Boxing clever ?

 

Mr Mustard has seen this location a few times recently as the camera is relatively new so all those people who used the junction with The Burroughs to go north up the A41 from Hendon Central tube station and then back south down the A41 on the other carriageway and have now been caught out. Whilst it is arguable that this is two right turns an adjudicator might well think otherwise as this one did. This is because causing the vehicle to face in the opposite direction is at the heart of the contravention.

Mr Mustard was rather confused by the fact that the seller registered the car in a random name (and then takes insurance, if any, in their real name and insures the random name as a named driver) because Muhammed Ali seemed rather random to him.

What this decision does show is that all of the peripheral information about insurance, DVLA registration, vehicle tax and where and when you are taking delivery when added together can prove your case so if you have it, use it, no-one else will prove your case for you.

Mr Mustard thinks that DVLA always give out the name of the new owner if the alleged contravention is on the date of sale. They should really give both lots of information to the council/TfL and leave them to decide who the keeper is and/or the time of handover should have to be declared as well as the date, given the trouble it can cause.

Please don't pay a PCN when you did not incur it.

The end.

Brent Council as blind as Ealing

This blog also concerns Miss M. This parking contravention happened on the same day as the driving one. It seems that the offending motorist has either learnt how to park and drive or has moved on to another numberplate.

Here is the car parked up. Clearly not a Mini but the traffic warden won't know what it is meant to be.

However, as soon as Brent Council had the DVLA data they knew the vehicle they had ticketed was not a Mini and should not have sent a Notice to Owner.

 

It looks like Brent's traffic wardens move about on e-bikes. They will drop out of the sky even faster when you stop, just for a minute, on double yellows. Don't do it.

I note that the photos taken by the traffic warden do not include one of the VIN which would have enabled Brent to check the true identity of the vehicle and report the perpetrator to the police. An opportunity missed.

Mr Mustard made the formal representations.

Brent didn't mess about. They cancelled the PCN.

Mr Mustard asked some process questions and had less than satisfactory answers.

Quite simply, Brent Council's checks are inadequate to be sure that they have the correct vehicle. If you can't tell a Mini from a Ford estate you aren't look properly.

The end.

DVLA - one part of their advice is dangerous & could be expensive

Here follows a standard letter from DVLA

Do not follow the line which Mr Mustard has highlighted in red as if you do not challenge (make representations against) a PCN that you are not the keeper of the vehicle which was given the PCN, but that it is a clone, the PCN will progress though a number of stages and end up with a bailiff.

 

Report the car cloned to the police and the DVLA and challenge every PCN that you receive. You may get a lot of PCNs at the start but you should by reporting the cloning to the police make it too hot to continue to use and then the criminals will stop and move on to another plate.

The end.

 

DVLA - terrible at data management

Mr Mustard made a Freedom of Information request to DVLA. He did this because a lady, let us call her Jayne, purchased a used car, and posted in the V5C with her complete and accurate address. Mr Mustard has a copy of what was sent to DVLA. Somehow her car got registered to a non-existent address in Mansfield, a town she has no connection with and has never visited.

Let us suppose the motorist lived at 4 Shakespeare Court, 111 Woodville Road, Barnet EN5 4LX (Mr Mustard's former address by way of illustration as he can't use the actual one for Jayne).

Using the Royal Mail postcode checker we can see the following:

Mr Mustard surmises that because the flats had a block name which precedes the street number, blocks don't come up when you search using the DVLA's method. Staff also can't be expected to know every location. There are 1.3 million postcodes and goodness knows how many blocks of flats.

Searching by road name alone brings up the correct address as the fifth choice. An under strain or slapdash DVLA employee might select the wrong one.

It is only by inputting the complete postcode, a maximum of 8 digits, that you can be sure of getting the correct locale.

The system that the DVLA are employing is more likely to end up in error with their partial matching method, which looks to have a huge flaw within in.

Mr Mustard is going to ask a follow up question to test his hypothesis.

In Jayne's case, she correctly wrote on the form an address in London N2, which is a flat in a block which block has a street number. Somehow, perhaps because of the name of the block, her car was registered in Mansfield.

What is worse is that it was registered at an address which doesn't even exist. Using a different address as an example. If the physical address used was 12 Regina Court, West End Lane the postcode used was for 12 Regina Court Lane which did exist but still wasn't Jayne's address and gave the postman a delivery problem.

The first she knew of the PCNs was when the bailiff knocked on her actual front door and demanded £2,000 at the risk of having her car removed and so she paid up even though she had received nothing at all in the post. It has taken Mr Mustard 3 months to ascertain the cause of the problem, which is one he hadn't ever seen before. He much prefers to keep PCNs out of the hands of bailiffs. It isn't clear that the bailiff had a valid warrant as it may have still had the out of date (and obviously invalid) Mansfield address on it. That is a blog for another day.

Some of you might have noticed that you had purchased a car but not received the 'logbook' from DVLA a month later, others wouldn't. As you don't need it unless you travel abroad or decide to sell your vehicle Mr Mustard thinks the non arrival is an entirely understandable oversight. If you buy a used car, make a note for a month later to chase up the missing registration document ('logbook').

Having watched much of the Post Office Horizon Inquiry Mr Mustard is no longer shocked by the incompetence at high levels in large organisations but DVLA's data processing disaster method is of the same ilk. He has seen complaints on the internet in which a resident complains that an unknown person has registered a vehicle at their address. The suspected rogue clearly isn't always a scam artist but could be the DVLA.

The end, for now.

Van hire violations - TfL guilty of illegality

When you rent a van and contravene parking or moving traffic rules (stopping in yellow boxes, banned turns etc) liability for the PCN can be transferred from the hire company to you if certain details are on the hire agreement for agreements lasting up to 6 months (less a day).

Transfer for long leases is possible by another method.

Years ago Mr Mustard was introduced to a Barnet based hire company by a mutual acquaintance. Let us call them BV. Mr Mustard only helps BV with their problem PCNs as they employ a person to deal with the routine.

If a PCN can be transferred to the customer then it is. BV routinely provide a copy of the hire agreement as proof that the rules for transfer have been complied with. BV had a little white Euro 6 compliant van. They hired it to SL (hirer #1) for a period of almost 5 months. Here are the hires for those 5 months.

SL stopped with half the van in a red route bus stop on 27 January.

On 28 January TfL asked DVLA for keeper details.

On 29 January DVLA supplied the details of BV.

On 31 January TfL sent a PCN to BV.

On 4 February BV supplied the details of SL.

On 16 February TfL sent a fresh PCN to SL who didn't immediately deal with it but did finally pay up on 4 May.

So far so good. SL returned the van early by arrangement. It was driven after that by a number of law abiding renters who all avoided incurring PCNs. Notable by their mistakes was hirer #6 who made the classic error of using the Rotherhithe Tunnel which now has a van gross vehicle weight limit of 2 tonnes. This has caught out tens of thousands of drivers as there are far too many signs to take in at once.

What should have happened next for each of the April PCNs was that TfL should have asked DVLA for the keeper details on each of those dates and sent BV a PCN for each alleged contravention. This is in accordance with the London Local Authorities and Transport for London 2003 Act.

TfL didn't do that. They sent PCNs to SL who knew they were a mistake. He phoned TfL who told him to make representations. SL did not do so and you can partly understand why, he had returned the van, he knew he was not liable, he probably assumed the errors would be corrected. In August the PCNs had progressed, even though TfL knew they had the wrong man, and they got sent to bailiffs.

It was only in November that Mr Mustard got involved. He complained to TfL and that was when he discovered that TfL keep a secret database of hire agreements and although they ask DVLA to confirm ownership in relation to every single PCN they only use that to check the hire company is still the same and if it is they skip the legal requirement to send a PCN to the hire company, let them make representations and then transfer liability to the hirer, because TfL think they know who the hirer is. That is the big flaw in their 'approach' as TfL blithely call their illegal acts. 

BV tell Mr Mustard that only 60% of hires complete on the pre-planned end date and so TfL's database will often be wrong, as it was in this case. Innocent motorists should not be dragged into the PCN process for other motorists. Having obtained the facts from TfL (they had to be dragged out of them, requiring 3 emails over 6 weeks, silence often a clue that you have hit a painful nerve) Mr Mustard has now made a complaint and pointed out what Mr Mustard considers are data processing breaches and demanded action:

1        Forward this email to the officer responsible for data breaches to consider whether TfL should self report.
2        Forward this email to the officer responsible for ensuring that TfL (and their contractor, believed to be Capita) strictly follow the 2003 Act and follow it in future when issuing PCNs by sending the PCN to the keeper as registered at the DVLA on the relevant date.
3        Delete the entire database of vehicles on hire or at least stop adding to or referring to it.
4        Cancel the five PCNs which have been illegally sent to an innocent party.
5        Apologise to both BV and SL and make offers of compensation.

BV have been deprived of five £18 PCN processing fees which hirer #6 should have paid.

Mr Mustard will update you when he gets a response.

In the meantime Mr Mustard wonders if any other enforcement authority in London has decided upon the same wizard wheeze to save time and postage. If you are reading this, you work at a council in London and you have an illegal database like TfL (or heaven forfend you all share one) Mr Mustard suggests you run for the hills as he is coming for you.

End

Times stands still in Greenwich

 

This is a follow on blog to this one.

The above is a standard report called 'case history' and is clearly a chronological list of the main events. As you can see from the entry dated 23/11/2011 the motorist (in the form of Mr Mustard) was quick to make their first challenge, it is known as the 'informal challenge'. Mr Mustard keeps an eye on the on line PCN balance and checked it 16 times between 28 November and 8 April. On 8 April he noticed that the balance had reverted from £130 to £65 so he knew a letter of rejection was on the way. On that date he told the motorist that the end stop date for receipt of a Notice to Owner was 21 May.

 

As is now evident Greenwich had a back log on informal challenges (not Appeals, they are to adjudicators). If a formal representation is not responded to within 56 days a council is deemed to have accepted it but that rule does not apply to informal challenges (an informal challenge is one made against a PCN issued on street and a formal representation responds to a Notice to Owner or postal PCN).

Mr Mustard made a combined Freedom of Information and Subject Access request on 27 April and that was probably the event which woke Greenwich from its slumbers as shortly afterwards they asked DVLA for the keeper's details using a VQ4 request (these are done by computer). Now, it isn't clear whether or not the 1st VQ4 was actually sent nor how DVLA count 6 months (they may stop all November requests on 1 May?) but for whatever reason Greenwich didn't get the information they sought.

 

Had Greenwich issued a PCN after so long Mr Mustard would have relied on a lack of 'reasonable expedition' and hence unfairness as the Statutory Guidance of the Secretary of State says this:

That aside, on 26 May Greenwich Council decided to send a second 1st VQ4 request to DVLA. Clearly, Greenwich don't have a mechanism in place to ensure that they scrupulously follow parking law and they were also going to breach data protection fair processing rules and breach their KADOE (Keeper at date of event) contract with DVLA as 6 months had expired on 21 May (possibly 20th but it depends how you count).

Having failed to obtain keeper details Greenwich Council threw in the towel, about the only sensible thing they had done.

As it turns out, DVLA have built in a mechanism which prevents any council from obtaining information to which they are not entitled.

Whilst it is good that the DVLA don't release data out of contract, councils like Greenwich should be learning from their mistakes and should have programmed their software not to ask in the first place.

The DVLA aren't going to find wrongdoing unless they look out for it. They could improve their systems in this regard.

End.

DVLA compensate for their incompetence

Here is an email which Mr Mustard received at the beginning of January from a lady who we will call Ms B.

I hope you’re well!

You’ve been recommended to me by lots of people who have found themselves battling PCNs in Barnet, thank you for all you do! My situation isn’t council but rather DVLA and debt recovery related, I’m a Barnet resident though so I’m hoping you’ll be able and willing to help me too.

So, we’ve just scraped together £426.50 of a £618 fine so that Marston Recovery would remove their clamp from my car. We’re not well off so that’s completely cleaned us out and has made the next few months really precarious for our family. It’s also pretty scary to be bullied out of a large sum of money in the street like that, especially at the moment when work is so unreliable.

We must now appeal via court so that we will hopefully be refunded some of that sum, or at the very least not have to pay the remaining £191.50.

The original fine was for a Dartford crossing toll charge back in August 2021 - my partner and I had a miscommunication as to who had paid, and in the end neither of us did. We would have received a penalty notice a few days later for this error, discovered the miscommunication and paid the fine, but we received no letter and had no idea there was any fine to pay. Now it has snowballed and is about 3 times as much as the original fine.

The penalty notice letters were going to our old address because when we moved house in May earlier that year, the DVLA had lost my V5 form with the updated address. All of the letters regarding the fine, and presumably subsequent court summonses were sent to the old address. The DVLA only finally admitted they lost my V5 form in November and updated my details in December!

I believe I am accountable solely for the fine of failing to pay the toll charge. So far no one has supplied me with any information of the breakdown of fines, or what to do next. Informally, over the phone, the bailiff said I had until February to appeal, but supplied no information as to who to contact. I’ve tried to get through to the DVLA, Marston Recovery office, and the Citizens Advice Bureau by phone but I’ve just been on hold for hours & the bailiff told me not to bother with email as it could take weeks to respond! Obviously I don’t have any of the letters with contact info which were meant to reach me, I really have no idea what to do.

I do have the Royal Mail certificate of posting with the Special Delivery tracking number from when I posted my V5 form with the updated address to DVLA, and the confirmation of delivery back in May. Additionally, there is an email response to me chasing up my V5 form in July - here they tell me the application may take longer than usual. They didn’t respond at all to a subsequent message I sent them through their contact centre, and I finally got through to someone via phone in November who confirmed they’d lost my details and then arranged for a “no fee V62” to be emailed to me so I could start the whole process again at no extra charge. I have a case number for these communications, if that helps to prove I did everything necessary to be contactable.

I’d really appreciate any guidance you could offer as to who to contact, if I need a solicitor, how to get hold of a copy of these letters or any information about the amounts I am being charged, and if you think I will be able to contest this at all.

Thanks in advance!

Mr Mustard worked out a strategy which he emailed to Ms B.

I plan three different approaches:

1 - file two lots of form TE7/9 to the TEC. This freezes the bailiff action whilst the application is thought about, for at least 2 weeks. Dart Charge can object to your application.

2 - make a subject access request to see what happened to the documents sent to your old address. Do you know who lives there now and can you ask them if they sent post for you back? Did you pay for mail forwarding and if so please provide a copy of it? I will need a recent utility bill and a copy of your driving licence or passport to do that.

3 - make out of time representations to Dart Charge. They like to reject them but should consider them out of time if there is a good reason why you are late, which there is.

Having decided on a strategy Mr Mustard was about to go cycling for a week (in February, it was great) and so he passed the problem on to a retired lawyer (Mr L) who now works pro bono and who is hoovering up every bit of knowledge that Mr Mustard has spent 12 years acquiring. Time is of the essence in this sort of case so having someone at their desk and not on a bicycle was advantageous.

78 emails later, the problem was resolved.

After lots of digging it was established that the warrant, which the bailiff refused to produce until after they were paid, was defective as it still showed the old address, typically bad bailiff behaviour. Dart Charge agreed to accept £3.50 for each crossing and cancel everything else. The bailiff had to refund the £426.50 - crime doesn't pay!

Mr L concluded that the real villain was DVLA so he went after them. Here is just one devastating paragraph from his complaint:

The letter clearly hit the mark as after investigating and seeing that they were completely at fault the DVLA came up with a reasonable offer of compensation.

As you can imagine, Ms B was delighted, was able to pay off the loan she had to take out in order to get the bailiff off her back and donate to charity.

End.

DVLA storing up problems

The number of people who have moved recently has dropped but there is always delay at DVLA in recording changes of address. Anyone who had moved in, say, February should have sent their registration document by post to the DVLA within a reasonable period, say 4 weeks, and then expected it back 2 or 3 weeks later.

There is no option to amend your address by any other method, probably as a security feature. Covid-19 has brought almost all services at DVLA, except those which are on line, to a grinding halt.

Now what may happen is that if you commit a moving traffic contravention today in, say, Barnet. The council ask DVLA for the registered address of the keeper of the vehicle and given that they have put a stop on amending addresses a number of those are going to be out of date and the PCN will therefore go to the old address. It seems that somewhere between 4% and 5% of people move home each year. In London 2,147,900 PCNs were issued for moving traffic contraventions in the year to March 19. Let us suppose that there are 4 weeks' worth of address changes which have not been updated.

Thus, the number of PCNs which could go to an out of date address is in the order of 4/52 * 2,147,900 * 4.5% = 7,435

That is 7,435 people who will not have been properly served but the PCN enforcement process will rumble on.

Many people don't bother with paying for mail forwarding nowadays as they don't usually receive any mail, doing almost everything on line. The first they may get to hear of the PCN is when the bailiff clamps their car having traced a new address. That is clearly unfair.

The law, the London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2003, requires that the PCN is served on the person appearing to the enforcement authority to be the owner of the vehicle. Mr Mustard doesn't see how, given that it is the case that the DVLA register isn't being updated, they can hold that legitimate belief.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Ingrates

Mr Mustard has caused some right consternation. Should he have kept quiet?

On 5th October Mr Mustard was on his way up the street when he stopped to chat to a neighbour for a moment. He saw the NSL / DVLA clamping van stop & decided to watch what they were doing.

What happened next was curious. The NSL van driver got out, ambled up the street to a particular car, put a red notice on the front & took a photograph, moved the notice to the back and took another photograph, removed the sign and ambled back to his van. This was rather odd but Mr Mustard assumed it was gathering proof of the car in use on the public highway and the photos would be evidence of a warning having been served.

Mr Mustard knows most of his neighbours but this car was a new one to the street so Mr Mustard guessed it must belong to the tenants who had just moved in. He knocked on their door, no answer. He knocked on the neighbours' door, went in for coffee and explained the situation as they were likely to see the owner first. Mr Mustard was trying to stop the car from being clamped, a check of the on-line register showing that it had recently expired road fund and no MOT. He also put a polite and helpful, or so he thought, note on the car. Two days later it had an MOT and road fund. 

He thought no more about it until yesterday when Mr Mustard received the below email which came from the senior partner at a local firm of Solicitors (if that was calculated to bother Mr Mustard, it doesn't) being the neighbour in question.

Mr Mustard was a mite peeved at this outrageous lie that he was a DVLA snitch so he emailed back.

Your letter is most unfortunate.

I did not inform the DVLA that you fiancée's car was untaxed, nor as it happens that it didn't have a current MOT.

My attention was drawn to the car by the interest taken in it by the DVLA clamping van as per the below photo.(now above)

My motivation was to be neighbourly and let you know so that the car did not get clamped. I knocked on your door that day (5 October) but no-one was at home.

I made no moral judgment about why the car was illegally parked, unlike yourself who thinks he knows what my motivations are and you know nothing of me as a person.

I strongly suggest that you do not make unwarranted accusations in the future, as it is unprofessional conduct unbecoming of a solicitor, and I look forward to receipt of your unreserved apology.

Another email arrived from from the man who can't spell fiancée (fiancé refers to a man who is engaged - not many people know that).

Thank you for your email Mr Dishman. We have been provided verbal witness evidence of your involvement hence my email. If you were not involved, you may ignore my comments. If you were, then my comments stand and I make no apology for them.

Perhaps you could evidence the date and time of the picture you sent me  because redacted’s car does not appear in that photo?

I certainly do not regard my conduct as unbecoming of a solicitor but you are perfectly entitled to form your own judgement.

This whole episode smacks of some kind of snooper’s charter and I find that unacceptable.

Hold on a moment. You are now calling Mr Mustard a liar based upon the word of an undisclosed witness. That doesn't carry much weight. I have said I did not tell the DVLA (something the DVLA already knew). No-one needs to contact the DVLA to tell them a car has no road fund or MOT as they keep the register (which is publicly searchable). So Mr Mustard is sent a maybe yes maybe no email when he has already said he didn't do anything to cause the DVLA to pop round. They are all over the country all the time and know where to look.

Mr Mustard sent the photo, from which the time and date can be obtained in the properties, along with a renewed request for an apology. 

I did not inform the DVLA.

I would welcome an apology for your false accusation.

Somehow he doesn't think it will arrive.

What would you do in your street, Mr Mustard's road is exceptionally (sorry, make that with one exception) a friendly place to live. Would you have been grateful that a concerned neighbour tried to stop your car being clamped by nudging you to get your MOT sorted and then buy some road fund.

Or would you send an email making an accusation that was untrue?

The joke is that Mr Mustard thinks this has come about due to a misunderstood distant conversation. Yesterday the car was parked on a dropped kerb with a single yellow line. It had been there for days and somehow not been ticketed. A friend of Mr Mustard's saw it and pointed it out from her window across the road to the lady owner who responded that she had a resident permit. It was gently pointed out that they don't apply to single yellow lines. There was some reference to the previous problem which wasn't properly heard and Mr Mustard got mentioned but at no time was it said that Mr Mustard had snitched to the DVLA.

Surely after you accuse someone of something and they deny it you have to take their word for it or produce the witness evidence? As it happens the probable witness is mad as hell and is going to have a word with the neighbours.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Grenfell Tower

Mr Mustard is nothing if not a practical soul and he didn't want any further misery (such as a bailiff taking away the only remaining asset of a survivor of the fire because the statutory notices didn't reach the vehicle owner) heaped on the survivors so he emailed a contact at London Councils, the umbrella body for councils in London, as follows:

I thought it would be a welcome relief for people who have been through a horrific experience if every London enforcement authority were to have a look through its PCN files and cancel every PCN where Grenfell Tower was the DVLA registered address.

I would do it for humanitarian reasons if it were me but the PR would do the cause of council parking and traffic enforcement no harm at all as it gets battered when things go wrong (often by me!) and councils could show that they don't just care about the money.

If some sort of concession is already being discussed do please let me know.

If you are not the best man to deal with this email, please pass it on to whoever is, within London Councils.

It wasn't long before a reply came:

Thank you for your email.

I can confirm that we have been liaising with RBKC (Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea) and a message regarding the cancellation of outstanding PCNs, warrants etc. for Grenfell Tower has been sent to all London boroughs. I can confirm that this has been met with a positive response.

I can also confirm that following discussions that RBKC have had with DVLA, the DVLA has made the decision to suppress the vehicle record for any vehicles identified as being registered to the two post codes for Grenfell Tower. As a result of this, where a vehicle keeper enquiry has been submitted on one of these vehicles (and hopefully this will not happen), the DVLA will only provide a notification letter that the vehicle is registered to this address but no keeper details will be provided.

London Councils agree that those impacted by the terrible events at Grenfell Tower do not need the added worry and burden of parking and traffic fines and we are all trying to ensure that this will not happen.

Mr Mustard had also been in touch with Royal Mail on twitter and they DM'd him their response but it is now available publicly:

Mr Mustard is quick to criticise when things are wrong but is pleased to see that, after the initial emergency response, minds were turned to possible repercussions. 

To RKBC, London Councils, Royal Mail & DVLA in particular, he says 'well done'.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Wing on a prayer

Wing Parking seem to have become the default solution to councils in London to 'manage' parking on council estates (by 'manage' I mean to dish out Parking Charge Notices and, to be fair, to issue permits upon request, but the profit in this type of contract is in issuing as many penalties as possible).

Unfortunately the person who let the contract at Barnet Homes, had not seen a letter of advice from Sir Robert Goodwill MP:

Sir Robert Goodwill Letter of Sept 14 by MisterMustard on Scribd

Just to be clear the Protection of Freedoms Act (POFA) (a misnomer if ever Mr Mustard saw one) which was introduced to bring in a less harsh system than clamping (debatable if it has had that outcome what with private ticketing having become a growth industry) allows for parking charge notices to be issued on private land which is 'relevant land' and Barnet Council owned land simply isn't.

These are extracts from POFA which confirm what Mr Mustard has just written.

clearly as Barnet Council are the Highway Authority for the borough and as Barnet Homes manage the estates owned by Barnet Council what they should have done, and what other local authorities have done, was to introduce a CPZ for each housing estate so that only residents and their visitors can park there, which is the aim. For some reason councils tenants are only charged £15 for an annual permit whereas residents who live within a CPZ have to pay £40 / £70 / £100 (an emissions based charge which is itself unfair as only 10% of residents live within a CPZ, the rest can have a 5 litre engine if they wish) so either council tenants have been under-charged or CPZ residents have been over-charged, or both (or both overcharged? - in Newham the first permit is free - putting the community first).

Here is an extract from a recent witness statement made in a case which is ongoing at POPLA. You would hope that the Assessor would notice the illegality but they tend to decide only on points of appeal that are raised with them - this one is now being raised. Mr Mustard expects that a private parking expert who has good contacts at high level with POPLA will be bringing this matter to the attention of the chief assessor.

so Barnet Homes agree that the land belongs to the London Borough of Barnet, who are the traffic authority, so this is not 'relevant land'. The witness is a Neighbourhood Housing Officer who clearly doesn't know what she is signing.

Mr Mustard has heard on the grapevine that Wing have been banned from accessing the DVLA database because they are issuing PCN which are legally defective. If that is the case you can park freely on a council housing estate mismanaged by Wing and ignore the Notice to Driver (keep it safe in your glove box) as a Notice to Keeper will never arrive as Wing can't find out who the Keeper of the vehicle is. (It would be unhelpful to deliberately park in this way).

If you have received a Notice to Keeper, had your challenge rejected and are now heading towards POPLA then this should be the grounds of your Appeal, that the land is not relevant land. You should also complain to the DVLA about the release of your data.

Complaints Team
DVLA
Swansea
SA6 7JL

They like to use web forms rather than email (Mr Mustard hates web forms as he can't save them to his computer for his own records) but if you phone 0300 790 6802 you could ask for a real email address, one which ends in .gov.uk probably. If you give it to Mr Mustard he will edit this blog.

Just about everything is wrong with the use of Wing. Mr Mustard's final beef is the use of a PCN which looks like it was issued by an official body and Codes of Practice require that private parking companies do not pass themselves off as having any official status.

Mr Mustard notes that the Penalty was issued before the 15 minutes stipulated in the Contract. Barnet Homes not auditing their suppliers then?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard