Newham Council are Cheats - #53

 

Well done Ms Reid you were a thorn (sorry) in the council's side.

This not being one of Mr Mustard's cases he doesn't know exactly where the car was parked but can hazard a rough guess from what google street view shows him.

The image above shows a bay without a sign. That makes it a free bay as the rules for every bay can be different and as the onus is on the council to erect and maintain adequate signage.

The next bay along has a sign but is separated by a disabled bay (which would be better with a sign and/or 'DISABLED' painted on the carriageway where it still can be seen after parking in that bay and by a section of pavement so the sign in this bay doesn't apply to the other bay or any other bay.

 There is no sign to say you can't park here, best for stretch limo owners.

 

 

Yet another location in Newham which has suffered from sign vandalism.

The PCN was unlawfully issued by the CEO, that is cheating.

The representations were clearly rejected by the back office, that too was cheating.

The tribunal is independent and free to the motorist, if your case is legally correct it should prevail.

The end. 

Newham Council - missing manners

 

 

The same road as in the previous blog, this time for Mr H who has probably annoyed Newham Council by persistently parking in free bays and over-turning every single PCN, we are into double figures.

11 July - parked as above, given a PCN.

17 July - Mr H made his own challenge, that there was no sign.

14 August - Newham Council rejected it on the same nonsense basis as in other rejections.

Mr Mustard took over at this juncture. He took a different tack, a complaint, sent to Newham Council in the post, on 17 August. It socked it to Newham Council who get far too few such complaints.

 

 

What happened next? Nothing, it is discourteous and doubtless breaches some council policy on speed of reply but Mr Mustard knew that the council wouldn't want to commit an admission of their unlawful acts to paper so were never likely to answer in any meaningful way. What they did do was to put the PCN on hold and that played into the hands of Mr Mustard. He waited until 14 February and then wrote this:

Suddenly, Newham Council leapt into action and sent a most polite response, probably relieved that this was all over:

Mr Mustard likes to see the PCN value online set to zero so he knows the PCN won't come alive again later on. 

Councils should all respond to complaints about PCNs even though they try to tell you that you should follow the enforcement process but when a council is doing wrong you should both follow the process and tell them what they are doing wrong as the enforcement process does not contain a complaint mechanism.

More people should complain rather than accept bad council behaviour.

Feel free to crib any useful points from what Mr Mustard has written.

The end.

Newham Council are Cheats - #47

 

A thorough examination of the evidence by the Adjudicator but Newham Council was all at sea from the start. Every time an on street PCN is issued there should be a number of photographs which show the car registration and the car's position within a bay, the sign which applies and the car with the sign in context. The sign photo within the relevant bay doesn't exist in this case because the sign doesn't exist as the motorist affirmed.

Bog standard cheating by bog awful Newham Council.

The end. 

Newham Council are Cheats - #13

 

Here we go again.

No sign in a bay = free parking.

Adjudicators are smart, all lawyers with years of experience in assessing evidence and they have probably rumbled that the evidence of Newham Council is often suspect as they are serial cheats.

 

Newham Council are Cheats - #5

 

Mr Mustard has had the same discussion with an adjudicator about the lack of signage and the effectiveness of a warning Notice. It ended the same way with a cancelled PCN. It might appear in this series later on.

The role of the adjudicator is to apply the law. The law requires that a council erects and maintains signage in bays and so 99% an adjudicator will cancel for inadequate or non-existent signage. One reason is that you had a warning a month ago but the rules of the bay might have changed since then and that is why you have to be informed of the rules every time you park within a bay.

Note the adjudicator said he 'must' allow the Appeal which was entirely correct and proper.

More cheating by Newham Council.

Let's start the story near the end, with the Grounds of Appeal to the independent tribunal.

The council response to the possibility of an independent qualified and experience lawyer looking at the evidence was to throw in the towel and DNC (Do not Contest) the Appeal.

This was curiously at odds with the reaction of the council when a challenge was made on the same basis, that a bay without a sign = free parking.

Here are some snippets from their rejection notice.

'Comments' were not made, a 'representation' was made. They were considered as carefully as a careless and carefree person would consider them.

No, the argument was that there was no signage although that could hardly be less clear. A common ploy is to reject an argument that wasn't made in order to try and give your rejection some authenticity. How can a sign which is not there be visible is quite the stretch.

The CEO's photographs do not show the car, the bay and the sign all in one photograph, because they can't. There was not a sign in place in the bay in question. The council cannot prove the contravention.

It is unfortunate that the council are terrible liars. There was no restriction in place because one was not communicated by a sign. Ultimately the onus is on the council, as stated in traffic Regulations, to erect and maintain signs. Barnet council often seem to forget any duties on themselves which although not onerous they find to be too much to manage.

Rarely has so much nonsense been fitted into three lines. Who is doing the 'deeming' ? why, it's Barnet Council, who aren't being independent here. There is such thing as a professional witness, but 'traffic wardens' don't come into that definition. Who is doing the 'considering', the council in this case and they aren't independent, they have a financial interest in the outcome. Mr Mustard has seen a tribunal decision in which the adjudicator laid into this point and said it was her job to decide on the weight of the evidence and the truthfulness of the witness.

Not true, the car was seen in a bay with no sign = a free bay. By 'nearby' the council mean in a different bay which is of no relevance to where the car was parked, each and every bay must have a sign of its own as there could be 10 bays in a street all with different rules.

No valid grounds were found because the person writing was blind to reason and fact. There is a huge shove in the final paragraph which tries to make the motorist worry that if they go to Appeal at the tribunal it will cost them more. The thing is though that unless you do risk the full value of the penalty you will never beat one so you need to make your mind up at the start as to how strong you think your case is.

What is wrong in this case is that the council didn't want their work to be the subject of independent scrutiny and if they don't have faith in their case they shouldn't be writing the utter tosh that they did write. The problem is though that the public trusts councils and whilst the rest of the council might well be worthy of that trust, many parking departments aren't and there is also the influence of outside contractors for whom this is just a job, not a vocation, to serve the public.

Mr Mustard's advice is to get your ducks in a row, learn everything you can about parking, and take no nonsense. Budget for the whole PCN value and fight the PCN if you think it is wrong. You have to develop some staying power as you might end up in a fight over three rounds but that is how Mr Mustard wins so often, by battling through every round. Every PCN taken to the tribunal which the council loses is c. £30 down the drain for the council in tribunal fees. If they get stuck with enough of them they might think a bit harder about accepting more representations at the earlier stage.

The end.