A rubbish PCN

 

Mr Mustard is an occasional visitor to play snooker in the Mildmay Club (well worth joining if you live nearby as it has lots more attractions than the green baize) and has done some PCNs at this location and is on 7 wins out of 7 at the tribunal.

A Hackney Council bin lorry fell foul of the restriction and didn't ask Mr Mustard for help despite being on the receiving end of his fire many times. They managed to win without him due to an adjudicator who took a pragmatic approach.

The problem with this retriction is that just after you pass Jolene Bakery (top notch bread sold there and at their other branches) instead of going straight on to reach The Duke of Wellington you have to drive west and take the next exit off the roundabout whereas you know you need to head south east. At the junction south east of The Alma you should then turn left onto the Balls Pond Road.

Here is the decision.

 

The problem with these weight limits is that you don't know how far away the other end of the weight limit is nor are diversions or suggested routes posted.

If you get caught here by Islington do email mrmustard@zoho.com for free help (you only need to donate to the North London Hospice).

The end.

Permit me to explain - not broken / broken

 

This is a story about a PCN and demonstrates the power of persistence.

The motorist made an informal challenge, a perfectly reasonable one. People who are regular users of visitor vouchers should be given the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong, not hammered for a penalty.

Here follows the informal rejection

The response ignores the fact that if the problem is with the council's system the payment system might also not be functioning correctly. Councils also take no responsibility if the system they force you to use, no matter how cumbersome or ineffective, is faulty it is you who has to do something to get around the problem.

The Notice to Owner duly arrived and this time Mr Mustard made the representations. They were short and to the point and completely different.

This time, the PCN was cancelled but not for the reason Mr Mustard put forward, even though he had hit the bullseye, but because the previous challenge had been revisited and Hackney Council did a reverse ferret.

Suddenly a permit system outage, on 17 July 24, had been found. Now why wasn't that noticed when the first challenge was made. Was it because apathy rules and most people don't stick at the fight and give up after one rebuff, Mr Mustard has to be knocked back twice and then he goes off to the tribunal for an independent decision.

Hackney Council probably didn't want to admit that all the code 12 PCNs they give out, when signs are like this one and don't say 'residents' are liable to be beaten.

Off you go then and fight yours.

Don't give up, you have to persist to win.

The end.

 

The Hackney Council wrestling club

You have all seen and probably been annoyed by council vehicles parked on the pavement which you know is wrong and a case of do what I say not as I do.

A Hackney Council vehicle illegally parked on the pavement.

In this case Hackney Council issued a PCN to Hackney Council. Could councils have budget pressures because they are wasting money? This would suggest so.

The internal wrestling match went the distance with the PCN being challenged and a formal Notice of Rejection being issued. Hackney Council then started an Appeal against the actions of Hackney Council for which Hackney Council paid a fee of about £30 and following the creation of an evidence pack by Hackney Council of probably 50 pages Hackney Council won and Hackney council lost. A score draw of a sort. In the alternative, a definition of futility.

Here is the decision.

 

Looking at the width of the road there was no need to put the van's wheels on the pavement in the first place as the road is wide enough for cars at least to pass in both directions simultaneously.

A lesson for all readers. Stay off the pavement in your car, it is for pedestrians & wheelchairs users (and sometimes cyclists).

The end.

Nine minutes in Hackney

Hackney Council sent a postal PCN because the car was driven away thus, per Hackney Council, they were entitled to send a postal PCN.

Mr Mustard disagreed. He made the representations.

Rather reluctantly Hackney Council cancelled. They really didn't have much choice as they had no evidence of a contravention at the alleged time.

The end.

Hell's Belz in Hackney

The double kerb marks are more prominent now

Mr & Mrs Smith (not their real name) have a young child who goes to nursery in Belz Terrace on Clapton Common. Civil enforcement officers ('traffic wardens') seem to target Belz Terrace at nursery drop off times. Thus it was that a few months ago Mr Smith was driving the family car, registered to Mrs Smith, and during the nursery drop off a PCN was issued. This is fair enough, that a PCN is issued, as it takes a few minutes to walk your child to the nursery, go in and formally hand them over to a member of staff and sign the register, and the traffic warden doesn't know where you are. All they see is a car on double yellows. Perhaps parents should have a small laminated card including the nursery logo to put in the windscreen which says 'Boarding or alighting' just as delivery drivers sometimes have ones that say 'loading'.

What you do expect, or hope for, is that Hackney Council will, when presented with relevant evidence, cancel the PCN without ado if shown adequate evidence.

Mr Mustard challenged the PCN during the 14 day discount period although he wasn't fretting about discount, he would have taken the PCN all the way to the tribunal.

The online representation system didn't offer boarding and alighting but did offer loading and unloading so Mr Mustard chose that as the nearest option and pointed out the lack of choice.

He kept the challenge simple 'The x year old child Jim Smith was being alighted to the Adjacent Nursey. This is an exemption. Please cancel the PCN.' The nursery contract was attached.

Ten days later a rejection was received. The substance follows:

There was nothing careful about Hackney's consideration. No mitigation was advanced so there was none to consider so clearly this was a template response and the council diddn't consider the evidence even though that is their exact duty. A representation isn't a comment, which would be something like 'ooh, that blue dress suits you' which clearly he didn't write. Councils are easily satisfied in their own favour.

At this point he decided to step outside of the formal process which required him to patiently sit and wait for a Notice to Owner and instead to make a complaint, which he did on 7 February.

Just before that complaint a second PCN had been issued and thus it was that 2 days after the complaint Mr Mustard found himself challenging a second PCN issued at the same location in the same circumstances. He expanded upon the challenge to make it idiot proof (it wasn't).

The response really wasn't very good.

Before Mr Mustard could do anything another email popped into his inbox, just one second later!

The next day an explanation arrived in response to Mr Mustard's complaint.

Whilst pleased with the honest admission of error Mr Mustard was concerned about the public in general and so he asked about other possible errors:

The staff at Hackney are getting used to Mr Mustard and so they know it is best to reply as Mr Mustard will see things through.

As one can't force a parking department do the right thing, as they are generally self policing, so Mr Mustard went outside their world and asked the chief auditor to consider having a look. At that point he stopped chasing as audit programmes have to be planned in advance and he had put the germ of an idea there which may bring fruit in the future. That was all he could reasonably do.

If Hackney Council write the same load of old toffee to you do please ask Mr Mustard to act for you.

The end, for now.

Having completed the blog Mr Mustard went to shred the file and found a third PCN he had forgotten about. It was raised just before his email to the Auditor and it should have led Mr Mustard to point out further errors. Here is the gist of the third rejection, written by a third council employee, who also needs retraining as it contains different errors.

Error 1: The yellow stripes on the kerb signify a ban on loading, not on parking (waiting).

Error 2: You do not have to stay with your vehicle, you cannot ask your toddler to cross the road and walk to the nursery on their own. This question was considered by the High Court in the case of Makda, a taxi driver who went looking for his passenger.

Error 3: Never mind 'future contraventions' there hasn't been a contravention.

The end, until Hackney Council issue yet another PCN.

Parallel crossings

 

Mr Mustard saw the above tweets last week and realised that he too was one of those drivers and cyclists (he is both and also a pedestrian) who hadn't, perhaps, kept up with the legal meaning of these new style crossings despite regularly buying the latest Highway Code when he is alerted to a new edition. It sort of didn't matter as whether on two wheels or four Mr Mustard is attentive at such a junction and gives way all the time to others rather than have a scrape and be filling in insurance claim forms.

Mr Mustard didn't think that cyclists had priority because of one simple fact, the give way line on the cycle track. Mr Mustard decided to see what the law says and this is to be found on pages 476/7 of the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016. This is available free on line or like Mr Mustard you can lash out £65 for a hard copy. Here are the relevant drawings

 

Just for completeness the square markings each side of the cycle crossing are diagram 1055.3 

These Elephants' Footprints, as they are known, merely delineate the lane, they don't have a give way meaning.

