No Humanity in Hounslow

Councils have become overly reliant on PCN income and all humanity has been lost in the search for revenue.

Mr Mustard made the following formal representation which was basically a cry for help:

 

One would think that any person with a heart would let the one PCN go by the wayside given the fact that I am telling them that the motorist is seriously ill. No, all that matters is that you should give Hounslow Council £160, they not even offering the 50% discount again (it is optional at this stage but would have shown some empathy, fake though it would have been).

Here is what was written:

It seems that Hounslow Council don't understand that they have been asked to exercise their discretion as a goodwill gesture.

Looking at the elements of the response, we know why the PCN was issued, the details are on the Notice to Owner which prompted the representation.

The line which starts 'I have noted...' is otiose.

'Stressful' - that is something of an under-statement.

It is true that serious cancer 'has no bearing on the validity of the PCN...' but that is not what the request was for, it was for the exercise of discretion, the response lays a false trail, it is an exercise in sophistry. 

This is what the Secretary of State has to say in his Statutory Guidance to which a council must have due regard:

The guidance is clear. Hounslow Council can cancel any PCN, no matter how correct, if they want to. 

Mr Mustard thinks that being told you should think about whether to drive or not due to your serious health condition is advice that the motorist doesn't need to hear from a council whose business it isn't (it is the DVLA's role) so butt out Hounslow.

Although the rejection letter says they have 'carefully considered the representations, and any mitigating circumstances' that is clearly a standard response because it should refer to 'the mitigating circumstances' not 'any' that might have been advanced. The response is a lazy one, the motorist deserves a proper response.

The worst part of this letter, in Mr Mustard's opinion are the words:

'there is no reason for it to be cancelled'.

Just let that sink in. An extremely serious cancer isn't a good enough reason for a PCN for a minor parking contravention to be cancelled. 

The world has been turned upside down. Councils have been given too much power and they are abusing it very badly.

Hounslow Council should hang its head in shame, give itself a good talking to, revisit its policies and start behaving with some common decency.

What of course the letter should have explained is why discretion would not be exercised. That consideration starts from an assumption that the PCN is valid and so the response should explain why discretion is not being exercised. What does it take before discretion is exercised?

If the write of the letter (nameless of course) had to sit across a desk from the motorist and tell them no to their face, they wouldn't be able to do it. That is how the question of discretion should be considered.

 

Not reading what I wrote in Parking Department

Mr Mustard has long suspected that Barnet Council don't pay much attention to informal challenges, the ones made in response to a PCN on street, as they know that most people don't have the time or inclination to battle to the end.

He fully expected the response to be a negative one, and he was not disappointed, but it shouldn't refer to loading, when that was not being claimed, just a request for mitigation i.e. be kind, and it is no surprise that whoever made the decision to reject, wasn't kind either.

 Mr Mustard never argued that the PCN wasn't valid so there is no need to tell him the PCN is still valid. Many of the council's responses are template ones.

The only valid ground to cancel would be mitigation on behalf of the council but they aren't kind and don't even think they have to explain why they shouldn't be.

No harm was done on the day by parking in an empty road, except to the lady's purse.

If Barnet Council ever wonder why 70% of people aren't truly satisfied with the parking department, this is an example of why.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Havant a heart

Those not very clear yellow marks across the kerb mean no unloading and hence no blue badge parking. There was one in this car.

The story concerns Angelica and Alan (the names have been changed although Mr Mustard has a picture of 'Alan' lying serenely on his hospice bed, which he has permission to use, but has decided not to) and Angelica found Mr Mustard after his repeat TV performance on Parking Mad and this is what she wrote:

Hi Mr Mustard,

I saw your programme last night and I think you're doing a brilliant job.

If you have the time I wonder if you could give me some advice. I know you mostly deal with Barnet and I'm in Havant, Hampshire.

I'll try and keep it brief.

I do voluntary work at our local hospice, mostly on the wards but I do also visit the terminally ill in their homes. On this occasion my 'client' was having a good day and wanted to go to Specsavers to sort out his glasses. At that time he was using a zimmer frame but was very slow and had to keep stopping for breath. He has a disabled badge and so I parked on double yellow lines as near to Specsavers as I could. We were gone approximately half an hour. When I got back to the car I saw I had a ticket and the warden was just walking away. When I approached him he said I was parked in a no loading area. I had seen the white lines and sign for the loading zone but had parked a few yards away on the yellow lines. I didn't realise that the double yellow lines on the kerbstones also denoted a no loading area. I explained the situation and by that time Alan had caught me up, whereupon he also explained that he was terminally ill. He was quite upset and stressed by the situation. The warden could see how ill Alan was but said that he couldn't rescind the ticket. He said I should have read the disabled manual and I explained I didn't have one as the disabled badge was Alan's.  He did say he would go into the office the next day and explain the situation, I thought this was a good sign. He also said the conversation was being recorded.

I challenged the parking ticket on compassionate grounds explaining the situation. Alan's family also wrote in. I had a letter saying my appeal had been rejected. I then waited for the Notice to Owner and explained the situation again as they had said as I was a driver for the hospice I should know the rules. I explained I wasn't a driver for the hospice, just a voluntary worker. Again the appeal was rejected.

I was just going to give up and pay up as technically I was in the wrong, until I saw the TV programme last night.

My question is, do you think I should take it to the Tribunal? In some ways if I just paid up it would be the end of the matter and I could forget about it but part of me feels aggrieved at the callousness of the council. It's not about the money.

I would be most grateful for your advice.

King regards

Angelica

Mr Mustard was amazed, but shouldn't be, at the robotic response of the traffic warden; surely we can train them to be more human than this? A man has stood in front of you and told you he is about to die and you want to tell their driver they should have read a Rights & Responsibilities booklet they have never seen.

The Notice of Rejection is also pretty awful. It says "I am unable to cancel this PCN..." which is a patent lie. A council can cancel any PCN for any reason at any time even if it is 100% correct.

Mr Mustard's advice was clear:

1.  The kerb marks may not be clear enough to be considered as substantially compliant.

2.  The Unable to Cancel statement is untrue.

3.  The council have failed to properly exercise their discretion as they are required to do. They have to at least think, "this person had terrible medical problems, should we be nice and cancel even though technically we think the PCN was correct"? Councils misdirect themselves all the time about this and when asked for a goodwill cancellation they focus instead on the technical merits.

For Mr Mustard the decision is an easy one. Once you have a Notice of Rejection and Tribunal Appeal Form you fill it in and post it off straightaway as the, in this case, £70 PCN does not get any worse. If you win at the tribunal you save £70. If you lose at the tribunal you pay the £70 you would have had to pay if you had not completed the Appeal form. The council have to pay a fee to the tribunal for the Appeal process and the more of those they have to pay the harder they might think about things.

Mr Mustard has submitted the Appeal form which Havant Council have now had on their desk for 10 days. They have not yet cancelled the PCN so it looks like they plan to contest the Appeal. Mr Mustard has his motor running ready for the trip to Southampton (Angelica has equally offered to pop to London for the hearing).

The final words are Angelica's:

Just an update for you. Sadly Alan passed away on Saturday. I was in doing ward duties yesterday and saw his name on the list.

I had visited him on Thursday but didn't stay long as I could see he wasn't up for visiting.  Just a few days before he had been in good spirits and was talking about the 'Parking case'.  Your comment about 'Havant a Heart Council' made him chuckle.

Yours very sadly

Mr Mustard

Update 9 September 2015

The Traffic Penalty Tribunal have written to say that "The council has decided not to contest this appeal". Looking at it further Havant BC issue PCN as agents of  Hampshire County Council (who did read this blog entry) and so which one of them made the good and bad decisions will never be known. This is a tale of persistence though on the part of Angelica because had she not seen Mr Mustard on the TV she would have meekly paid up and councils bully people because that is the usual outcome. It is not the outcome when Mr Mustard is involved, it will be a fight to the end, with him coming out the winner more often than not. Local authorities take note.

Wanted - human beings to respond to PCN appeals

Although Mr Mustard suspects that NSL are 90% to blame for a recently bereaved widow having to spend her time going to PATAS at Angel Islington, Barnet Council cannot escape their share of the blame as they are meant to monitor what NSL get up to, make the decision on any formal appeal and approve the Evidence Pack before it is submitted.

One problem in organisations handling large amounts of data is that they are sometimes organised so that many different people touch a file rather than one person handling the whole thing from start to finish. This is more efficient in that productivity is maximised but less efficacious in that there is no one person with an overview of, and responsibility for, individual PCNs and thus there is no accountability.

Who is responsible for this sad and disgusting state of affairs? Here is a recent PATAS adjudication decision by the excellent adjudicator Mr Anthony Chan:

The Appellant Mrs Q. explained that the registered keeper was her husband who has passed away. She was driving the vehicle and she is now dealing with the matter.

The issue is whether the Appellant has paid for the parking. On the one hand, the Appellant has produced mobile phone records and credit card records showing that not only had she paid, had had extended the parking. On the other hand, the evidence produced by the Authority consisted of the screenshot of the front two pages of the search, which did not give the results of the search. It had not sought to ascertain from its records what the Appellant had paid for.

The Appellant has produced prima facie evidence that she has paid for her parking. The Authority has offered no probative evidence to discount it. I am not satisfied that the contravention occurred. I am allowing the appeal.

Now it would be the case that if the PCN had reached the point of registration as a debt at the Traffic Enforcement centre then it would properly be payable out of the deceased's estate but Mr Mustard hopes that no local authority bothers to follow up such a claim and simply lets the matter die along with the deceased.

If however, the PCN is still progressing, as this one was allowed to, there is no case to answer as the deceased simply cannot give first hand evidence or get a fair trial. Mr Chan could have simply thrown this case out but as he had other simple grounds for allowing the appeal he may have thought that the easiest way to deal with the matter which would cause least distress to the widow. Mr Mustard had a case in front of Mr Chan last Saturday and when next in front of him will, if time permits, ask him if the principle of a PCN being a nullity on death is a correct one.

Mr Mustard notes that this alleged contravention took place in the Lodge Lane Car Park. That is the fourth case of payment not being noted before a PCN is issued that he has seen this year. There is something wrong at location 7521 (the council might like to check its income for that location from PayByPhone to see if it is sufficient).

The alleged contravention was in August. There is usually a 4 week listing period at PATAS so in early November someone at NSL decided that it was OK to contest the appeal of a lady who had been widowed for 3 months.

Here is some advice for any employee at NSL or Barnet Council who has to handle PCN appeals:

1. Think about the way Nelson Mandela behaved.

2. Think about the way that you yourself behave.

3. Think about the widow's feelings.

4. Think about what the customer is going through.

5. Change your behaviour for the better.

Yours in sadness

Mr Mustard