Wandsworth Council - cynical rejection

A friend of Mr Mustard parked where the above sign is to be found in Replingham Road. SW18. Let us call him Mr P. He runs a business and drives all over London most weekdays to supervise the progress of various works. He isn't computer literate although does have a smart phone and his preference is for paying at the meter. Mr P generally pays when he should pay.

At this location, there wasn't a meter to pay at and so payment was not made and a PCN was the resultant outcome.

Mr Mustard made a simple challenge:

'There wasn't a parking meter in the direction of the arrow shown on the sign.'

Simple enough for the council to show there was a meter or to cancel the PCN, one would think? Er, no.

The writer may well have been satisfied, self evidently easily satisfied, but Mr Mustard wasn't. What was missing from the reply? Yes, a statement of the location of a parking meter.

Is a wraparound sticker on a pole good enough? It is a sticker which Mr Mustard didn't notice initially, because the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 do not sanction stickers as a valid sign format, so it is of zero legal validity.

There was a bit of a dire warning on the next page of the letter that you are risking having to pay an extra £55 if you fight on and lose.

Mr Mustard laughed and carried on, by waiting for the Notice to Owner to reach the keeper. He had made the informal challenge in his own name as anyone can challenge a PCN placed on a vehicle, as he might have been the driver on the day. Mr P told Mr Mustard once he received the Notice to Owner and so the 'formal representations' were duly made in the name of Mr P, as they have to be, ('formal representations' doesn't mean that you need to get out parchment and a quill pen, it just means they are the challenge by the keeper in response to the Notice to Owner). You may recognise the representations from the informal, PCN, stage.

'There wasn't a parking meter in the direction of the arrow shown on the sign.'

Consistency pays once you reach the tribunal, if you do. A month after the making of the formal representations, Wandsworth Council responded:

The first paragraph is a waste of time, everyone knows what the PCN was issued for but councils just can't stop trying to justify their actions even when they are plain wrong.

The second paragraph recognised what Mr Mustard knew was fact in the first place. What it does do is make the first rejection look like a cynical attempt to obtain payment for a PCN when the council had removed the meter and not updated the bay sign to reflect the fact that the only method of payment which was possible was by using a telephone. It was dishonest of them and many a motorist not represented by Mr Mustard would have paid up. Mr Mustard suggests that you never accept what a council says at face value but stress test it instead and use the internet to help you. Free help is always available for all sorts of problems with authority at PePiPoo. The link is to the council PCN forum but there are others for speeding and private parking charges etc. things that Mr Mustard does not involve himself in.

The signs in Wandsworth should all be changed, it isn't like they don't make millions out of parking tickets, they have a duty to erect signs which accord with Traffic Management Orders. Mr Mustard thinks he had better send a complaint to the Chief Executive.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Mind the gap

Torrington Park

A contractor working on behalf of the council has blocked the width restriction and left the only possible route as the bus gate. Mr V therefore drove through it and made representations against the inevitable PCN that there was a truck in the way which was broken down or was there for some other reason. Here is the council's response:

 What Mr Mustard expects is:

a. the video to be looked at more closely so that the council realise the van is almost certainly engaged in works at the location and a cancellation on the grounds of common sense

b. the workmen not to block the route unless it is necessary by reasons of safety

c. a road closure order to be in place to make the council's actions lawful

d. the council to make enquiries of its workers as to what they are messing about at and to instruct them not to obstruct the Queen's highway in the future nor to act in such a way as to make moving traffic contraventions more likely

e. diversion signs to be posted well in advance of the restriction.

Anyway, the vehicle owner appealed to the tribunal and the council cancelled the PCN as soon as they were notified of the hearing by the tribunal.

The council look to have behaved cynically in rejecting the prior representations.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The chronicles of Westminster

Sometimes PCN just take a long time to sort out, especially when faced with intransigence from an enforcement authority, combined with a refusal on their part to accept they have done anything wrong. In this case they had omitted the house name for a rural location out of the address, and there weren't street numbers, and as the client lives on the edge of a wood and the Royal Mail often delivered his mail next door and they don't 'get on', mail often doesn't reach its destination.

What was especially naughty was when the client paid £120 in error, at a time that only £80 was due, was that Worstminster decided they would stop the process at that point. Dishonest is not too strong a word.

Equally naughty was to send a fresh Notice to Owner before the refund had been processed. The Notice demanded £80 at a time when the client was £120 in credit.

Had it not been for Mr Mustard the motorist would never have sorted this one out on his own.

Finally, it was cynical to reject Representations and then decline to attend an Appeal. Worstminster wasted a £30 tribunal fee for that little piece of bluffery (Mr Mustard makes a tribunal Appeal in 99% percent of cases for which he has the opportunity).

Mr Mustard does not give up once he gets his teeth into something. Enforcement authorities take note.

Don't think either City of Westminster that Mr Mustard didn't notice that you let NSL reply to complaints. When they are about what they are doing, you should be looking at them in house.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard