ConAll Crescent, Ealing

Mr Mustard may have got the road name wrong in the title

Yesterday, Mr Mustard and another NoToMob member, a veteran as it happens, by the name of Bald Eagle, and here is the photographic evidence of him in action

Mr Mustard was also with him that day, evidently not wise to let him out on his own, lol

decided to do something about the huge number of motorists who, by dint of habit, were missing a new "no motor vehicles" sign at the exit of Hanger Green into Connell Crescent in Ealing, near the Boden shop (suppliers of flowery shirts to Mr Mustard and shoes to Mrs Angry)

So at 3pm we started. By 4pm we had prevented 50 motorists from going into Connell Crescent when they shouldn't have, all going there by force of habit after driving down there for many years.

So that was £6,500 that Ealing Council didn't sent out demands for.

Motorists we met fell into 2 camps.

Camp 1, who have had 1,2,4,6,7 PCN here before they found out the new rules. Big thumbs up from them.

Camp 2, are you sure? Oh I see, now I see, thank you very much. We'll go along the A40 then.

About 10 motorists decided to ignore us and go down Connell Crescent despite being warned. You will all get a PCN for £130 in the post and listen to NoToMob members next time.

About 6 cars came the other way out of Connell Crescent which is fine and we met some of the residents who said that even they had not been warned about the new restrictions and some of them had been ticketed. We suggested they talk very forcefully into the ears of their local councillors. Clearly the necessary local publicity which should be a vital part of any new restriction had not taken place. We absolutely understand the need to restrict this location being used as a cut through as it is not suitable for more than light local traffic. The Ocado driver was bit hacked off at having to go the long way round but he will adjust to it.

Local business John Lewis had warned all of its drivers. The presence of the NoToMob ensured that a number of other local businesses with many drivers would now be warning them all.

3 driving instructors were prevented from entering the road and were suitably chastened (sorry if you were embarrassed in front of your students but you did save £130 apiece).

Numerous mini cab drivers didn't know about the new signs. They do now and will hopefully spread the word.

The one black cab driver who happened along wisely touched the side of his eye in a knowing manner to show that he did know.

A police car with 4 officers in it stopped for a chat. They were perfectly happy with our activities and we chatted for a few minutes during which time one car escaped us into Connell Crescent.

One driver tried to press a tenner into my hand. It was declined. He was directed to the NoToMOb site to sign up instead and so some prevention work of his own.

At 6.25 dinner was calling (7.30 at Ai Sushi in Finchley) so we mounted our bikes to leave and even then whilst parked up Mr Mustard, who could be mistaken for a policeman if you aren't concentrating, with his high-vis jacket and clear hand signals, managed to stop two more cars from entering the banned entry.

A good afternoons work with about 170 motorists who didn't commit a contravention on the day, nor will they another day, thus saving a collective £22,100 from being demanded by Ealing Council.

Who said it was all about revenue raising? NoToMob did. This coming Thursday at 22.35 on BBC1 you can see Bald Eagle and other mobbers on the tv doing their stuff.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

No messing with the NoToMob

Mr Mustard likes to ride with the lads and lasses of the NoToMob when he has the time. They are an incredibly talented and hard working bunch of people with disparate skills and a common desire to stop parking contraventions being driven by councils' need for revenue.

As soon as POPLA was mooted one of the mob was on the phone to Mr Mustard and an awful lot of work has been going on behind the scenes, away from motorbikes and cameras by others who work tirelessly on technical matters. Mr Mustard claims no credit for this blog post, all the hard work has been done by others.

One thread of the work has now ended up with these documents, published by London Councils, a sort of council overlord for London.

eh? no financial implications, oh Mr Mustard thinks there are

and this extract from the Governance report isn't pretty reading

so how does this affect Barnet Council?

Well, it affects every council in London as rather than immediately abandoning all thought of continuing to run POPLA the officers at London Councils are trying to get each and every councillor on the TEC (Transport and Environment Committee) to delegate the power from their council to enable them to carry on. Problems created by Parking on Private Land (Appeals) has got nothing to do with Barnet Council as they have PATAS to adjudicate on council parking tickets and this is just letting a quango get involved in something they shouldn't be involved in.

Mr Mustard wrote to our parking councillor, Dean Cohen, some time ago when a sort of select committee of the TEC decided what route to go down and Dean did write back to Mr Mustard to say he wasn't part of that decision but he does have to be part of the next one (possibly on the agenda, not yet published, of the meeting of 16 October). Mr Mustard will ask him in a new email not to delegate power to London Councils to get involved in non core business. 

There is nothing in it for the residents of Barnet.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

A $chunting we will go

Yesterday, Mr  Mustard went $chunting and thought he should write about the experience. This children's rhyme came to mind.

A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
Heigh ho, the dairy-o, a hunting we will go
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
We'll catch a fox and put him in a box
And then we'll let him go

$chunting, for those who don't know, is a contraction of $camera car hunting. It is very civilised and does not end up with the CEO driving the car being ripped to pieces by anyone although Mr Mustard was a little surprised by the number of passing motorists who aimed invective at the CEO who was quietly sat in his car.

The day dawned and Mr Mustard opened the curtains. Drat, he thought, it is wet and the new rear tyre on the yellow Aprilia will call for some cautious riding (motorcycle tyres are slippery when new and need 100 miles of scrubbing, preferably on a dry road). Mr Mustard was due at the secret rendez-vous at 9.30 but there aren't many yellow Aprilias about and even less pairs of white boots so he does stand out. Bald Eagle was the main man and although Mr Mustard was characteristically early Bald Eagle was late. Oh well, at least Bethnal Green Dude (should be Bloke but there was a misprint on his NoToMob jacket and BGB became BGD so he has been re-christened) was there early and bought the teas (thanks BGD). Bald Eagle turned up late (not unusual apparently, but he is allowed one bite so Mr Mustard isn't complaining) and so more tea was required. This $chunting lark looked easy so far. Bald Eagle's early morning had gone all wrong, he made the mistake of looking at his computer and they suck time out of you like a dementer out of Harry Potter and then his Cargo Net broke (not his hair net, the clue is in his name) and he had to turf everything out of the shed to find the spare.

So all tea'd up the 3 of us set off to the $camera car pen, in reality a deadly dull industrial estate. We sat around and waited for a $camera car to move which it did after a few false starts. We followed the car at a safe distance to its first honeypot which was the no left turn at Tufton Rd which probably exists to stop people cutting out the traffic lights. To monitor this no left turn the camera car made to stop on the right and realised he would have to park on a single yellow line and thought better of it with 3 motorcycles in high-viz jackets behind him as a photo of his bad parking would have appeared in a public place. So he moved off, went right and then did a u-turn on the front of a multi-storey car park which is probably what everybody does thus making the no-left turn a waste of time. We followed.

This is where we ended up. Waverley Avenue, E4.

Note the bad angle of the right hand no entry sign which is illuminated but the left hand one isn't. If you were coming from the right as you look at the road you could easily miss the first sign. Nor are there warning signs showing no left turn / no right turn as you approach from the left or right. Apparently this no entry sign is often ignored in the rush hour but it was Saturday morning so very calm at times although heavily backed up at others. The $camera car parked bang opposite the junction (there are no parking restrictions there) and the driver settled back in his seat with nothing to do except wait for lunch. 

We NoToMobbers (Mr Mustard has always been a supporter but is now a member) then held up signs warning people of the $camera car. Many motorists thought we were highlighting a speed trap (that would be illegal and we don't do it) and crawled past and others wound down their windows to ask for more information which was given and many toots of the horn, thumbs ups and smiles came our way. Some drivers hurled abuse at the driver, sat in this parked car, which is not deserved and NoToMobbers do not do that either, they talk politely to traffic wardens when the opportunity arises and if allowed. On this occasion the driver didn't even glance at us.

So we spent about 3 hours there and not a single car did so much as put an indicator on to suggest that they would commit a moving traffic offence. The sun came out and all was right with the world. The $camera car didn't make a bean. Local residents who stopped to chat said that the car is often at the no left turn we had come by earlier and that it was a waste of time to monitor this no-entry junction at this time.

It got to about 1.30 and we thought it must be time for the traffic warden to go back to the pen for his lunch so we make sure we all had our gloves and helmets on. Sure enough the Toyota IQ, for that is the nice little car that has the camera on a stalk through the roof, suddenly departed.

Now here is the part that shocked Mr Mustard about the $camera car. It was parked for the entire time with its engine running. Now it is only a small engine, 1000c.c., but even so, it apparently has to sit there with its engine running to power the camera and recording equipment. This is an ecological scandal and the council, are responsible for air quality. Here is their web page on the council website. Scroll down to the suggestions and what does it say

Don’t leave your engine running when you are parked.

except that Waltham Forest Council forget to add, except we will in order to make money out of motorists, and

We prefer pounds over pollution.

Waltham Forest Council, you are diabolical hypocrites and need to take all of your $camera cars off the road until you can use them without the engine running 24/7.

By this time CoCo had joined us (no he isn't a clown as if he was the wheels would probably fall off his motorcycle and that wouldn't do) and so the four of us followed the $camera car expecting it to go back to the depot. Instead he suddenly pulled up on a single yellow line (Mon - Sat 8am - 6.30pm) opposite the exit to no left turn hoping to bag at least one victim for his work. He thought we wouldn't be able to stop and observe except that we used the front of the multi-storey car park to stop on and one of us went round the block to the exit of the road the $camera car was monitoring. Mr Mustard took a photograph.

Hall Lane E4

So having parked on an in-force single yellow line and forced all of the traffic out to the middle of the road the traffic warden thought better of it after a couple of minutes, did a u-turn (very good turning circle on the IQ) and ambled back to base with us following.

It was time for tea again and a toasted cheese sandwich after a hard morning's work doing what it is that many local authorities profess to want which is 100% compliance with all parking restrictions and rules of the road. 

NoToMob people help maintain the law and slow down councils insatiable appetite for cash from parking. You can join them. You don't have to have a motorcycle although it helps. You can do this on foot or on a bicycle in the West End as you can't get a PCN and you could operate solely at the spots which are local to you. Find out all about it on the NoToMob website.

Mr Mustard, proud to be a NotToMobber.

Nearly forgot, here is one of this council's $camera cars showing us all how not to do it. Whoops.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The Camden High Street cctv midnight parking cowboys

We are lucky in Barnet in that the council never got their act together well enough (or they might have made a policy decision not to do so) to enforce parking restrictions by cctv. They did trial a $camera car last year but didn't find it to be sufficiently profitable so didn't order one. Thus Mr Mustard isn't very experienced at fighting camera issued PCN but he had to have a go as one of his PCN regulars left Barnet for an evening and got snapped. Their car was in the front section of the bay to the left of shot underneath the word "market". It was impossible to tell from photos taken, at midnight at distance, if the driver's side front wheel was perhaps half an inch outside of the different pavoirs which you have to assume is the parking bay. Mr Mustard is of a mind with Eric Pickles MP on this matter and his determination probably showed through in this appeal letter, that or Camden phoned Barnet parking to ask who he was and got told that every single rejected appeal goes to PATAS and Camden decided not to waste £40 in fees as the PCN is now at £nil value on the Camden PCN website.

I represent (redacted) as per the attached authority letter.

I don't usually send copies of parking ticket appeals to Uncle Eric, as he is affectionately known by the Barnet Bloggers of whom I am one (he is of course The Rt. Hon. Eric Pickles MP and I write the Mr Mustard blog) but given that he is proposing to step in and save us all from the scourge of inappropriate cctv parking enforcement, I thought he might like to see this one and I have permission of the car owner to email him but not for any publicity.

Here is what Uncle Eric said recently:

"We want to rein in these over-zealous and unfair rules on parking enforcement, so it focuses on supporting high streets and motorists, not raising money."

This caused some panic, by the looks of it, although they used the word "concern" at London Councils (they wrote on behalf of every London Borough but three don't use cameras for parking contraventions, namely Barnet, Greenwich and Kensington & Chelsea and well done to them) as their Transport & Environment committee wrote to Eric's colleague, the Rt Hon Patrick McLoughlin MP on 20 November 13. In their letter London Councils trot out the usual trite nonsense about cctv being mainly used near schools, bus stops and major junctions.

Let's see where are Camden using it. Oh, in Camden High St, at 1 minute past midnight. No school open then is there? no bus stop and not at a major junction. I've just put the postcode of the Hawley Primary School into the Camden council website to find the nearest cctv camera. It's this very one (21C) in Camden High St. Just down the road there is another one. Neither of them can see the school. Is there a camera that can monitor the school? No.

I tried another Camden School at random. I chose Fitzjohn's Primary School, postcode NW3 6NP and the nearest camera is 600m away from where the school isn't visible.

I tried a third one. The Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children, postcode N1C 4PF, whose children must be particularly at risk of being involved in an accident with a vehicle. Is there a camera monitoring the school? No, the nearest one is 300m away in Crowndale Rd.

What should your camera operator be looking at for at midnight? I would suggest that violent behaviour (probably following alcohol intake) would be a better use of the resource. Your cameras are identified on your website as being for public safety. Issuing a PCN for trivial or non-existent parking contraventions does not fall under that heading.

Well done anyway. You have provided Eric Pickles MP with the perfect evidential riposte to the London Councils' letter.

Anyway, all of the above is comment to which your reply is not required or desired. Now I'll get to the substance of the representations.

Representations.

1. The contravention did not occur.

It is impossible to tell from the still photographs or the video evidence if one or more wheels of the vehicle is on the footway or not. Close to where the vehicle was stationary for a short while, note the headlights are still on, is a time plate

which permits parking overnight between the hours of 6.30pm and 8.30am the next morning. The problem comes in defining what area the parking sign relates to as there are no white lines to indicate the extent to which parking is allowed. Perhaps motorists are expected to guess that the area in smaller pavoirs, in the shape of an elongated trapezoid, is the area in which parking is permitted, but guessing should not be the order of the day on the public highway. Motorists are entitled to be clearly informed as to restrictions. There is no evidence that there is a wheel on the footway, in a part where footway parking is not allowed.

2. Is it carriageway or footway?

If the council are going to claim that the surface in the shape of a trapezoid is the carriageway, then I would argue that given that there is a kerb, that it isn't a carriageway, but in any event, unless the council has some sort of exemption from using the relevant markings from the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002 (please send me a copy if there is such an exemption) there is a failure to properly mark out the parking area.

If the council are going to claim the area of the trapezoid is part of the footway then where are the signs that mark the start and finish of the permitted areas and the white lines to indicate the bay? The footway parking area is not properly signed.

3. Ambiguity

I am a lay person but I believe that ambiguity is normally construed against the causer so Camden Council should not profit from the confusion it has caused at this location and the PCN should be cancelled.

4. Trapezoid parking bay layout not legal?

I have seen only rectangular bays and parallelograms (for parking nose into the kerb at an angle) in the TSRGD 2002. Is this shape of parking bay legally allowed?

5. De minimis

If the council manage to prove where the footway starts and finishes their evidence does not clearly show a wheel on it and even if an adjudicator could work out from the evidence that perhaps the driver side front wheel is outside the trapezoid it can only be for a trivial amount (de minimis) and the law does not concern itself with trifles and so I ask for the PCN to be cancelled on that basis. The London Councils CEO Handbook says at page 54 that no PCN should be issued unless there is clear photographic evidence of an entire wheel outside of the bay.

I look forward to hearing from you that the PCN has been cancelled.

Yours sincerely



Mr Mustard

c.c. The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP (by email)

(Camden Council would have been sent this letter by email but they don't provide an address to which representations can be made).

Feel free to cut and paste any part of this argument for your PCN appeal at this location or any similar one where the same argument applies.

Mr Mustard thinks it would be hard to find a clearer example than this one, of a council (Camden probably no better or worse than others) using cctv for revenue raising from motorists rather than for crime prevention or detection.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The elastic band has snapped

Borough commander talking about a fire call "and then we got a parking ticket" (maybe)

Mr Mustard doesn't know when the first cctv vehicle was introduced but supposes it is 5 or 10 years ago. He did tweet (no response yet) the British Parking Association wondering what debate there was before the cars were introduced (his guess is none at all nationally) and being in a charitable mood today he supposes that a car parking manager thought that they really would make the world a safer place and that issuing loads of PCN and raising money was not in his/her mind. Then the elastic band started to be stretched. 

More cars were purchased.

More councils got on the bandwagon.

Word spread at meetings of council parking managers.

Smart saw an opportunity to sell more cars (Mr Mustard used to have one, they are great, his motorbike has an engine twice the size so found the car a little slow but it was nippy enough)

Static cctv also became cheaper and more widespread (not in Barnet for PCN so well done again; Mr Mustard will take a little lie down for a minute, all this praising of Barnet he keeps doing)

Before we knew it the ruddy cctv cars were everywhere and NotoMob was out there fighting on our behalf.

Then the elastic band went twang because Uncle Eric, or the Rt Hon. Eric Pickles MP as others know of him, became the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on 12 May 2010. Uncle Eric is truly a man of the people, he knows what is right and proper - sneaky PCN issued by cctv simply isn't. Uncle Eric is going to rid our streets of cctv for parking purposes (presumably it will still be allowed for moving traffic offences but even there he might say that the road layout should be altered to make banned turns more difficult and to stop PCN being issued for being only 25mm into a yellow box junction) and now follows the text of an email that Mr Mustard has received (twice, once to himself in reply to an email he had forgotten about and once through another interested party, possibly in Wandsworth; they know who they are)

Thank you for your email to the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP regarding recent announcements concerning car parking. I have been asked to reply and apologise for the delay in doing so.

Good and affordable parking provision can play an important role in rejuvenating high streets and town centres. Making it easier to park helps support local shops, local jobs and tourism by increasing footfall, giving them a chance to compete against internet retailers and out of town superstores.

Trying to find somewhere to park has become an obstacle course in too many of our towns, cities and seaside resorts. Confusing and difficult car parking practices are undermining the economic vitality of the high street, local parades of shops and tourist destinations. Over-zealous parking wardens have inflicted real damage on local economies, and given many towns and councils a bad name.

We’ve taken action to increase the number of parking spaces. We removed restrictions on the number of parking spaces for new developments, and we've just published new draft planning practice guidance which states councils should reflect the important role appropriate parking facilities can play in rejuvenating shops, high streets and town centres; pushes for more town centre parking spaces; and tackles the blight of ugly street clutter and aggressive 'anti-car' traffic calming measures like road humps.

We’re also taking steps to tackle draconian parking charges and enforcement. 

We’ve withdrawn guidance that encouraged councils to set parking fees to discourage the use of cars. And we’ve set out clearly in the new draft planning practice guidance that planning rules should not be used as an excuse for unfairly penalising drivers.

But there is more to do. Councils have a key role in promoting local economic growth and local jobs. Approximately half of all parking is run by local authorities. But the fact that local authority revenue from parking in 2010 was £1.3 billion shows why we need to review and rein in unfair town hall parking rules. The law is clear that parking is not a tax or cash cow for town hall officers. We want to see councils taking a clear and proportionate approach to parking enforcement.

So Cabinet Ministers, Eric Pickles and Patrick McLoughlin, have announced that the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Transport will in due course publish details of further reforms, which include stopping CCTV being used for on-street parking enforcement and providing new open data on parking to allow the public to ‘go compare’. The Government has also proposed to consult on updating parking enforcement guidance to support local shops, and on issues such as tackling wrongly-issued fines, reviewing unnecessary double yellow lines and increasing the grace period for parking offences.

Yours sincerely,

DCLG Contact Us Team

Keep up the good work Uncle Eric. CCTV to be used to keep communities safe. What a good idea.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Nutsville explain about parking tickets on private land

As you know Mr Mustard helps people with their Barnet Council parking woes and the appeal process. When friends get a private parking ticket he simply tells them to throw it in the bin. Here in this guest blog by Nutsville, visit their website for this particular post here (on Mr Mustard's visit to the home page all of the youtube clips played at once which is an assault on ones ears and he will mention it to the anonymous author of Nutsville) and then why not look back through their other very interesting and accurate blog posts.

Solicitor (S): Good morning Mr Weasel. What can I do for you today?

Parking Weasel Ltd’s Chairman (PWC): I would like to get my hands on the money Nutsville owes me for overstaying in a private car park where me and my company run the parking enforcement.

S: Ok. Just a couple of questions. Are you or your company the land owner?

PWC: No.

S: Do you have permission from the land owner to enforce on their land?

PWC: Yes

S: Do you have a contract with the land owner that establishes their loss?

PWC: It’s not their loss I’m worried about, it’s mine. That Nutsville bloke took me through the whole of that poxy Popla procedure, which incidentally cost me £27 + VAT that I will never see again, and even though his appeal was disallowed by Popla and he was ordered to pay me, he is now ignoring me and telling me that I should sue him in the courts to recover my money.

I’ve sent him loads of letters with BIG, RED SCARY WRITING on, and he still insists that I need to sue him. What I want to know is, now I’ve got my Popla judgment, why can’t I just register it with the court like the local authorities do with their Patas and TPT judgments, and then send my bailiff mates round to threaten him with menaces and make him cough up?

S: Unfortunately for you, Mr Nutsville is right. I will explain. You see, the ADJUDICATORS at Patas and the TPT draw their powers to make judgments on parking issues fom the Traffic Management Act 2004. Under that Act they can effectively make the equivalent of a judgment that a county court judge might make in civil proceedings. It is these equivalent county court judgments that are then registered with the county court (the TEC in Northampton) and which makes them enforceable, normally by way of sending the bailiffs round.

However, no such powers devolve from any Act of Parliament when it comes to Popla. Therefore the Popla ASSESSORS, (who incidentally the No To Mob have found out are actually 4 law students doing a bit of moonlighting) cannot order you to do anything. If someone like Mr Nutsville loses an appeal to Popla there will be a decision that says something like “In order to avoid any further action by the operator, payment of the £80 parking charge SHOULD be made within 14 days.

PWC: That’s right! That’s exactly the decision we got from Popla in the Nuts case, but he won’t pay up and insists I take him to court. So what exactly did I pay all that money to Popla for then?

S: Well nothing really. You see any Popla decision in the operator’s favour isn’t worth the paper it’s written on because it cannot be enforced in a court of law, either against Mr Nutsville, or anyone else come to that. However, if Popla had allowed Mr Nutsville’s appeal then you, like every other BPA Ltd operator in the Approved Operator Scheme, have no other right of appeal and you are bound by the decision of the law student that gave it.

PWC: So basically, what you’re saying is that Popla is just a smoke screen put up by the BPA Ltd in the hope that we can bully people into paying up, and that it has no real power?

S: That about sums it up.

PWC: So what did I pay £27 + VAT for then?

S: Perhaps you should ask the BPA Ltd about that. But anyway, all is not lost. You can still sue Mr Nutsville in the county court provided you can prove you have incurred a loss.

PWC: Now you’re talking! How do I do that then?

S: Well since you are not the land owner, you have to have a contract in place that proves that the land owner has lost money as a result of breaching the contract Mr Nutsville entered into with the land owner when he agreed to pay a Parking Charge for overstaying in the land owner’s car park.

PWC: And for those of us who speak English?

S: (Sigh). Right. Let’s break this down. Who is the landowner?

PWC: Morritesclidainsbury

S: Do you have a contract with them to enforce parking on their land?

PWC: Yes

S: In short, what are the terms of that contract?

PWC: They let my company dish out as many tickets as we want, then we get to keep most of the profits, and give them the rest.

S: In that case you can’t sue Mr Nutsville.

PWC: Why not?

S: Because you have no loss.

PWC: There you go with that bloody “loss” thing again! I’ve told you, I’VE LOST EIGHTY BLOODY QUID!!!

S: Who did you lose it to?

PWC: I keep telling you. Nutsville!

S: And how did you lose it to him?

PWC: Right! Well he came to the car park and arrived at 11.00am. He admits he read our signs which say that there is free parking for one hour and that if he stays longer he will contract with my company to pay an £80 Parking Charge. Nutsville stayed until 12.30pm and we are now enforcing that contract.

S: So far, so good. Now, if you want to sue Mr Nutsville for recovery in the county court you have to prove in your claim that you have actually lost something. You can’t have lost anything because you are not the landowner. Only the land owner can say they have lost something. You have lost nothing so you can’t sue Mr Nutsville. QED.

PWC: What about if I take him to court anyway, cos I still reckon Nutsville owes me under the contract terms?

S: (Sigh). Ok. Where’s your “genuine pre estimate of loss”.

PWC: There you go with all that legal mumbo jumbo again. What are you on about now?

S: Have you read the BPA Ltd’s code of practice?

PWC: Course I have! I had to sign up to it before I could get access to the DVLA database, which is where I get all those lovely vehicle keeper’s details which allow me to send my scary debt collection agency and solicitor’s letters with BIG, RED SCARY WRITING on.

S: Then because you have read it, you will know that at rule 19.5 of the code of practice it says “If the parking charge that the driver is being asked to pay is for a breach of contract or act of trespass, this charge must be based on the genuine pre-estimate of loss that you suffer.” Obviously the BPA Ltd are aware of this issue or they wouldn’t have put it in their code of practice and then make you sign up to it. So I repeat, where’s your “genuine pre estimate of loss”?

PWC: I dunno. Maybe we ain’t got one.

S: Oh dear! It would seem that YOU are the one in trouble then. I have just proved to you that you cannot prove that you have suffered a loss, and yet the BPA Ltd have made you sign up to the BPA Ltd code that says you have genuinely estimated a figure of £80 as your provable loss. If the DVLA find out about this you will be struck off immediately.

PWC: What! Do the BPA Ltd know about this!?!?

S: Well obviously they do, otherwise they wouldn’t have covered their backs by putting it in their code of conduct. Wait a minute though! There is something the BPA Ltd and you could do to remedy this.

PWC: Please, please tell me what it is. I can’t lose my livelihood.

S: Well I can’t say that it will save your livelihood, but it might help save other BPA Ltd members from making the same mistakes as you.

PWC: Well I do have a load of mates in the industry, so if there is anything I can do to help them, I’m sure it would be much appreciated.

S: In that case, this is what you do. You fess up to the BPA Ltd that you have made a mistake, and tell them that you are trying to rectify it. I hear the No To Mob have a few good ideas about this and that they are already advising some other BPA Ltd members about setting up an alternative to the BPA Ltd. You will have to take your medicine, and hope that because you have owned up, the DVLA will allow you to access the database again once you have cleaned up your act.

PWC: Ok. What then?

S: Then you lobby the BPA Ltd and ask them to invoke their powers to audit each of its members in order to establish whether they have a proper and genuine pre estimate of loss. They could do this by invoking rule 19.8 of their code of practice which states: “If you are asked, you must be able to justify the level of parking charges to the AOS Board, a member of our compliance team or to their specified agent.”

PWC: But what if the auditors find out that none of the BPA Ltd’s members can prove a loss? What happens then?

S: Well then the BPA Ltd would have to report this to the DVLA, and they would have no choice but to suspend any offenders from using their database.

PWC: But why didn’t the BPA Ltd warn me about this? What am I paying them for?

S: Those are questions for the BPA Ltd Mr Weasel, not for me.

PWC: Well how about I let Nutsville off, but continue to send out tickets to others in the full knowledge that some of them won’t be as smart as Nutsville and will pay up under threat of issuing court proceedings, even though I know that I can’t ever bring a successful prosecution in a court of law?

S: My professional opinion is that if someone were to find out, then such behaviour could very possibly be classified as committing a fraud and that you and others could end up going to prison, or at the very least paying a hefty fine.

PWC: Yeh, but you can’t tell them what advice you’ve given to me because of solicitor client privilege, so I can have plausible deniability for a while at least.

S: That’s true, but you have forgotten one thing. What if the BPA Ltd do a proper audit of your books and discover that you don’t have a genuine pre estimate of loss?

PWC: Are you ‘avin a laugh pal!?!? Why would they ever do that when they know that what they might find could result in the vast majority of its members being suspended, possibly permanently, both from the BPA Ltd and from using the DVLA database. Nah mate. Just send me your bill and keep your mouth shut. We just have to hope that Nutsville doesn’t get wind of this, or we’re all up a shit creek without a paddle.

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If you have a story you think we would be interested in please email:

news@nutsville.com

Three cheers for Nutsville and their fab work.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Parking Mad - Tuesday 8 Jan at 10.35pm on BBC1

and afterwards on iPlayer