Lovely to be appreciated

Mustard in flower in Japan

Mr Mustard is happy if his 'clients' make a donation to the North London Hospice. He is even happier when he knows they are happy and realise what a huge hole he dug them out of. In this case the lady concerned, let's call her Alice Blake, did not have English as her first language and a colleague helped her but that nearly caused a process error as there was doubt as to whether or not the Owner had made the representations. The PCN value had been increased by 50% to £172 by the time Mr Mustard was on the case. He was able to file a statutory declaration at the Traffic Enforcement Centre that on time representations were made to Barnet Council and had not been responded to (sometimes the rejection letter is genuinely lost in the post & sometimes the council mess up but plough on regardless) and at the same time he asked the parking manager one question about the correspondence. Suddenly, whoosh, the PCN was cancelled.

The car owner concerned, Alice, sent this email:

Just wanted to say thank you for the work you did regarding my parking ticket issues. I cannot express how grateful I am for your help on the matter and your continued mission to help people who have been treated unjustly by the council. The work you do is selfless and invaluable and it is truly amazing that you are able to help so many people. I have made a donation to North London Hospice and I wish you all the best for the future; please be under no illusion as to how invaluable you are to the people you help!

It is both what you know (or the unknown unknown in this case, and whom you know).

Then her son, who had not previously contacted Mr Mustard, wrote this:

We haven't spoken before but you recently helped my Mum, Alice Blake, with an appeal that resulted in the PCN being overturned. I just wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you for your help with this case and also your continued commitment to helping people with PCN injustices. I've read through your blog on a fair few occasions now and it's humbling to see the work that you do. Councils abuse the fact that the PCN system is an unforgiving legal labyrinth set up to be as inflexible and unaccountable as possible and seeing your work goes some way to restore my faith in humanity.

I wrote many of the emails that my mum sent to appeal the PCN and at the time I was also dealing with PCN issues down here in Brighton. The threat of bailiffs and fines of several hundred pounds caused by administration issues created absolutely awful times for me, filled with stress, anxiety and above all, anger at the insanity of council parking systems. After many months of dealings with the council and TEC and many, many forms, I can finally say the ordeal is behind me and I give credit to the work and advice that you publish as it was absolutely invaluable for me, even though my case was outside of London.

I genuinely believe the work you do has helped pave the way for a more fair, accountable and just system for parking infrastructure in London and bought it closer to what it should have always been; a system that serves the people of London. Most of all you have my utmost respect for putting up with the awful, pedantic and bureaucratic parking departments of London in the name of helping people and holding councils to account.

Whilst it is awful that such intervention is necessary, it is absolutely enlightening to see you resiliently stand by the principles of fairness and fight. I wish you all the best and my family and I will be donating to the North London Hospice tomorrow.

Gilbert Blake

This blog often has dire stories so is is nice to bring one with a happy ending.

Mr Mustard's knowledge & experience helps him to correct some wrongs.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Injustice (where? in parking? surely not?)

use one of these perfectly properly and lose your appeal!

Parking tickets are utter madness at any time and cause great affront. One is entitled to be outraged when you follow the rules and then have a parking ticket issued to you which is upheld by the independent adjudicator, not through some fault of the motorist but of Barnet Council.

Here is what the adjudicator said following an appeal from Monday:

The appellant says that she made every effort to comply with the conditions of use of the designated parking bay. She says that she went to nearby shop to buy a parking voucher. She produces a voucher which had been scratched out to show the date, and the time of arrival as 4 minutes after issue of the Penalty Charge Notice.

The evidence of the officer is conclusive of the fact that the bay in which the vehicle was parked was a 'pay by phone' only bay. There is no provision for the obtaining and display of a voucher. The sign is clear and unambiguous.

The appeal is refused.

Here is a sample of the type of sign (not for the exact location) that is used in "pay-by-phone" bays 

 

This sign does not mention that you can pay by voucher or that you can pay at paypoint. That information may be on the tall thin secondary information sign that is on the other side of the pole but the independent adjudicator in this case did not know that and the pay-by-phone signs on the shared use bays in Mr Mustard Road do not disclose the existence of vouchers.

The pay-by-phone bays will now have to be renamed "Pay-by-phone or voucher or paypoint or credit or debit card at meter bays" - doesn't it just trip off the tongue?

Questions are tumbling over themselves to be asked.

Why did the formal appeal not pick up that Parking Vouchers are a perfectly proper way of paying? (Probably, and as Mr Mustard doesn't act for this motorist he can only surmise, because the appeal was on the basis of having purchased a voucher and the rejection will have been that too long was taken to do so)

Would the council have decided to cancel the parking ticket when they saw the notes from PATAS because they knew that the decision was based on a lack of knowledge of vouchers in Barnet? (Extremely unlikely)

Does the Traffic Management Order (TMO) mention these new Parking Vouchers that traders are encouraged to sell? (Possibly not and this is a question that Mr Mustard has asked, in general for all pay bays, of one of his council parking contacts. They are probably having a bad day now.)

If not mentioned in the TMO will all the TMO have to be updated? (Yes and it will take ages).

Did NSL (on behalf of the council) send PATAS as part of the evidence pack a complete copy of the TMO or just a short extract which is what is usually done as they can run to dozens of pages? (Probably an extract and so if anything about Parking Vouchers is in it the adjudicator will not have seen it).

Did NSL send a copy to PATAS of the tall thin sign which is shown above? (Even if they had, which is doubtful, it doesn't mention Parking Vouchers).

Does every "pay-by-phone" time plate in the borough need changing? (oh dear, another headache for parking client side -  Mr Mustard isn't expecting a Christmas card).

Why should traders sell Parking Vouchers that are useless? ( They cause more trouble than they are worth. It would be much better to have more free bays in town centres to encourage trade and to put meters in car parks that take cash, credit/debit cards, tokens and smart cards.)

Once Mr Mustard has the answers from parking client side, so will you.

As an aside there is a box on the voucher which includes the instruction in tiny type to complete your registration number. Do that or get a parking ticket. Mr Mustard has suggested this box be removed at the next reprint as a 1 hour voucher is hardly likely to be used by two vehicles.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Update Friday 8 February 2013

A member of the parking client side has been in touch. This is speedy work which is to be commended. The response is:

I do not agree with the excerpt “There is no provision for the obtaining and display of a voucher”. The Traffic Management Order for the bay in question (TMO 2008 No 17 – Schedule 20 – Item 555) and the amending Traffic Management Order (2011 No. 78) defines the methods of payments accepted here in Barnet, including the displaying of Parking Vouchers (I have only attached 2011 No.78 as 2008 No 17 is over 60 MB).

I can confirm that authorisation has been given by the Department for Transport for our signage. I am therefore satisfied that said signage is compliant and within the law.

It is my belief that the Adjudicator was right to refuse the Appeal, but refused it for the wrong reasons, it is also my belief that the Penalty Charge Notice should be cancelled as the Adjudicator has in my opinion made a mistake.

So the good news is that the injustice will be corrected and it was a one-off at Patas and hopefully it won't happen again. 

The question to which we will never know the answe ris what would have happened if Mr Mustard had not read the PATAS decision.