Bank Holiday parking enforcement

Even Mr Mustard was confused by the guidance on the Barnet Council website about Bank Holiday enforcement and so he suggested a simple solution which was to put up a list of contravention types and whether they are enforced or not on Bank Holidays. The council have listened as they know that what Mr Mustard says often makes sense.

Should that be "Residents' bays" or to avoid the apostrophe problem, "Bays for residents".

Please don't block the dropped kerb of someone you don't know on a Bank Holiday or block a cycle lane or make it hard for the blind or people pushing a wheelchair or a pram to use the pavement.

Double parking is defined by the whole of your car being more than 50cm from the kerb.

You don't have to go to a shopping centre on Monday, you can go to one of our many High Streets and park for free. Yippee. Help keep trade local.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

That's enough Christmas cheer; have some statistics.

	March 13		March 12	March 11
PCN issued – London-wide	4,895,252		4,931,816	4,810,561
Appeals made to PATAS	66,810		74,568	69,580
Percentage appealed	1.36%		1.51%	1.45%
Appeals processed	57,888		64,903	69,132
Barnet PCN issued	165,569		148,118	124,139
Barnet PCN appealed	2,393		1,548	1,183
Barnet PCN appeals processed	2,253		1,322	1,277
Barnet PCN % appealed	1.45%		1.05%	0.95%
Barnet appeal ranking – volume	7		19	22
Barnet appeals allowed	1,684		841	580
Percentage appeals allowed	75%		64%	45%
Ranking	2		14	19
Highest % allowed	78%		98%	98%
Borough	City of London		City of London	City of London
Lowest % allowed	25%		26%	26%
Borough	Kingston		Croydon	Greenwich
Appeals not contested by borough
Barnet	30%		28%	12%
Highest % not contested	42%		77%	83%
Borough	City of London		City of London	City of London
Lowest % not contested	6%		5%	2%
Borough	Enfield		Greenwich	Kingston

The stats for PCN appeals at PATAS for the year to 31 March 13 came out just before the Xmas break, and Mr Mustard has extracted some of the relevant ones for you.

At the top we see that on a pan-London basis the number of PCN was down on the previous year although it was up on the one before that. No valid conclusion can be drawn on a variance of a mere 2.5%. Just look at the number of PCN issued, five million (that is the real scandal, not whether it has gone down a  few thousand in a particular year which will be the one statistic that always gets quoted).

The number of appeals made to PATAS varied a whole lot more and is really low. The proposed change to the rules so that prompt payment after losing a PATAS appeal would lead to a discount of 25% would see a whole lot more cases going to PATAS. It is a civilised place and not at all formal and everyone with a PCN should go there at least once in their lifetime for the experience. If you go on a Wednesday morning you'll probably bump into Mr Mustard.

The number of Barnet PCN going up was already known to regular readers. The larger jump comes after the appointment of NSL on 1 May 12. Mr Mustard finds it hard to believe that the pattern of motorists' behaviour changed markedly at that time; could it be the approach taken by NSL that has led to the jump in PCN numbers?

It is interesting to contrast Barnet with other similar boroughs, such as 

Enfield with 72,857 PCN

Harrow: 70,623

Croydon: 97,169

It can't be the motorist who is greatly different in their parking habits in Barnet, can it?

What is unsurprising is the jump in appeals being made to PATAS (when you ask in response to a PCN or Notice to Owner to have your PCN cancelled they are not appeals but representations, by the way) with a greater increase after the appointment of NSL, and the jump in the number of PCN issued, than beforehand. Mr Mustard puts this down to more marginal PCN being issued. The sad truth though is that 50% of all PCN issued are paid without demur and so the temptation must be to issue PCN like a drunken sailor as the income from an extra 30,000 PCN, of which 15,000 will be paid just like that, makes the extra time, cost and trouble of another 900 appeals a relative flea bite.

The number of appeals to PATAS is already well up for 2013-14 (well done everybody) with 2,751 processed in 37 weeks with a projected final number for the year to March 2014 of 3,866. Barnet have already got themselves from 22nd out of 34 boroughs in terms of absolute volume of PCN appeals up to 7th, which is an impressively bad performance.

If we look next at the percentage of appeals that are won by the motorist at PATAS then Barnet's poor performance is laid starkly bare. Even before the move to NSL the wheels were starting to come off, probably caused by all the time spent on getting ready to outsource with the council going from being in the better bottom half of the table of London boroughs into the top half at 14th worst. Then NSL take over and rocket up the league table to 2nd, behind only the City of London who have long had a reputation for not contesting appeals. The City issued a mere 47,555 PCN in the year with 702 going to appeal and 78% of them being won mainly because the City didn't bother to fight 42% of them. You can see that Barnet's failure rate is similar to the success rate of other boroughs with Kingston currently being a good place to park properly.

Some boroughs fight you all the way to PATAS which indicates a confidence in their argument and proper resourcing of the parking department. Barnet on the other hand don't contest 30% of all PATAS cases and this means that their possible two rejections of your representations could have been spurious, or a bluff or signifies a lack of resource for preparing appeal packs.

The lesson that you, dear reader, can learn from the statistics is that it is worth going the three rounds with Barnet council as you will probably beat them in the end. You just have to persist a little. You can present the same argument in your second representations as in the first and then the same at the PATAS appeal. There is a brief guide to the process available to download at the top left of the blog. Let's see if we can get appeals to 4,000 this year and then at least 5,000 next. At some point the wheels will well and truly come off the NSL machine.

All the best for 2014.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

On 28 January Mr Mustard realised, thanks to the external auditor sending him some statistics that are much more out than he is!, that he had forgotten to include 13,317 bus lane tickets in the figures to March 12 and they are now included.

Well done parking client side

Mr Mustard is about to do a rare thing and dish out some praise. He knows he is a nuisance to the parking client side and in the past he has criticised them (mostly anonymously he hopes although now he thinks about it he did name the Parking Manager, who is an interim, and suggest he really ought to leave and let a permanent staff person take over but that was before they had met and now the name of redacted won't again appear in the blog) but roughty toughty parking staff can look after themselves OK as they are cut from the same block as Mr Mustard, a former tax officer and currently a debt collector. 

Mr Mustard thinks that they are starting to get the hang of him. Last year Mr Mustard was disappointed when they didn't send flowers to the bereaved lady who they had unfairly ticketed outside of the hospice and they are now perhaps coming round to the view of the leader when he is approached by Mr Mustard on parking matters "but you'll be right Mr Mustard won't you" although he was then persuaded the opposite on that occasion by his staff. Actually Richard, Mr Mustard thinks he is right on the question of parking tickets from 2011 but perhaps for the wrong reason. Mr Mustard will correct that before the Ombudsman gets involved.

Anyway, Mr Mustard is sure that he told you about the "client" (friend, acquaintance, whatever) who had picked up 13 parking tickets and 7 of them were with bailiffs who could have set up a camp outside her property. They couldn't clamp the car because it belonged to Motability which tells you that the person gets the higher level of payment for her disabilities and given that the accommodation is rented and the client was under strict instructions to make sure sure the bailiff couldn't get in (and they can't break in for parking debt) the whole problem was going to go away within 12 months if his client kept her nerve.

Mr Mustard only found out yesterday that the bailiffs had been called off in mid-August when he first complained to the leader and the parking team about a PCN from 2010 still being chased, and there were also six from 2011, two from 2012 and four from 2013. The PCN included ones that simply should not have been issued including two for being more than 50cm from the kerb when the car clearly wasn't.

Anyway, on Wednesday something went wrong and a bailiff from Newlyn (in the news on the Mr Reasonable blog) clamped the Motability car in the Lodge Lane Car Park. He was also rude to the person concerned when she pointed out he couldn't clamp a car that wasn't hers and she had a physio appointment to get to. Mr Mustard got on the blower, the bailiff rang his own office and probably got told to remove the clamp sharpish, as that is what happened.

Now Mr Mustard was going to file a formal complaint to the council as they are responsible for the actions of bailiffs contracted by NSL on their behalf and stick the bailiff himself in front of the judge who issued his licence in the hope that it might get torn up but he had a pleasant surprise. The parking client side felt bad about what had happened, they had caused stress and inconvenience to a disabled motorist. They were under the cosh from Mr Mustard for the old PCN and he was busy appealing every in-time ticket to PATAS which costs the council £40 out of their budget each time (97% of the time Mr Mustard wins) and so they very generously chucked the towel in on every outstanding parking ticket perhaps because the bailiff gave them the opportunity to do so. It looks like Newlyn management and NSL will be having some discussions very soon about their behaviour and may have to pay for some of the tickets.

They also recognised that Mr Mustard was also providing a valuable advice service to transgressing motorists by educating them about where they have gone wrong and trying to stop it happening again (this is not as easy as it seems). Mr Mustard has suggested to the council many times that they should be running courses on how to park legally but that sits ill-at-ease with the budget requirement to make £7million nett from parking.

Anyone, well done parking client side (you know who you are and have had Mr Mustard's word that your name will not appear in this blog unless you want it to), pat yourselves on the back for a good decision.

Now Mr Mustard must go and continue with business as usual. He has a PATAS form to complete for someone who drove away before the PCN had started to be issued. A favourite trick of traffic wardens to claim otherwise.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Saracens zone - an alternative guide

Given that 403 parking tickets were showered onto cars in the Saracens Event Day CPZ zone on the first Saturday of the season Mr Mustard thought you might find it useful to read this long explanation by an adjudicator of why he allowed an appeal and cancelled a parking ticket. Mr Mustard finds it funny that the motorist tried to throw in the towel but because his letter didn't reach the adjudicator the case was heard anyway and the motorist won! There is no point in withdrawing from a PATAS appeal because it costs you nothing (unless you have been wholly unreasonable, vexatious or frivolous in defending which seems very unlikely).

Mr A's appeal was scheduled for a personal hearing at 10.30 am today. However by 4 pm he had not attended the Hearing Centre or made contact to explain his absence.

The letter sent to Mr A by the Parking and Traffic Appeals Service informing him of the date and time of the hearing contained the following warning: "If you fail to attend the hearing, the Adjudicator will determine the case on the basis of the evidence that both you and the Enforcement Authority have sent in, and you will be notified of the decision by post".

I am aware that on 23 August 2013 Mr A. contacted the Parking and Traffic Appeals Service and indicated that he would be writing in to withdraw his appeal and that he would pay the Enforcement Authority. However no such withdrawal letter has been received, and consequently I must treat this as a live appeal, and decide it on the merits, and on the basis of the evidence submitted by both parties.

In this case Mr A's car was parked on a single yellow line (as shown in the photographs taken by the Civil Enforcement Officer (CEO) at the time this Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) was issued, but not, curiously, in the site image produced by the Authority for the appeal).

However it was on a Sunday, and he complained to the Authority that there were no signs visible to warn him (and the many other motorists who had also parked in the street) that parking was restricted.

The Authority say that the street was subject to event day restrictions, because of a match at Saracens rugby club, and that signs warning of the restrictions did not have to be placed in individual streets, but only at the entrances to the restricted zone. They have produced parts of a Traffic Management Order which supports their contention that there are restrictions from 1 pm to 6 pm on Saturdays and Sundays in this street on event days.

Regulation 18 of the Local Authorities' Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England & Wales) Regulations 1996 requires a Local Authority to provide and maintain signs to "secure that adequate information as to the effect of the (Traffic Management) order is made available to persons using the road". This requirement involves an assessment not just as to whether the form of any individual sign or road marking complies with the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002, but also as to whether a signing scheme as a whole meets the criterion of providing "adequate information". This assessment has to take into account the circumstances which exist at any particular location, such as the existence of other signs, sightlines, foliage etc, or even the way other vehicles are likely to park.

Where an Appellant makes it clear that he does not believe that this requirement has been met, the burden falls on the Authority to satisfy the Adjudicator that it has. This is normally done by the production of plans and/or photographs showing the signs and/or road markings which were in place when the PCN was issued, and their relationship to each other and to the Appellant's vehicle.

In this case the Authority have simply asserted that there were zone entry signs indicating the event day restrictions. However they have not produced any evidence of the kind referred to above, e.g. a map showing the extent of the zone, where this street fell within it, the location of zone entry signs and photographs showing examples of the zone entry signs.

Without this evidence I am unable to judge whether the requirement imposed by the 1996 regulations has been met, i.e. whether a motorist in Mr A's position would have been given adequate warning of the restrictions that applied. The adequacy of the signing is all the more significant where the restrictions are temporary and occasional. It is not enough to inform Mr A after the event that he could have found out about the event and the restrictions on the Saracens website.

In the absence of clear evidence from the Authority I cannot be satisfied that the signing of the relevant restrictions was adequate, and so I must allow this appeal.

Barnet Council will now need to automatically refund Mr A.

If you have an Event Day PCN include in your apopeal that the zone was not properly signed and then the council will have to prove that it was.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Barnet Council give motorist a £110 haircut

you might as well speak Chinese to Barnet Council

Some readers will have read in the Harrow Times about a parking ticket given to the wife of a terminally ill 78 year old gentleman. 

Could this happen in Barnet? probably. They do have history of a similar lack of empathy or consideration towards the elderly. Here is a case from April which went to PATAS.

Having heard the Appellant in person in some detail, and having read the letter he produces from the 90 year old lady in question I entirely accept his evidence that he pulled off the carriageway briefly to collect her from the hairdressers as she cannot walk far. Parking a vehicle other than on the carriageway is unlawful throughout London (save at those locations where the Local Authority has exercised its powers to permit it and signed the exemption accordingly) . There is no exemption for disabled badge holders or for the picking up and setting down of passengers. The vehicle was in contravention and I am unable to say the PCN was issued other than lawfully.

That said, this is a case where the mitigation is substantial. The Appellant needed to park close to the location for the benefit of this lady and the road in question was a busy one. The footway is clearly wide at this point and there is no evidence of actual obstruction. This is a case where the Council should exercise discretion and I strongly urge it to do so.

What did the council do? : Recommendation rejected.

Next time the nice man who takes the old lady to the hairdressers will block the road because he can't afford to pay more for being kind (£110) than the old lady will have paid to get her hair done. Mr Mustard hopes that she can walk the extra distance and this parking ticket doesn't lead to her deciding not to go out and adding to social isolation.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Stop screaming in pain will you - I can't hear myself on PayByPhone

part of the photo taken by an NSL traffic warden

You don't believe Mr Mustard do you, that a Doctor on call, in an urgent response to a person in distress would lead to an NSL traffic warden ignoring a flipping great "Doctor on call" sign in a car windscreen and issuing a parking ticket? What could a traffic warden do in this situation? They could hang around and see if an ambulance turns up to see if someone gets taken to hospital or to see if a man or woman comes out of a nearby house carrying a defibrillator or a Gladstone bag and rushes off to the next person in dire medical need. No, an NSL traffic warden won't do that as if they don't issue 2 parking tickets per hour their life won't be worth living (ironically) when the supervisor gets hold of them at the end of the shift. Traffic wardens have not got time to waste seeking out the truth and using commonsense, they have to hit the motorist quickly with a penalty charge and move on to the next victim.

If you are a Doctor and you see a traffic warden has an urgent medical need what would you do? Well Mr Mustard thinks you should tell them to hold on to that heart attack they are having whilst you find the nearest PayByPhone bay and then register your vehicles (you might as well register them all whilst you are about it, Mr Mustard has three of them) and then your credit cards (Mr Mustard has two) and your debit card (only one of those) and then make a payment and after that you'll attend to the medical emergency (ooh 20 minutes later, are they still alive?) as you don't want to run the risk of getting a parking ticket whilst you give life saving emergency treatment as adhering to rigid council parking rules is much more important than the busy life of a Doctor, isn't that right?

Luckily Mr Mustard isn't a Doctor and most, if not all, Doctors would stop and give first aid and worry about a parking ticket later.

Of course, presented with a letter from a Doctor those lovely cheap back office NSL staff in Croydon, the ones everyone thinks are in Worthing, will google the name of the person writing, find they really are a doctor (who would lie about this?) and cancel the parking ticket. Sadly they aren't that pro-active in NSL and they have rejected the informal appeal. Mr Mustard will now deal with the next 2 appeal steps and will present the argument at PATAS, if commonsense does not miraculously make an appearance before then, that the council has been wholly unreasonable in failing to cancel this parking ticket for a Doctor who has been providing an on call service for 20 years.

What has brought us to this pretty pass where doctors, trusted individuals who have been able to sign passports for decades, are not trusted to tell the truth about a medical emergency because of the less than 1% chance that they might be a liar trying to weasel out of a parking ticket? They shouldn't have to tell NSL that Mr M Mustard of 22 Blogger Mansions had an allergic reaction to a cheese flan which inadvertently contained peanuts as these are all personal details which a doctor should not disclose because of data protections reasons and because of the Hippocratic oath, which translated by Wikipedia in part says

"All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal."

Mr Mustard couldn't see the bit of the oath which said the Doctor had to tell NSL anything about the patient to justify cancelling a miserable parking ticket.

The world has become a topsy turvey place when lowly traffic wardens can hold Doctors to account. Mr Mustard is with the Doctors. Doubtless he will now receive an email from the council saying that a clerical error has taken place at NSL and if he provides the car registration and PCN number all will be neatly tidied away. Why does it have to come to pass that a parking ticket has to be featured on a blog to be cancelled when it is manifestly unjust? Given the 165,000 parking tickets a year that are issued in Barnet, Mr Mustard can't deal with them all and will need the doctor himself for stress brought about by overwork.

If you have received an unjust parking ticket do please tell Mr Mustard as, for now, he can cope and he might just write about it on this blog.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

from (untidy) innocence to guilt

untidy but not unlawful

Now Mr Mustard, as an advanced motorcyclist who has been trained in the "system" of riding, just wouldn't park the blogger bus like this because it is not best practice. We should all aim to be parallel to the kerb if we can (if you have reduced mobility you get extra space in a disabled bay to make it easier for you to manoeuvre). However, this sort of parking is only wrong, and deserving of a Penalty Charge Notice (parking ticket), if the entire vehicle is more than 50cm from the kerb (and that rule was brought in as a way of defining & dealing with double parking). In this case the front wheel, and the passenger side mirror are well within the 50cm limit. One would have thought that a traffic warden would go equipped with a tape measure or 50cm ruler to prove this contravention.

The trouble comes though when you say "pah" and don't bother responding to the council paperwork.

You start with a PCN, you do nothing

within 6 months along comes a Notice to Owner, you do nothing again

just over a month later you receive a Charge Certificate, there is nothing you can do in response to that except pay or wait for the next document

then you receive the Order for Recovery which gives you 28 days to set it aside on certain grounds but you don't meet them as you have done nothing

so now you have gone from being innocent of a parking contravention to guilty by default.

The next person you will hear from is the bailiff and your car may get clamped and removed and you will get a bill for several hundred pounds all because you didn't deal with some simple paperwork.

So what should you do?

when you get a PCN, send in an informal appeal within 28 days

when you get a Notice to Owner, send in a formal appeal within 28 days

formal and informal appeals look the same, simply a letter or an email saying why you shouldn't have to pay.

If the council don't accept your formal appeal they will send you a Notice of Rejection of Representations (Mr Mustard eats these for breakfast) and an appeal form to send to PATAS. Mr Mustard can help you with these forms but you must be on time i.e. within 28 days of the Notice of Rejection.

At this point you have lost any chance of paying £55 instead of the full amount of £110 so you may as well appeal to PATAS as:

- it costs the council £40 and you nothing at all

- it gives you an extra 2 or 3 months to save up in

- if you lose you get 28 days to pay the £110, it does not increase for 28 days

- you have a 72% chance of winning

- it is a user friendly independent forum

- you can do the whole thing by post

Many people find paperwork boring (Mr Mustard loves it) but it is worth your time to fight if you don't want to be pulling the drawbridge up at home to keep the bailiffs out.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Beer o'clock

The second Monday of the month is nearly upon us and so it is time for another social gathering.

Have a beer, a glass of wine, coffee or tea or a soft drink, whatever you like,

hear about the latest news in Freedom of Information from across the land (Mr Mustard's questions are no longer vexatious, could this be in any way related to Barnet Council being on the ICO's naughty step), or, 

if you have a parking ticket problem, bring all, and I mean all including the envelopes, of your paperwork along to be scrutinised in fine detail. If that is done the parking ticket probably won't be up to the challenge. If you have had a parking ticket in the Saracens Event day zone then Mr Mustard really does want to meet you. If you have had a parkignt icket issued in really awful circumstances and want to be filmed talking about it then come along of if you can't send an email to mrmustard@zoho.com and Mr Mustard will see if his contacts at the BBC are interested in it. There needs to be a good story though, preferably an ongoing one.

If you just want to soak up the atmosphere of being with eccentric individuals in a good pub and discuss the rights and wrongs of the world, or talk about books, theatre or film, starting a blog, growing vegetables on your allotment or anything else you like, including sex, politics or religion, do please come along.

If you don't have time for dinner at home before coming along, the Bohemia do proper food.

The Antic Bohemia is situated at 762-764 High Rd, Tally Ho, London, N12 9QH which is right across the road from that well known café, Café Buzz.

a good place for breakfast at any time of day.

Until Monday then, 10 June from 7pm until about 9pm as Mr M. has to go then, but you can stay until closing time.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Winging it

Annesley Ave

Do you live in one of Barnet Homes' estates, specifically Annesley Estate, Church End Estate or Fosters Estate? These 3 estates had parking enforced up until 30 April 2013 by Wing Parking and possibly still are being.

Thanks to another resident who asked the question, using the whatdotheyknow website, Mr Mustard is able to bring you a contract to look at, although the interesting sections have been redacted.

Wing Parking Contract with Barnet Homes by MisterMustard

 

It isn't exactly efficient or very businesslike to be signing a contract, especially one that looks like it has been drawn up by the supplier, so long after it started and only 3 months before it automatically terminated. It makes Mr Mustard question whether any parking ticket issued before contract signature is even valid? He also wonders why a company that was only incorporated in December 10 was given a contract, except it wasn't signed, just 12 months later?

Rather than waiting to see if the redactions are subject to an FOI review, or sent to the ICO as a complaint, Mr Mustard decided to take the direct route. It isn't clear who is getting the money paid by motorists although it looks to be Wing Security rather than Barnet Homes despite the fact that parking is so profitable with Barnet Council making a net profit of £7m on a £12m turnover.

What he would like sent to him by email (mrmustard@zoho.com) is a copy of the permit application form and a copy of a parking charge notice (or whatever they decide to call a parking ticket) and he can then see many of the values which have been redacted.

If you do have such a ticket Mr Mustard doesn't recommend paying it. He recommends you visit the parking cowboys site as they are expert in dealing with private parking tickets.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

I will no longer go to Barnet

It is any wonder that the reputation of Barnet Council gets tarnished when following a mistake they stick their head in the sand and don't own up to error. Mr Mustard writes quite often to the parking section and whilst usually polite and businesslike to him (telling him he has gone off-piste prevented the usually being an always - Mr Mustard is still waiting to find in what way he went off-piste) Mr Mustard is of the view that when a traffic warden or back office at NSL have right royally messed up then they should send a proper written apology and a peace offering (the council make a surplus of £7,000,000 so can afford a few flowers or chocolates).

It was back in June that a lady visitor from Harrow came to North Finchley and paid to park her car all day in the Lodge Lane Car Park and when she came back to her car there was a parking ticket on it. She had used the pay-by-phone system before so that was rather odd. She was referred to Mr Mustard by a friend. Mr Mustard intervened and after he pointed out the payment, the fatal wording error in the parking ticket and the procedural impropriety of a letter written by NSL that was devoid of vital facts it was agreed that the parking ticket would be cancelled. That was in December 2012.

Mr Mustard was surprised in March to receive an email from the lady concerned saying that the parking ticket problem had come back to life, the sum owing had been increased by 50% and bailiffs would be instructed in 14 days. Unsurprisingly this caused the lady a certain amount of stress.

Mr Mustard wrote again to the parking section (he cuts out NSL when there are problems which he thinks the council should know about) and pointed out the obvious fact that 3 months before the parking ticket had been cancelled and there is no resiling from that position. Mr Mustard suggested that the parking ticket be properly cancelled in the computer system and that an apology and a bunch of flowers be sent to the lady. He now has the letter which was sent to her.

the blushes of the author have been spared

As apology letters go this one gets 0/10. 

There is no apology.

It is written as if the motorist was in the wrong and has been let off.

The letter does not set a precedent! Mr Mustard is sure it doesn't. He is certain that he will see other examples of blistering incompetence in the processing of parking tickets. 

No bunch of flowers was sent.

This is what the lady wrote to Mr Mustard this week.

"and the biggest shame is a small business in this community has now lost out as I will no longer go to Barnet because of what has happened. Thanks again for all your help"

Barnet Council need to find some manners. When you do wrong in the future you really must write a letter of apology that starts with "We are sorry..." because otherwise we will run out one day of people who want to visit Barnet.

You don't hesitate to demand £110 from any motorist who makes the slightest mistake so surely the least you can do when you make a mistake is to make recompense for the stress and inconvenience?

Remember also that Mr Mustard intervened and pointed out the multiple fatal weaknesses in the council's case so that you could throw in the towel early and not waste the £40 fee that would otherwise be payable to PATAS. That could have paid for some lovely flowers, the lady would have been happy and might then visit North Finchley again.

Mr Mustard does hope that he isn't asking for the earth.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Parking Ticket Appeal Guide - V1.0 - April 13

Luckily only 3 hoops to jump through for your parking ticket

Don't be an April Fool, today or any other day.

If you get a parking ticket from Barnet Council, appeal once, twice, three times.

Here is the first version of a guide to help you.

Mr Mustard Parking Ticket Guide v1.0 April 13 by MisterMustard

Please download this guide and give it to anyone who might benefit. If you are on the committeee of a residents' association please distribute it to your members by email or in hard copy and tell them about Mr Mustard and look out for updated versions.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Parking ticket zealots - duty to be fair.

The following are the notes made by the independent adjudicator at PATAS and they nicely sum up the approach of Barnet Council and their enforcer, NSL Ltd.

The contravention is "parked without payment of the parking charge" and not as stated in the case summary parking "not purchased soon enough...". From the evidence it is clear that the appellant paid for parking and this is not disputed by the Authority.

The nature of this matter causes me to expand more than usual in my findings. It is also pertinent to note that the account provided by the appellant has at all times been consistent, and though there are some issues with the exact timing of the telephone calls the central core of the appellant's account has never been disputed.

The Authority relying on its Pay By Phone records submit that the appellant's first telephone call to pay by phone was made at 1.53pm and that the PCN was issued one minute earlier at 1.52pm; even if these times are reliable and correct with such a difference of one minute I find it surprising that the Authority would pursue this matter further. The Authority continues by stating that at 1.53pm the call was terminated because the appellant had given incorrect card expiry details, but the Authority accepts that the appellant rang back within two minutes and that ultimately at 1.58pm payment was successful. The Authority state that because the PCN was issued at 1.58pm this was six minutes after the PCN had been issued at 1.52pm and have continued to enforce this matter.

The appellant's account is that she first made the call at 1.50pm and that ultimately payment was made at 1.57pm. What the Authority in its zeal to pursue this case appear to have neglected is a duty to act fairly and proportionately. There has been no attempt by the appellant to evade payment. A motorist who has not used this system before has to register a number of details including debit card information and full description details of the vehicle in question. The service requires waiting for an operator whilst part of the service is also automated. This appellant was making the call from the information board and not from her vehicle. Even if the records relied on by the Authority from Pay By Phone are reliable there is still only a gap of six minutes between the issue of the PCN and the appellant first trying to make contact with Pay By Phone, and if the appellant's records are more reliable the gap is just five minutes.

This matter should be pursued no further. The appellant has acted honestly and genuinely throughout. I cannot perceive how an Authority can claim to act with fairness when it accepts that the motorist has paid for the parking, but submits that a gap of either 5 or 6 minutes due to attempts to engage with Pay By Phone is indicative of the motorist in these particular circumstances not acting quickly enough.

I am not satisfied that the PCN was correctly issued.

 

If you are in a similar situation you can quote PATAS file number 2130045792 in support of your argument.

 

Yours frugally

 

Mr Mustard