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.

Something to look forward to

Recent news coming out of Hendon Town Hall has been relentlessly negative for residents and for staff and Mr Mustard thought that rather than spending his time writing a meeting report that wasn't

as timely as Roger's over at the Barnet Eye

as direct as Citizen Barnet's except that she has been so busy causing delicious trouble she hasn't had time to write herself up (Mr Mustard predicts that Citizen Barnet will be taking her thermos off to Starbucks somewhere in North London this morning, with a bit of luck it will be the same police team as Thursday, familiar faces on both sides)

as instructive as Mr Reasonable's 

as amusing as Mrs Angry's 

as visible as Amanda Christie's 

as access all areas as the Barnet Bugle's (the only footage of the actual decision being taken)

as festive as Reema Patel's

and Brian Coleman's accurate independent account (Brian is getting the hang of this blogging lark, just wait till he gets twittering properly, one small correction though Brian my gusset was not moist thank you very much and in actual fact you may not even have seen me quietly tweeting from the back of room 2 from a seated position)

that he decided instead to give you something to look forward to. It seems that London borough elections take place on the first Thursday of the month every 4 years except if the first Thursday is the 1st of the month so the most likely date for the next borough wide election is 8 May 2014.

Of course, if One Barnet goes even further off the rails than it already has in the One Barnet parking contract with NSL, and it will, then anyone with honour will resign and anyone without any honour will probably find themselves being vocally called upon to resign and the recipients of blog posts, emails, letters and petitions to go.

So here is the countdown clock

COUNTDOWN CLOCK WIDGETS

and here, ward by ward, are the candidates that need to go as they have all taken an active part in, or failed to curb the stupidity of their Cabinet colleagues (One Barnet Cabinet members in red) with the odd exception

Brunswick Park

Lisa Rutter
Andreas Tambourides

Coppetts

Kate Salinger (except that Mr Mustard would vote for Kate if he was in her ward)

East Barnet

Barry Evangeli
Robert Rams

Joanna Tambourides

Edgware

Helena Hart

Joan Scannell
Darrell Yawitch

Finchley Church End

Eva Greenspan
Graham Old
Daniel Thomas

Hampstead Garden Suburb

Andrew Harper
John Marshall
Daniel Seal

Golders Green

Dean Cohen

Melvin Cohen
Rueben Thompstone

Hale

Thomas Davey

Brian Gordon
Hugh Rayner

Hendon

Maureen Braun
Anthony Finn
Mark Shooter

High Barnet (Mr Mustard's ward, future blog title in May 14 "A golden goodbye to goldenarse"?)

David Longstaff

Bridget Perry
Wendy Prentice

Mill Hill

John Hart
Sury Khatri
Brian Schama

Oakleigh

Sachin Rajput

Brian Salinger
Stephen Sowerby

Totteridge

Alison Cornelius

Richard Cornelius

Underhill


Andrew Strongolou
Rowan Turner


Time to do some gardening.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard