Enfield no go zone, even for legitimate business

Granham Gardens N9

Mr Mustard helps some small businesses with their PCN problems on the same charitable basis as for an individual.

He has an unfinished PCN from Enfield Council because a scaffold lorry entered Granham Gardens N9. At the end of the road is an alley which leads to a school. Both ends of Granham Gardens are subject to the same 8.15 to 9.15 a.m. and 2.45 to 3.45 p.m. restrictions on entering unless you are a registered resident or business.

If your customer (a building contractor in this case) doesn't tell you of the restriction and you pitch up with a full lorry of scaffold poles and planks you are a bit stuck. You have men who are paid to work, not to sit around waiting for an hour to pass, and a job to do. Hence you bite the bullet and drive in.

Mr Mustard doesn't want to get into the politics of low traffic neighbourhoods as that will only lead to some excitable comments but what is the working man to do? Clearly they took the PCN chance and drove in.

Mr Mustard wondered if the lorry could have been granted an exemption for a clear work purpose and so he asked Enfield Council if they existed.

That won't help the business economy. Zero chance of an exemption. The same will apply if you are moving into the street and your pantechnicon arrives with your furniture at 2.46 p.m. it will have to wait for an hour to gain access and this being near Edmonton Green there really isn't anywhere to wait.

Here is a list of exempt vehicles:

Even the Royal Mail aren't exempt so if your post is late in Granham Gardens, this could be why.

Mr Mustard completely understands the attractions of reducing traffic which uses the little side roads when the main one is a bit jammed but thinks there needs to be a more relaxed regime which lets large vehicles go about their bona-fide business on request.

The end.

Redbridge Council - they care more about a PCN than a pedestrian

 

Another tribunal decision which Mr Mustard happened upon by chance.

 

What the adjudicator didn't point out was that the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 include an exemption for stopping on a bus stop, as follows:

That is because the Adjudicator was applying obvious logic as otherwise a motorist at risk of getting a PCN might simply keep going and charge down or run over a pedestrian which is clearly stupid and dangerous. The person who refused the representation and the one who contested the Appeal (which may be one and the same person) need to take a long hard look at themselves and at the rules which are available free on line.

The trouble is that there is no real mechanism for dealing with councils who reject perfect representations. Most motorists when faced with a council rejection will pay up. Only 1% of motorists take their PCN as far as the tribunal. Thus an incentive is built into the systems for councils to lie, cheat and scheme.

Change is necessary.

The end.

Don't do it again: park legally that is!

Typical double yellow lines

 

Parking on double yellow (or single yellow) is an exemption if you are engaged in boarding or alighting of a passenger. Normally 2 minutes will be allowed but longer if the person is too young to walk unaccompanied or elderly, or disabled or in this case has just come out after two weeks in hospital following major surgery for a perforated bowel. This is known in parking circles as assisted boarding / alighting.

Mr Mustard made the challenge to the PCN a week after it had been placed upon the car.

The observation period which the 'traffic warden' had made was zero minutes so  he/she was unlikely to see any boarding taking place. Thus when the council rely on the traffic warden not having witnessed any you calmly point out how unlikely they were to see anything much.

Mr Mustard's challenge was this:

The response also only took a week. The PCN was cancelled but Mr Mustard takes exception to the churlish way in which it was done.

The stated reason for cancelling, of 'goodwill', is no such thing. It was because of the overwhelming medical evidence which was the discharge note showing the length of hospital stay, the reason for admission and 6 active problems including heart failure and a malignant tumour. A council, yes Barnet, aren't doing you a favour when they cancel a PCN in a situation in which stopping is not only allowed but it is really a duty to assist your parent who has been battered by health problems. You don't say, 'sorry mum, there are double yellows outside, I had to park 300m away'.

There is no 'enforcement' for this PCN. It was only at the first stage. Mr Mustard would have gone on to make formal representations and if those had also been refused he would have gone to the independent tribunal where he rather expected to win. Only after that if the adjudicator had decided against you and then 28 days had passed and you hadn't paid could any enforcement commence.

The final sentence is more rot. If the same situation arises, of assisted boarding of a sick person, then the same outcome should prevail. 

Why do councils feel the need to poke a person in the eye who has done nothing wrong? A PCN is notification of an alleged contravention. Councils treat a PCN as a cast iron contravention. They need their thinking changed. Mr Mustard is doing his best to make councils think again but it is an uphill struggle.

Don't be a soft touch. If you have a good argument, fight the council and then take them to the tribunal where you get an independent hearing.

The end.

 

Non-existent rules in 'Haringey'

 

The story starts on 20 October 2023. Here are the words of the psv driver, who we will call Brian:

Generally Mr Mustard would rather be instructed from the off but in this case what Brian had written was perfect and a smart council would have cancelled the PCN there and then. However, this was Haringey who are not the best at PCNs. Their initial rejection letter contained some whoppers:

The first whopper:

The council carefully ignored the law.

The second whopper:

The offending words, as well as the terrible idea of starting a sentence with 'And' were:

'And you must stay with your vehicle'

Mr Mustard waited for the Notice to Owner to be issued and then took over. He wrote this as the formal representations:

This time, the second one of asking, the council decided it was wise to cancel the PCN and duly did so as they were well and truly speared by the law and their blatant lie in the earlier informal rejection.

What motorists should learn from this is twofold, that time spent studying parking rules is not wasted and persistence is key. Councils will reject any number of perfect informal challenges (those made when you initially get the PCN) and only think more carefully when the formal representations are made and thus there is the risk that if the council reject again the motorist will go to the independent tribunal and the council have to pay a c.£30 fee which they don't see again.

The end.

Due regard for the Highway Code - Barnet Council deny an exemption

This is a common scenario. You are the parent of a young child, you drive to school, you have to take them to the school gates or even into the building to make sure they are safe. This will take from 1 to 5 minutes. A traffic warden appears from apparently nowhere (but they do of course know where schools are and the good times for easy pickings) waits for zero seconds and issues a PCN. (The observed to and from times are the same).

An informal challenge (the name given to your response to the PCN before the issue of a Notice to owner) should be cancelled was made as follows:

Sometimes the council ask for proof of schooling but on this occasion they didn't. They simply rejected the challenge, made by the motorist themselves, outright as no exemption could apply.

Do the council have a copy of the Highway Code, ponders Mr Mustard. Let us consider the relevant extract:

'You may stop....while passengers board or alight'. 

That seems clear to Mr Mustard.

The danger is that the public rely on what a council says and expect it to be the truth. In this case Mr Mustard was advising the motorist in the background so should a blatant wrong isn't going to get the council anywhere. What worries Mr Mustard is how many similar and perfectly valid claims have been rejected by the council (NSL) and the motorist has subsequently paid up and lost their £55.

This exemption is one of the most common ones. How can Barnet Council get it so wrong? Oh, they want the revenue, is the suspicion.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Morally wrong

Enfield Council say that the above vehicle has an exemption which allows it to park on a double yellow line whilst sneakily parking around the corner (they didn't say that last bit) from yellow zig-zags that you can't stop on. It would be more honest if they were to park themselves right opposite the school where there are no lines in order to be a deterrent rather than a revenue raising vehicle. If Enfield Council have done their paperwork correctly then an enforcement vehicle will have such a parking exemption. Mr Mustard has requested sight of the exemption.

Even if legally correct is it morally right to park in a way that would be a contravention for a resident. Mr Mustard thinks not.

In Barnet they do things differently.

The above photo, kindly provided by a Finchley resident, was taken in Regents Park Rd opposite the Sainsburys shared use loading bay which catches out so many people. This car has been seen there before with one traffic warden doing a bit of shopping whilst the other one nicks anyone in the loading bay at the wrong time. In this case I think the passenger has stayed in the car. Why it didn't, for safety's sake, reverse into the empty marked bay is anyone's guess but arrogance might be an answer. 

That car is regularly used by the traffic wardens employed by NSL so is probably part of their fleet. If it is an Enforcement Vehicle then it qualifies for an exemption but given that traffic wardens simply roam the borough in it, and it hasn't got one of those pole mounted cameras, then in Mr Mustard's view it isn't an Enforcement Vehicle as such, simply a means of transport.

Mr Mustard doesn't think the scooters the traffic wardens use, until 11pm, are Enforcement Vehicles either, simply transport, but as he doesn't believe in giving PCN to powered two wheelers and they don't cause anything like the same amount of obstruction and can park for free in most bays, he won't throw his toys out of the pram about those.

Photographs of contravening NSL vehicles are most welcome by email to mrmustard@zoho.com and/or to the local paper.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Come on, push, I've only got an hour.

Baby Mustard

Here is a decision from the adjudicator at PATAS about the use of a Health Emergency Badge which are issued on demand to health professionals who need to visit large numbers of locations in a hurry and can't be looking for change or making phone calls as they are attending an emergency or life threatening situation. Barnet Council have signed up to the HEB scheme.

Having heard the Appellant I person there is no reason at all to doubt her evidence that she is a midwife and was attending a woman in labour having correctly displayed a Health Emergency Badge in accordance with its conditions. Those conditions make no mention of a one hour time limit.

Although the concession afforded by the display of the HEB is just that, a concession not an exemption, nevertheless it seems to me that a holder relying on it is entitled to expect that a concession offered by London Councils will be offered by every one of those Councils unless clear notice is given to the contrary. To issue a PCN and/or to enforce a penalty in the absence of such notice in my judgement amounts to the equivalent of an abuse of process; and in these circumstances no contravention occurs - see the dicta in Camden v The Parking Adjudicator and BHS t/a First for Food Service Ltd [2011] EWHC 295 Admin [2011]EWCA Civ 905.

The Appeal is therefore allowed.

Mr Mustard would be the first to admit that he doesn't know an awful lot about childbirth, his own, the last one he attended, was a long time ago but he does know that labour can go on for many hours and that it isn't without its medical complications so to expect a midwife to be able to deal with whatever emergency situation she faced within 60 minutes wasn't at all reasonable or realistic and simply doesn't make Barnet a better place to live, or be born into. 

Isn't that why the council are there, to make our lives better? Come on Barnet council, get that £7.5m parking surplus out of the budgeted accounts (as half of the income is from PCN) so that you can stop taking these terrible decisions.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

For any health care professional who is reading, or maybe one is a friend of yours so tell them about this, who has to attend emergencies across London and doesn't have a blue light ambulance (although they occasionally get ticketed) the HEB is still worth having as it will drastically reduce your PCN, except possibly in Barnet. Here is a link. There is a modest fee to pay.