Councils can't afford to be kind

When he gets a fresh PCN Mr Mustard often has to warn people that, more likely than not, the council will not look kindly on the reason why they received the PCN. The council want your money, most of the time, and whilst they have a wide discretion, councils can cancel any PCN for any reason, the adjudicator cannot & must strictly apply the law. Adjudicators can only recommend that a council think again although Mr Mustard has seen them bend the law in order to excuse an error.

Here is a classic example of a situation in which Mr Mustard thinks the public would expect leniency to come into play but he wasn't at all surprised when it didn't. This is a situation which, other things being equal, will only happen the once.

The informal challenge submitted to Lewisham Council:

and the relevant part of their response:

This is a Catch 22 response. There is no evidence that the writer thought about exercising their discretion. Their explanation is that because the contravention happened, which was already conceded by the motorist, the council won't cancel because the contravention happened.

What should happen is that Lewisham Council should consider the mitigation put forward, decide if it has the ring of truth (why would you stay in a hotel in SE13 when you live in SE6?) which it does and then consider whether or not to cancel the PCN. There is no revenue loss to the council which didn't instigate an automatic refund of a payment for which no value was given (once you have a PCN you cannot get another the same day, unless the rules of the bay change, if you don't move).

The rejection letter should explain why discretion is not being exercised, like one of these responses:

a    your proof is not credible

b    we don't think the mitigation is sufficient as you could have paid the night before (if you can, although the driver might have been intending to get up early, buy flowers and attempt a reconciliation)

c    we want your money so won't cancel

d    we are venal and rapacious. (* copyright another PCN expert, Incandescent).

The law assumes that a public body endowed with absolute power will exercise that power in a manner which is fair in all the circumstances. Although this appeal for clemency can be argued both for and against what is apparent from hundreds of PCNs that Mr Mustard has seen is that in many councils heartlessness and ruthlessness are the order of the day (He does have good experiences, he recounted one with Islington Council on twitter last week but he sees far more bad than good).

The problem is that councils are not routinely monitored or inspected for the way they go about the issue and enforcement of PCNs. We need an outside body which referees the whole system and can visit councils and encourage best practice and fairness. There are 7 million PCNs issued in London every year. Councils are out of control in their quest for revenue.

Time to create OffPen.

The end.

Lewisham Council's failure to faciliate a fair hearing costs them

 

Councils can pull the wool over the eyes of some motorists but trying to do it to an adjudicator, an experienced and qualified lawyer, isn't very bright. The adjudicator lazered in on the weak points of the council's response and cancelled the PCN accordingly.

You will get an independent hearing at london Tribunals, they are not on the side of the council or the motorist but dispensing justice without fear or favour.

End.

PCNs - exercise of discretion - #23 Lewisham

Lewisham Council told Mr Mustard which webpage to find the answer on but not within which item on that rather busy page.

On his third attempt Mr Mustard found what he was looking for, starting on page 39 of the Code of Practice (it wasn't within the Policy document where one would expect to find it). Mr Mustard has extracted the relevant pages for you.

Lewisham Council Parking Enforcement guidance notes by MisterMustard on Scribd

There aren't many statements of discretion / mitigation policy within this document. Mr Mustard doesn't lock horns with Lewisham very often so isn't going to spend much time digesting the content, but, a policy of refusing to accept ('in no circumstance') that your car has been taken without your consent when it has been, perhaps by the estranged partner that the council mention, is a policy of fettered discretion, the exact opposite of what they should do.

If you are in prison, perhaps on remand and in the end it turns out that you are not guilty, Lewisham Council will have let the PCN process continue to a bailiff who may remove your car and sell it whilst you are 'inside'. Another policy of fettered discretion and pretty unreasonable behaviour by a public body.

The end.

Lewisham lose

 

A long battle which ended up with an order for disclosure.

One wonders why the council fought for so long to keep the cctv of one of their own vehicles out of the public domain as the image of the driver wasn't likely to be that clear, their name was already known, and a pixellated version could easily have been supplied at the time of first request.

The bigger question is what the council were up to sending a PCN to themselves, a monumentally pointless PCN which involves taking money out of the council's left pocket and putting it into the right one. All this time and expense wasted.

Lewisham Council - automated stupidity

The scene is set, above. Note that the no entry signs are set a metre or two back from the give way lines. It was, in the adjudicator's view, when the Traffic Management Order is read, ok to drive up the road towards the camera and then reverse (the van in the picture is a handy illustration of the point near which the motorist in this case changed direction from forwards to reverse) as the prohibition is on driving along Giffin Street, which is to your left and right, and turning away from the camera into Frankham Street.

Here is the decision on the Appeal and on costs.

There is an unhealthy amount of automation in the world of moving traffic PCNs. this is because council's wouldn't make any money if they employed real people instead. This leads to an unhealthy reliance on computerised decision making which Lewisham have been brought to book over.

Additional points on which the adjudicator could have found for the motorist are that the PCN did not accurately describe the alleged contravention. 'Failing to comply with a no entry sign is a contravention but it was there in support of a prohibition on 'causing a vehicle to enter Frankham Street from Giffin Street' so the contravention as alleged had not taken place.

The council said about the PCN that it 'cannot be withdrawn' which is a pack of lies. The council can cancel what they issue, for any reason, even if they accept that there was a contravention.

Councils are always keen to warn motorists that false statements can lead to a Court fine of £5,000. Lewisham have got off lightly in this case.

The adjudicator boots out of the window the idea that costs should not be awarded because the motorist could have had his case heard on the papers. One of the good things about the tribunal (unlike outside London at the TPT nowadays) is that the motorist gets the chance to put their evidence in person and the adjudicator gets the chance to ask all the questions they need to in order to refine the arguments & fact find. Lewisham are lucky that the adjudicator did not order them to turn up to argue their case, a power which he opted not to exercise.

Mr Mustard finds all the time that enforcement authorities bend or misrepresent the evidence to suit their position, they often answer a different point to the one argued in order to try and negate the argument. They will say things like 'the  PCN was properly issued' which it was, when the real argument is about the facts of the parking which led to the issue of the PCN.

Before a PCN is issued a human being is meant to check the cctv to check that a contravention did occur. Mr Mustard is fond of parking up for 10 seconds in the middle of an empty yellow box at midnight to make sure the cctv verifier is awake and doing their job properly and not just ticking yes to a PCN. However, in this case, he thinks that a checker would be so mean that they would issue a PCN to anyone who went a metre past the back of the no entry signs and then reversed, which is not the reason why the signs were installed, taking a purposive approach.

We'll see if Lewisham learn. If they don't things could go badly for them.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

For experts; decision 2180445409

Lewishan the internecine Council

Mr Mustard keeps an eye on the results at London Tribunals each day. He sees odd things sometimes.

Here Lewisham Council have refused representations from themselves four times and taken themselves to the PCN tribunal four times at a total cost in tribunal fees of about £120. At that point they have decided to not contest their own arguments.

Bonkers or what?

Interestingly they chose to fight the 5 motorists who weren't the borough themselves, perhaps because they stood to actually raise some revenue from them, but even then they only won 2 out of 5 of the cases and so should collect £260 in due course but have paid out about £150 in tribunal fees (not recoverable) and probably spent about 7 - 10 hours in getting the evidence packs ready for the tribunal & on pursuing the PCN generally.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

NSL over egg their importance in Lewisham

The distinction between private and public parking enforcement is hard enough for many people to fathom without NSL making out that they are issuing council PCN 

'in Partnership with'

Lewisham, and that assumes that you know that the crown icon with Lewisham underneath means the London Borough of Lewisham which Mr Mustard's client, a man from Edgware, does not know.

Thought you would phone Lewisham about your PCN, don't!

0845 numbers are 11 to 18p a minute. What does the Local Government Ombudsman think about 0845 numbers?

It looks like Mr Mustard will be complaining to the monitoring officer.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard