeal.

On 21 August Westminster threw in the towel and cancelled the PCN.

Whether that was because the PCN was without merit or because of the procedural impropriety is not known but Mr Mustard expected to win on the vague location point in any event.

What this history tells you is that if you want to win you need to set your stall out clearly and dig in for the long haul, don't fret about the discount if you have a decent argument. Councils do stuff wrong all of the time.

The end.

Day 56 - deemed acceptance of formal representations for a parking PCN.

 

Extract of 2022 Appeals Regulations

The above Regulations are only about parking (not moving traffic e.g. yellow boxes or bus lanes) and applies to 'formal' representations which are those made in response to

- a Notice to Owner

- a postal drive away or physical prevention PCN sent by post

- after recovering your car from the pound to which it was removed.

Mr Mustard has a control sheet for every PCN he fights (an old school sheet of paper) onto which the outline facts of the case are noted. Thus he has the dates of the formal representations and the Notice of Rejection adjacent to each other and his experienced eye picks up cases which are near to or above 56 days. He had such a case in Westminster in May 24 and so no matter how bad the parking might have been (the elderly driver had paid for the wrong vehicle so not a heinous crime) Westminster had timed themselves out of the game. They can't complain, they get 56 days and a motorist never gets more than 28. Here are the grounds of Appeal to the tribunal.

Nine days after starting the Appeal the City of Westminster decided not to fight the Appeal but to cancel the PCN. That was sensible.

Mr Mustard wasn't finished. He thought he couldn't be the one in a million for whom the process had gone wrong and so he asked for some data under the Freedom of Information legislation.

Westminster replied fully and furnished Mr Mustard with a spreadsheet containing 407,284 entries (they included both under and over 54 days). Having distilled it down to late entries Mr Mustard sent a follow up to the parking department which told them, in measured terms, that they had done wrong.

Parking management at Westminster are always polite to Mr Mustard (some council parking managers aren't keen on Mr Mustard because he picks up their errors and causes them extra work but a department which enforces the law must follow the law) and he had to give them a gentle nudge. Shortly thereafter he received a full response.

Mr Mustard decided to double-check the position regarding 'bailiff' charges as although he expected they were being refunded he does like clarity. His question was really to see who picks up the bill for refunding the bailiff charges and it seems it is the bailiff. Don't cry for them, the companies make £millions (the individual bailiffs a pretty penny if they work hard).

There was a swift response to the follow-up:

Good news for the 145 motorists affected. If you are one of them please donate some of your refund to the North London Hospice as a thank you for Mr Mustard's unknown help.

This just leaves the unasked question as to why there isn't a software rule in place which automatically cancels PCNs in accordance with the law once a formal representation reaches the age of 55 days as no Notice of Rejection can then be served in time. PCN software is set up to automate the process as far as possible to the benefit of the enforcement authority. It should also contain parameters which ensure that authorities, endowed with huge power, do not abuse it and break the law.

Mr Mustard expects that quite a few parking managers read the blog. He will be checking all authorities in London in the year to March 2025 to make sure they have not erred like Westminster did. He will expect them to take the same corrective action mirroring the professional approach taken by Westminster.

The end.

 

Westminster decide that 4 arguments do not a representation make

This might be a bit of a long read as a lot happened but if you want to know more about processing of a parking PCN it will be useful to you.

We start on 6 September 2023 with a PCN being put on the car in Albemarle St. which has, Mr Mustard finds, associations at different times with Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde

The sign, which the driver only spotted afterwards, was missed because it was within a suspended section and turned away.

After the event, on finding the PCN, the driver thought that the sign was the one above the suspended bay sign, the one we can see the back of. Mr Mustard wouldn't find himself in Westminster in a car but if he did he would be more inquisitive before concluding that a spot of free parking was in order. We were where we were. Although Mr Mustard acts regularly for the company which owns the car the driver decided to make their own challenge on the grounds of inadequate signage which they did on 20 September.

 

The City of Westminster rejected the informal challenge on the same day. Unusual and odd as the letter apologised for the delay in responding. Who said it was a cut and paste job? The letter didn't say why the challenge wasn't accepted just that they wouldn't cancel. This is an unhelpful trend which Mr Mustard has noticed creeping in during 2023.

 

All then went quiet, as the driver wasn't sucked into paying at a discount, as she knew that the company would refer to Mr Mustard who usually finds something which which to attack the ticket. On 6 November the Notice to Owner was issued to the company as the registered keeper. On 10 November Mr Mustard was instructed and he rustled up the formal representations on the same day. He found four strands on which to make representations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A council, or the City in this case, are allowed 56 days for an on street parking PCN in which to serve their Notice of Rejection otherwise they are deemed to have accepted and must serve a Notice of Acceptance and cancel the PCN.

 

Service of a Notice of Rejection at this stage opens the door to the independent tribunal which Mr Mustard attends nearly every week and where he was expecting to win on argument #4 as he has done five times already.

 

Mr Mustard keeps an eye on enforcement authority websites so he can glean if an Acceptance or Rejection has likely been issued.

 

Something unusual happened on 20 December which was day 41 of 56, the City of Westminster wrote to Mr Mustard's client:

Mr Mustard looked at the ticking clock and thought there was the possibility that a Notice of Rejection would not be served (sending isn't enough, it has to arrive) by the 56th day being 4 January 2024.

On 4 January Mr Mustard emailed the City of Westminster as follows:

 

Not long after sending that email Mr Mustard's client, who is also very efficient, sent him a copy of the Charge Certificate which had been issued on 2 January 2024 and was a procedural impropriety as a response to representations was outstanding so the file must be placed on hold.

 

Having raised his query at a senior level the job of responding was given to 'Customer relations' (this isn't going to end well). The sort of response which makes Mr Mustard happy is short, simple and apologetic, something like this:

'Dear Mr Mustard. Thank you for your email. You are quite correct. We have cancelled the Charge Certificate and the PCn and apologise for the inconvenience. Yours etc'.

Here is what he got instead, just the 'good' bits:

Oh yes it does. If there is a procedural impropriety an adjudicator is bound to allow an Appeal by a motorist.

The 'correspondence' that the City of Westminster received was all in the one document with an image of the authority letter inserted into the text of the document which was headed 'Formal representations'.

Apparently in the City of Westminster a fundamental challenge to the legal wording and thus the right to issue a PCN isn't a representation. Nor, it seems, is a challenge that the Contravention did not occur despite that being one of the statutory grounds specified in the legislation. What we can gather from this is that the City of Westminster decided to act as if Mr Mustard had not written a word which put his client into a position where having been deemed to not have made a formal representation within 28 days of receiving the Notice to Owner they became liable for the PCN by default and then saw the penalty illegally increased by 50%.

Clearly, the City of Westminster had forgotten the contents of their own Notice to Owner, viz;

 

 

The non apology continued:

The City of Westminster are in for a shock. Mr Mustard doesn't fight many PCNs against this authority but one of his expert friends does. There are already 6 adjudication decisions made by 3 different adjudicators covering 4 enforcement authorities where this wording has been found to be wrong. 

Here is part of a tribunal decision which went against the London Borough of Hounslow and which you can quote to any other enforcement authority issuing parking PCNs on street (not through the post, they have different rules) when you ask them to cancel your PCN.

When an enforcement authority writes to you telling you that they are right and you are wrong, stop and think what is in it for the enforcement authority, £130 possibly. Look at what happened in the Post Office, innocent people were told they were the only one. The difference here is that Mr Mustard and the band of PCN experts to which he belongs know the difference between right and wrong. Success with a particular argument cannot be guaranteed as the decision above isn't a precedent, it is under the law as it stands legally persuasive and likely to be followed because the adjudicator named above has been deciding the fate of PCNs for more than the 13 years Mr Mustard has been appearing in front of him and the second adjudicator likewise. They are highly experienced qualified lawyers and came to their decisions after careful consideration of all the arguments. It matters not a jot to an adjudicator if they Allow or Refuse an Appeal as there is no financial incentive for them to decide either way, they apply the law without fear or favour.

Mr Mustard's final word for the parking department. Mr Mustard isn't a 'customer' so has no need of 'customer relations'. The City of Westminster have zero respect until they learn to say sorry when they have right royally lashed up.

Pity the motorist acting for themselves as knowledge is power and Mr Mustard knows what should be what. The more you all know, the better.

The end.