The zig zag lines come with complicated rules but luckily the Highway Code contains a simple interpretation:

 

The crossing Mr Mustard is most familiar with on his bicycle is the one in Montagu Road in Edmonton which looks like this:

He has found that as he cautiously approaches it is never long before a vehicle stops and lets him go for which they always get a friendly wave (Mr Mustard doesn't want to start a debate as to whether or not you should thank a driver for following the law but when he isn't chewing the ear off councils about unfair PCNs Mr Mustard is quite a friendly soul so he opts to wave as he thinks it makes the world a better place).

Mr Mustard's conclusion for the crossing in Hackney is that all people approaching should look, slow down, be prepared to give way and then cross when it is safe to do so. 

Avoid argument, insurance company paperwork, increased insurance premiums, broken bones or hospital food.

The end.

Hackney Council bullying

 

The PCN was issued in a simple situation. A 3 year old was being alighted to the adjacent nursery i.e. within the same street.

 

This is the third PCN in respect of the same child/car. All three PCNs have been cancelled, this time in 3 days.

 

An apology is more appropriate than the bullying content of the Notice of Acceptance. The PCN starts badly because there is zero observation time so any argument about alighting gives Hackney Council a problem. The challenge also included a copy of the nursery childcare contract.

 

Yellow stripes on the kerb do not mean no parking (which should read no waiting in any event although they are sort of the same) as the law about signs clearly states they mean 'no loading/unloading':

Rule 247 of the Highway Code explains this is an easier to find form, councils are fond of spouting from the Highway Code, Hackney Council staff need to actually read and understand it.

In 'claryfing the rules' the writer introduces irrelevant information about the elderly and disabled. The law does not say the driver must stay with the car, the High Court decided differently in the case of Makda in which a cab driver had to go looking for his passenger who it turned out was not to be found and whose PCN was cancelled by the Court.

Please don't start sentences with 'And', it makes you look like an illiterate, which you are. (I do make grammatical errors but not that one!)

Whether or not the PCN was 'correctly issued' which it was on the face of it, as soon as the facts are accepted that establish that the PCN was not warranted, in the event & unknown to the CEO (traffic warden), then it was no longer correctly issued and in any event whether it was thought to be correct at the time and date in question became irrelevant. This is the council self-justifying the actions of their CEO against whom the only complaint is that he/she should have waited 2-5 minutes in a street where there is a nursery and when the time is between 9am and 10am at which hour it is likely that children are being dropped off for the day.

The simple reasoning for cancelling the PCNs are that the evidence was overwhelming and that Mr Mustard is acting. Hackney Council know from his long history that Mr Mustard will also make formal representations against the Notice to Owner once issued and if those representations are rejected he will start a tribunal Appeal. That Appeal will cost Hackney Council c.£30 which they will never see again and 99.9% of well documented Appeals like this one will be won.

Adjudicators decisions don't set a Precedent (with a capital P, as in a legal precedent) so council decisions certainly don't, but councils should be consistent. All documented cases of dropping off at a time when the nursery is opening (or picking up at closing time) should lead to a cancellation.

When Hackney Council write of 'future contraventions of this nature' they can't be referring to this case as THERE WASN'T A CONTRAVENTION. Please excuse my shouty behaviour. The staff who write letters about PCNs really need to get one thing straight about a PCN, it refers to an 'alleged' contravention, by law, as in this case:

The end, until next week when yet another PCN gets issued, probably.

Hackney Islington pillow fight

Local authorites, all ultimately publicly funded, are quite happy to waste time and money trying to move £130 from one council budget to another. Here is a decision from a London Tribunals independent adjudicator.

A driver (looking at you Hackney Council) must be inept, naughty or poorly sighted to fail to realise there is something very unusual about this road layout

Islington Council were inept in not proving their case (they are one of the better councils when it comes to proving their case at the tribunal).

 

End.

Hackney - illegal pursuit of PCNs

Back in November 2021 Mr Mustard won an Appeal at London Tribunals that neutralised the Traffic Management Order prohibiting motor vehicles at a certain point in Mount Pleasant Lane - as the certain point which Hackney Council described couldn't possibly exist.

It is the case that decisions by independent adjudicators at London Tribunals don't set precedents, an adjudicator being able to decide one case one way and the next case, apparently the same, a different way. This is because cases turn on little factual nuances. However, in a situation whereby an Adjudicator has found a fundamental and clear flaw in a traffic order it is likely that the decision to cancel a PCN will be followed by other adjudicators. The odd thing though is that unless the motorist who got the PCN challenges the PCN on the grounds that the Traffic Order is invalid then the adjudicator, who probably decides 100 cases a week all over London and so won't remember a case he decided weeks or months ago, won't do what Mr Mustard did and look really closely at the description within the traffic order and a map and get his measuring tape out.

The adjudicator decides Appeals based upon the representations and arguments which have been made, not normally adding any of his own, being independent after all.

Here is the decision that must have put Hackney Council into a panic.

A council having discovered that a traffic order is effectively invalid should take the appropriate administrative steps to draw up a new order, correctly stating the location, and not take any further action against people who have outstanding PCNs. In addition, having realised that they have issued thousands of invalid PCNs they should proactively refund everyone affected. That isn't, unsurprisingly, what they did as PCNs are all about the money. Hackney Council told the local paper that everything was hunky dory, and unless the motorist challenged the validity of the traffic order, Hackney Council would present what they knew was an invalid traffic order to the adjudicator. Mr Mustard knows of two cases where the traffic order was challenged as part of the Appeal and Hackney Council quietly folded their hand on those two cases.

Mr Mustard also knows, as the register is a public document, of all these people who fought their PCNs in front of an indepndent adjudicator at London Tribunals and lost, because Hackney Council submitted as evidence a traffic order which they know does not have an enforceable location of contravention stated. This was dishonest.

Mr Mustard has a friend who is a retired lawyer and he now works pro bono (for free) for people who have been the subject of injustice. We can easily locate the school and the business but the other listed victims could live anywhere, although they most probably live in London. Mr Mustard needs your help to track them down. Please, if you know any of the people listed above, please show them this blog post and get them to click on this link for the story in the Hackney Gazette, and ask them to email mrmustard@zoho.com so that their details can be passed to the solicitor who will try and get them their money back.

End.

Hackney Council FOI - 'Sorry' not in their vocabulary

 

Mount Pleasant Lane

Before we get to the purpose of the blog Mr Mustard just wants to say that if you drive through this gap you are an ignorant or an incompetent driver, you choose (why?, 6 signs, 6!). Remember Mr Mustard's mantra, 'planter = penalty' (probably). Still unsure? google 'flying motorbike sign'.

So here are the two responses received to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. The first one was patently wrong, there being no ambiguity in Mr Mustard's eyes.

If Hackney Council were unsure what was required they should have asked for clarification. Mr Mustard would have respected the council if they had simply said, 'sorry, we misunderstood what you wanted and here are the new figures' but instead they blame Mr Mustard for asking ambiguous questions, that is an unedifying approach.

It is very concerning that 1 in 8 PCNs have reached a bailiff. Part of the reason for this is the disaster which was DVLA in the early stages of the pandemic when they didn't have on line systems for updating the address at which a vehicle is kept.

On the positive side Hackney Council were more than fair in sending out zero value warning notices for 3 months which gave the people for whom this was a regular route the opportunity to chance their habits for free. Thereby Hackney achieved their objective of changing traffic flow without soaking the motorist in the process.

End.

Not quite the end as there is another story coming about this location, although Mr Mustard might let the newspapers have it.

Hackney automation breaches the law

Everyone knows that councils automate as much of the back office PCN management process as they can. The relevant laws however, usually only that they 'may' take certain steps, they are not obliged to take them as in this section of the moving traffic legislation, the snappily titled London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2003.

Hackney Council came unstuck on their use of automation, which means that ahd pre-decided they were going to issue a charge certificate before they were entitled to think about one, when they forgot to turn off the automatic process after an Appeal had been made, an action which freezes things until 28 days after the Appeal has been decided.

It is worth closely checking through the evidence pack you are sent on Appeal, even if you don't get a charge certificate in error, to see if the system has been set to automatically send you one on a future date (look for a case history, if there is one). The tribunal case to quote in support of your Appeal if that does turn out to be the case is 2210111508. It is not a precedent but could just be a useful get out of jail free card if you are otherwise not going to win.

You can find the original decision in the tribunal register, here.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard