A decade of parking PCN in London

Car ownership in London has been fairly stable for years, with a slight downward trend since 2016.

 

PCN numbers for parking would therefore follow the same trend, one would think?

As you can see, that isn't the case with parking PCN numbers going up by 54% over a decade. That however masks a huge variance. In Wandsworth the overall number of PCNs issued went down, the only borough where it did. There was industrial action by traffic wardens (CEOs) in 2022 and 2024 which it seems had quite the effect.

Go to the other end of the scale, Greenwich, where the number of parking PCNs trebled over a decade. That cannot be because people in Greenwich decided to become terrible at parking but because, possibly or probably, more controlled parking zones were introduced and more civil enforcement officers were deployed. One of Mr Mustard's readers in Greenwich may know. Greenwich Council may have become PCN crack addicts is also an option.

There were two big jumps in Greenwich, using 31 March as the year end.

From 2018 to 2019 from 38.342 to 68,195 and 

from 2024 to 2025 from 70,898 to 102,854

The end. Bus lane and moving traffic stats to follow. 

Haringey Council - verification code error

If you receive a PCN which you contest with the council you will, perhaps after 2 challenges but sometimes only one is necessary, it all depends upon the legislative process, receive a Notice of Rejection. That opens the door for a period of 28 days to a hearing with an independent adjudicator at London Tribunals.

Here is the rejection of the first challenge, known as the informal one, made in response to a PCN placed on a car.

Time moved on and then, more than 56 days after the formal representations were made, the formal Notice of Rejection was issued.(That itself was a blunder as for parking PCNs the Notice of Rejection must be served within 56 days so Mr Mustard was always going to win at the tribunal, Haringey threw the towel in the day before the hearing).

The verification code is, at least for the first 3 digits, easy to decipher. To get the first two digits simply deduct the date of the month from 100, so a letter of 2 May gives the number 98. The third digit is the number of the month of the year rendered as the corresponding letter of the alphabet if A = 1 and B = 2 , so in this case the code should have been 98E??? not 76L112.

Naturally the London Tribunals computer knows that 76L112 is an out of date code so it lets you enter the details of your Appeal but doesn't count it as a valid Appeal, it has to be checked with the council for validity. 

Given that you cannot phone Haringey Council parking department you can't fix this problem easily with a 2 minute phone call. You have to phone the tribunal who won't generally take your word for it but will instead contact Haringey Council.

Mr Mustard wouldn't have written about this, thinking it was a one off error but a second wrong code has landed in his inbox (despite not fighting many Haringey PCNs or at all at the moment due to cycling 50% of the time) and so Mr Mustard thinks there is a systemic error that the public need to know about.

You have already worked out that the code should have started with 83E and that 88C will be rejecting as appearing to be a Notice from 12 March 22 and the 28 days in which to Appeal would be long gone.

If you have such a problem please email mrmustard@zoho.com

To get around the problem if you are in receipt of a printed Notice of Appeal form you can post it to the Nottingham address and include a copy of the Notice of Rejection and point out the verification code error.

End.

 

Kensington & Chelsea - pandemic parking enforcement

That is an awful lot of sick traffic wardens.
Good to see that almost no on-street PCNs are now being issued.

Kensington & Chelsea are one of the fairest authorities in London, in Mr Mustard's opinion.

Good to see that steps have been taken to try and stop any transmission from the equipment.

Full marks to Kensington & Chelsea.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Hounslow - pandemic parking enforcement

It would have been nice to have told Mr Mustard why they don't hold the information about people who are carrying out legally sanctioned duties on their behalf.

Rather odd that Hounslow Council know that no traffic wardens were sick (which is good news) but not if they have PPE or what they are currently doing. So be it.

What Hounslow Council are very clear about though is that there is no contravention for which they would not issue a PCN.

Miserable sods. Don't they know there is a pandemic on?

Yours frugally

Mr Musatrd

Paid for & free parking in High Barnet

One Barnet isn't working

Fine words butter no parsnips

Before he gives you the bad news about One Barnet, Mr Mustard wants you to know that he isn't against the idea of outsourcing as he himself is a debt collector who provides an outsourced service. The difference between him and One Barnet is that he delivers what he promises and his income is directly related to his success rate. Mr Mustard was against One Barnet from the start as he didn't think the council had the capacity to procure what was needed ( the hapless Craig Cooper has left us but his legacy lingers) as he didn't think it provided the flexibility that was needed, a contract cannot provide for the unexpected, and as he didn't think the KPI (Key Performance Indicators) would be properly implemented or monitored and as the right to terminate at certain points in the contract were unlikely to be utilised as the capacity to provide the same service would not exist. You can disregard all of the Leader's fine words about how wonderful the world would be as mere blandishments designed to pour oil on troubled waters.

Sadly, in one of the first decent sized One Barnet projects to go live, Mr Mustard has been proved completely right in his doubts about the ability of the slim client side (Mr Mustard has no criticism of the individuals who are doing their best and are under the constant eye of Mr Mustard or his many moles, some of whom even Mr Mustard doesn't know the identity of) to properly scrutinise an outsourced provider at distance simply because they are under-resourced.

Now parking, as compared to the multifarious services taken over by Capita, is a walk in the park. All you have to do is wander about the borough and dish out parking tickets and then collect them. It is a discrete service i.e. it stands alone. What could be simpler? You can equate it to a sausage factory; meat, fat and rusk go in (Mr Mustard is vegetarian so not strong on sausage details) and sausages come out of the other end. This is what should happen to parking tickets. PCN go into the machine and money comes out of the other side.

NSL took over on 1 May 12 so we can broadly compare the years to 31 March 12 as being pre NSL and the year to 31 March 13 as being post NSL. How did they do?

Well, on the issue of PCN they couldn't have done better than a drunken sailor home on shore leave (Mr Mustard doesn't know where traffic wardens are recruited but if it is on the docks at Plymouth when a ship comes in he wouldn't be at all surprised)

Number of PCN	#	#
Year	11-12	12-13
Parking PCN	121,484	150,211
Bus Lane	13,317	15,358
Total	134,801	165,569
Increase		30,768
Percentage increase	23%

So since NSL took over there has been a whopping increase of 23% in the volume of PCN issued. Have you become 23% worse at parking since 1 May 12? No, Mr Mustard didn't think you had. So, put quite simply, NSL are out there from 7 in the morning until 11 at night issuing PCN like drunken sailors for marginal contraventions.

Have NSL managed to collect all of these extra PCN, or at least the same proportion of them as Barnet Council themselves did? Apparently not:

Income	£	£
Year	11-12	12-13
Parking PCN	6,492,115	5,003,385
Bus Lane	735,537	831,492
Total	7,227,652	5,834,877
Decrease		1,392,775
Percentage drop	19%

Now let us remind ourselves how much outsourcing to NSL was meant to save. The answer is to be found in the papers of the Cabinet Resources Committee meeting of 14 December 2011 which show that the 5 year contract was meant to save £2.95m over 5 years or £599,000 each year. So here we are after one year and we are losing twice as much as we are meant to be saving. 

Why haven't NSL been sacked when they fail to deliver so spectacularly? Well Richard Cornelius, what do you say to that?

Who should we blame for this mess? Well the councillors who were at CRC that night is a good place to start. The minutes show the councillors present to have been:

Cllr Daniel Thomas

Cllr Sachin Rajput

Cllr Richard Cornelius

Cllr Robert Rams

Cllr Andrew Harper

Cllr Brian Coleman

Shouldn't all of these councillors be playing merry hell that they have voted for something which hasn't been delivered? Yes. 

Are they doing so? No.

Are they up to the job of being councillors? Probably not, so vote them out at the next elections in May 14.

How does this translate into One Barnet generally? Well, if NSL can't manage a simple process like parking tickets there is no hope for Capita and complex compound procurements like NSCSO and DRS.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

From Vexatious to merely vexing - a journey - stage 1.

Vexatious: seeking only to annoy (that is from the dictionary; vexatious isn't actually defined in Freedom of Information legislation and Mr Mustard has unfortunately helped to formulate what it means. Doh!)

Vexed: Irritated, angered,(of a problem) difficult and much discussed, problematic.

It was Mrs Angry of Broken Barnet fame (currently to be found paddling in the sea off Brighton due to some meeting or other, Mr Mustard wouldn't know the details because it involves Politics with a big P which Mr Mustard simply doesn't have time for. Ooh, and La Bloggeuse was on the telly) who told Mr Mustard that he was only vexing not vexatious. (Yes, she did also tell him he had overdone the number of questions, as did two other people, but by then it was too late and Mr Mustard had the ICO's decision to deal with.)

Rather than spend hours preparing for a long, tedious and difficult hearing in front of the First Tier Tribunal at which Barnet Council would have instructed the best specialist barrister available (an uneven contest against a lay person) at which every rotten word he had ever written would have been dragged out of the blog and given an out-of-context airing, which the tribunal would probably have frowned upon, Mr Mustard negotiated a settlement with the Chief Operating Officer but more of that later. Before then, you need the scene to be set. 

What were those vexatious questions that Mr Mustard asked a year ago and caused such angst. These:

and these (two others were answered recently as they weren't vexatious after all, but by then Mr Mustard didn't really need the answers anyway)

So Mr Mustard thinks you will agree that these were not particularly taxing in terms of time and weren't likely to lead to Mr Mustard writing about an individual except in one case where the post was quite senior and that is allowed and the intention was to blog about the rapid turnover in personnel within the post and improper procurement that he wanted to write about, in any case.

So why did Mr Mustard ask these question? Answers follow the question numbers.

1.  In order to compare the numbers of tickets issued since NSL took over to when it was in-house. We now know from other reports that following NSL's appointment parking tickets have increased by 25%. Coincidence? Mr Mustard doesn't think so.

2.  The invoices supplied in response to a question didn't match the ones on the over £500 spending list.

3.  Asked for NSL's invoices each month so that the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) payments could be tracked.

4.  To confirm what Mr Mustard already knew that the answer was nil. A gross dereliction of duty and the cause of much trouble now that they are being sent off to bailiffs a year after the event.

5.  The council had just voted to start enforcing these moving traffic violations. There is a consultation ongoing about the location of new cctv cameras but some will be placed at these locations whatever the public says.

6.  So that costs of PayByPhone could be compared to the cost of cash collection from meters.

7.  To see what template wordings were in use.

8.  To get a feel for the likely success of an informal appeal and whether 100% of them were rejected.

9.  The minutes cannot have been sufficiently clear.

10.  Just to see what the plan was and whether it included longer hours, targeting particular offences etc.

11.  The parking department should produce an annual report and send it to the mayor. If they had done so this question would not have been necessary. The question was so that the trend of income could be looked at accurately.

12.  The circumstances around the appointment of the AD were murky to say the least.

13.  It was not produced in breach of legislation.

14.  This question was about the manner of serving to get a handle on the numbers affixed to vehicle or handed to driver or sent in the post.

15.  This was to see if proper procedures had been followed for a friend who had a PCN. It was won on review at PATAS.

16.  To see if NSL were doing that aspect of their job or just issuing PCN regardless.

17.  The TMO were given to NSL on a memory stick so it was a few minutes work for the council to provide these and then not have to deal with individual requests.

18.  In Woodside Grove there are CPZ bays across people's drives which is rather odd and an explanation would have been useful and appreciated.

19.  This question was asked on someone else's behalf. Next time they can ask their own.

20.  as for 3.

Do these questions strike you as particularly long, complicated, unreasonable, obsessive, difficult, excessive or anything else if all asked in one month or vexatious? Put your view in the comment box below.

The second part of the story will follow soon although Mr Mustard does have to spend some time looking at the 2,000+ page Capita contract for Customer services (NSCSO) which Mr Reasonable asked for and Mr Mustard didn't as he hasn't asked a question of Barnet Council (hello to Governance in TfL, Haringey, Harrow and Islington where he has) since 12 July (which was a request for the locations & numbers of PayByPhone bays which must be in a spreadsheet somewhere: Answer - vexatious!) and he is now free to ask on Parking, Parking Tickets and CPZ's but hasn't. 

Ironically if he had asked for the NSCSO contract, a multi-million pound decade long and controversial outsourcing deal, that would not have been rejected out of hand as being vexatious (it would have been declined on the grounds of future publication which has now happened). Funny old world!

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Parking prices - the future

Yesterday saw Richard Cornelius, the leader of the council, responding to the many emails he had received that suggested the council not appeal the decision of Mrs Justice Lang, DBE, that the revenue raising CPZ permit price increase was unlawful.

Here is the entire email sent to a friend:

no appeal
Richard

That could be misconstrued by the voters Richard,  they may take you at your word and vote for a nice new independent candidate?

Mr Mustard blogged yesterday about refunds. You can do them online using one of those horrible webforms, here, or you can send an email here. One email will suffice; if you moved since May 2011 give the council both addresses so they can find you more easily. I am told that a separate email is needed for each permit (a tweet has been sent to the council to see if that is true but given that Mr Mustard sold his car and purchased the blogger bus in that time then it might be sensible to do separate claims) and the council website says that it will take up to 8 weeks to process a refund. Come on Barnet Council that isn't cricket. You give people 4 weeks to pay up for a parking ticket or you increase the penalty by 50%. Doesn't asking for 8 weeks look a teensy weensy bit one-sided? 

You have had 2 years to plan for this day, why are you not better organised and staffed up for this. You will have to get temps in and it is a sausage factory operation so easy to manage. Did the applicant pay or not, yes or no, is all you have to decide and then record the refund in such a way that it does not get paid twice.

Mr Mustard didn't want Richard to feel all lonely now that CPZ emails will come to a stop and so he rattled off his thoughts, as follows:



Dear Richard

Thank you for taking the trouble to reply.

I presume that prices will revert to the old ones and then that there will be a root and branch reform of all parking charges to look to the future. That would also be a good time to look at cash parking meters again. There must be room for some compromise. You may be told they are expensive to collect cash from but paybyphone costs are about 10% of income which isn't that far short of what cash collecting costs.

There are two places where cash meters are, in my view, essential and that is car parks and the High Street. They could probably be covered by about 100 machines (there used to be about 450) especially if a number of short term free bays were also introduced at the same time to cut down the number required. Rationing space can be done by time as well as by money; look at Whetstone which merely limits you from parking on one side of the road or the other (with no time limit I think) and how busy it is.

You aren't in it for the money remember.

Best regards

Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard will of course attend any committee at which this subject is discussed and keep an eye out for a Delegated Powers Report by which method it might be dealt (although given the importance it really should be properly discussed by committee).

It isn't only the resident permits that need looking at. If a business is within a CPZ zone it can buy a permit for £525 (or £840 for a permit to cover any registration - intended to help businesses who rent their delivery vans and so have frequent changes of registration) and they can then park in business permit holder spaces. Mr Mustard is struggling to see how a permit to park a vehicle, possibly an estate car or Morris Minor sized van, which belongs to a business can be justified to cost £525 when it takes up the same space as a resident's car or less space than the blogger bus (a Renault Trafic) which has a resident permit. It looks like the council are revenue raising from businesses and will have to stop. A business is limited to 3 permits (that won't encourage businesses with 500 employees to come to Barnet) and so there is some logic in charging the same price for a permit as to Residents.

Near High Barnet tube there has been a campaign to have a CPZ zone extended. It is the D zone. You will find a report here.

Here are some short extracts:

As a result of the consultation the Council received 53 email or letter responses frommembers of the public relating to the proposals which included comments, objections
and requests to revise the proposal. Of the 53 items of correspondence, two were epetitions (which can be viewed at http://petitions.barnet.gov.uk/SupportCPZ and
http://petitions.barnet.gov.uk/ValeDrive ) and 51 were received from local residents.
Of the 53 items, 12 (22.6%) were against the proposed CPZ extension while 41
(77.3%) were in favour.

An e-petition containing 215 signatories not in support of the proposals from
people who work for, represent or visit regularly Vale Drive Primary Care Centre and
St Catherine’s County RC School. Both St Catherine’s and Vale Drive Health Clinic
have a large number of staff who live outside walking distance, who work full time at
these premises. Both buildings have small car parks, which have the space to
provide parking for approximately 40% of their workforce. The remainder of
employees currently use the non-restricted zones in the surrounding roads. The
implications of the extended parking zones is considered by the petitioners to be a
huge inconvenience to staff, it also means vehicles will be parking in Mays Lane
EN5, which already currently becomes hugely congested. The Council has been
informed that at St Catherine’s staff rely on a large number of volunteers to help with
the day-to-day running of the school including school trips, extra curricular activities
and classroom assistance. The proposed restrictions will be a further deterrent to the
willing and kind local community who currently assist the school with the education of
Barnet children.

An e-petition containing 85 signatories in support of the CPZ extension proposal
was received from residents of Elton Avenue, Woodfall Avenue and Milton Avenue
who are currently competing for parking space with commuters, clinic workers,
school workers and college students, leaving little or no room for resident parking
during the day. The detail of the petition goes on to highlight Barnet has plenty of
spaces in the station car park, and Fitzohn (sic) Avenue car park which could conceivably
accommodate these commuters, leaving the residents, and their visitors, (including
carers) to park near their own houses.

Clearly the council want to support its local communities in which St Catherine’s
County RC School plays a vital role so it is also mindful of adversely affecting
amenities that service the area and need support. The Council has recognised this
across the board, and with this in mind the council is, under a separate process,
considering establishing permits for teaching staff that will entitle those eligible staff
of those qualifying schools within the borough, to park in the relevant CPZs. It is
considered that should it be agreed that teachers permits be introduced, that subject
to all statutory processes, they could be in place this autumn. In relation to St
Catherine’s County RC School, it is considered that as the roads are part controlled,
if the CPZ extension is agreed the whole length of each road would have the capacity
for both resident and teaching staff parking.

In terms of the staff of the health centre, no permits are envisaged; however it is
considered that parking provision exists for those motorists wishing to park
throughout the day, through the Council-operated and private car parks situated
nearby.

Following the conclusion of the statutory consultation it is still considered that there is
merit in the nature of the measures proposed for the area to improve the parking
conditions for residents, however, following considerations of comments and
objections received, the council is confident that the proposal would not detract from
what the council originally aimed to achieve in the area, with various concerns about
non-resident parking able to be managed in other ways.

Officers wrote to Underhill Ward Councillors prior to the statutory consultation in
order to ascertain their views on the proposal. No comments were received in the
three weeks given. (Why do we have councillors?)

What do you think of this CPZ zone extension? An unusual precedent has been set (do please tell Mr Mustard if exceptions have been made for teachers anywhere else in the borough) with permits being planned for teachers but not for nurses and with local businesses just up the hill paying £525 for a permit. Mr Mustard doesn't think that the council have got this balancing act right (he readily accepts it wasn't easy).

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Fourth Objection - Income targets

No pictures of fourth objection available so here is one of the fourth plinth

Mr Hughes chased Mr Mustard up for any further objections after number 3. 

Mr Mustard thought that the accountability worked in the opposite direction but this is Barnet where the opposite is often the case and public servants forget what the word servant means (not thinking of it in any menial sense, only as in "to serve"). Well the bloggers do provide an excellent and free service of information spreading, armchair auditing, critical friend, check and balance, democratic oversight, etc .

24 July 2013


Mr P Hughes
Grant Thornton
Melton St
London
NW1 2EP


Dear Mr Hughes

The London Borough of Barnet
Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2013
Fourth Notice of Objection

1. Unlawful PCN targets within parking enforcement contract.

I request a public interest notice as per section 8 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 that Barnet Council has signed and sealed a parking enforcement contract with unlawful collection targets, activity levels and incentives set within that contract contrary to law.

2. Unlawfully derived income from PCNs issued

I request a public interest notice as per section 8 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 that Barnet has unlawfully derived income from 150,150 PCNs issued with an estimated issue value of £15,122,500 for the financial year 2012/13.

I request you apply to the courts under section 17 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 to have the income derived from the £15,122,500 of PCNs issued declared illegally derived income.

I will supply documentary evidence of the unlawful targets. A copy of this Notice of Objection has been sent to Mr C Naylor and to Cllr Monroe Palmer, Baron Palmer of Child's Hill, OBE, FCA. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard

Whilst he was writing Mr Mustard thought he would point out the bleeding obvious in a covering email to the external auditor, and the Chief Operating Officer, Chris Naylor, that the contract is not being adhered to by NSL and in that situation perhaps it would benefit from some auditing, just in case they weren't keeping up or Mr Mustard hadn't been clear enough.

It is clear to me that this One Barnet outsourcing contract with NSL is a complete and utter fiasco. In the limited time available to me, and given the difficulties in extracting information from the council, I have only been able to touch the surface as to what is wrong with the contract. It needs auditing (internally or by a contractor) with some thoroughness in the following areas, in particular:

-     How many PATAS evidence packs have not been produced leading to an automatically cancelled PCN and not receiving the service that has been paid for.

-     How many PCN are being pursued where the Notice to Owner was issued after the 6 month cut-off date which means the PCN must be cancelled.

-     How many PCN are being pursued where formal representations have not been responded to within 56 days which means the PCN must be cancelled.

-    Have bailiffs been instructed when a contract was not in place.

-     Have the contracted deployed hours been checked and provided or a price adjustment made for any under-deployment

-    Have unqualified Civil Enforcement Officers been employed.

-    Have 90%+ of all bus lane contraventions been captured?

-     Has all money due to the council been properly accounted for.

-    How many informal representations (between the PCN and the Notice to Owner being issued) have simply been ignored.

The problem for the council is that Mr Mustard probably knows more about the workings of the appeal process (despite gvernance banning him from asking questions about parking, parking tickets or CPZs which you won't find it is possible to do under the FOI Act - but hey this is Barnet where the impossible is possible) and the things that are going wrong in parking than almost anyone else at all in Barnet so fobbing him off isn't going to be easy or sensible. Did Mr Mustard mention that in the spirit of localism he has been keeping the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP informed? no; well he has so be careful with your next steps Barnet Council as the wrath of Eric is probably best not encountered.

Of course what the auditor will say is that there aren't targets for PCNs which is sort of true but there are other targets which can only be met by issuing a certain number of PCNs so we are in a game of chase the lady.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Dear Richard - Dear CPZ

So today Justice Lang DBE decided that the hike in CPZ charges (first car permit from £40 to £100 and visitor vouchers from £1 to £4) was unlawful as it was a change intended to revenue raise and not form a good traffic management purpose. You can read the full judgment here.

In the local paper, here, the Leader of the council, Richard Cornelius, says that the council they are minded to appeal. He needs his mind changing! If you are one of the 8% or so of residents who live inside a CPZ and have to suffer extortionate charges, why not send Richard an email and tell him why the council shouldn't appeal.

His address is cllr.r.cornelius@barnet.gov.uk

I am sure he will be delighted to hear your view. You might as well send a copy to the Cabinet member in charge of parking cllr.d.cohen@barnet.gov.uk

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Good news story - not in Barnet though

http://westnorwood.wordpress.com/

This is the kind of story Mr Mustard would like to read in Barnet.  Lambeth Council evidently listen harder to their traders than Barnet do. Hence that could be why West Norwood, which Mr Mustard knows well, is now doing reasonably well despite it not being a main town centre.

From the Standard

 

Shopkeepers were celebrating today after Lambeth council eased parking restrictions around their businesses which they claimed hit trade.

West Norwood High Street shoppers can now park free for an hour rather than just 30 minutes. Antonia Beamish, 41, owner of Beamish & McGlue grocery shop and café, said takings fell 30 per cent under the half-hour rule. “When we first opened in 2005, you were free to park all around this area,” she said. (Dean Cohen take note, this is what Barnet's traders have been saying, a 30% to 40% drop in trade due to removal of meters)

“About two years later, the council made the changes and it made a massive difference. We have been suffocated by these measures.” However, Miss Beamish insisted: “For a thriving high street, we need a two-hour free parking minimum and no restrictions on Saturdays.”

The changes came after Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said he wanted to end the “overzealous culture of parking enforcement” because the “rigid state orthodoxy of persecuting motorists” damages small businesses across the UK.

Parking meter charges of up to £3 an hour remain an issue in West Norwood, said Stav Tsoukkas, 32, who owns the Electric Café: “The tariffs are very high and although there are free bays, they get taken up very quickly.”

Imogen Walker, Lambeth council cabinet member for environment, said: “We have extended the time people can stop for free in parking bays along the High Street. Further free parking in side-street bays was extended to 60 minutes in December, which has made it easier for people who want to stop for a meal. (only if they bolt their food)

“We have been putting a stronger focus on making sure our civil enforcement officers are helpful to motorists, for example by advising them on where they can and can’t park.” (Helpful traffic wardens - gosh)

There is still scope for improvement in Lambeth. In Norwood Rd (that is the name of the road on which Beamish & McGlue are situated) from 1 April 12 to 28 February 13 there were 267 parking tickets issued by a traffic warden on foot and 2801 by stealthy cctv. That will be about £200,000 that the council have raked in from penalty charges.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The Cabinet have a short memory - or a lack of historical appreciation

Back in 2009 the Cabinet received a paper entitled "Responding to the recession in Barnet". In 2001 the council savagely increased parking charges and made it very difficult to pay for the un-banked and the phone-less.

Foodbank

What did the 2009 report say in para 9.9? This (with added emphasis by Mr Mustard):

Reduction of street parking charges - 

Over the Christmas period the Council reduced on and off street pay and display charges to as low as 10 pence per hour to £1 per day for a two week period. The move was an attempt to increase the usage of parking spaces, generating increased footfall in town centres and provide a boost to retail trading and the local economy over the Christmas period. Analysis showed that short term parking increased significantly with some car parks showing a 35 per cent increase in their occupancy rate.

It looks like we should do that again and not just for Christmas, it should be all year round. More than half of the income to the Special parking Account comes from the issue of Penalty Charge Notices for parking and bus lane contraventions with a combined annual budget of £7,175,000 which makes the projected annual off-street car park income of £600,000 look like loose change.

It would get the traders back almost to where they were before. Most traders report takings are down by 40%. Maths lesson time; you have to be careful with percentages.

Let us suppose trade was actually down by 35% and a trader had an annual turnover of £100,000.

£100,000 less 35% = £65,000

35% of £65,000 is £22,750 so when trade goes back up by the same 35% turnover only reaches £87,750 so is still 12.25% down from where you started.

Mr Mustard donated an AS level maths book last week to the Friern Barnet Peoples Library & community hub if you want to improve your skills further.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Let's appear to do something about the parking problem

The Parking consultation team at full speed

It must be at least 2 years ago that the residents of Chipping Barnet (or High Barnet as it is often otherwise known) were consulted about the operation of the CPZ. Since then, despite chasing by at least 2 of the neighbours nothing has been heard. There was a question about it at a residents' forum about 6 months ago and the answer was that there wasn't enough resource to deal with the answers (or more likely that the answers were not the ones that were wanted and so we got kicked into the long grass). Time for a question at the next residents' forum later this month (unless it is less than 6 months since the question was asked in which case we will be in the stupid position of being time-barred from asking about the ridiculous council delay - this is democracy as practised in Barnet) as, by some miracle, there has been plenty of time since then to get the Saracens CPZ onto the drawing board.

Having comprehensively messed up parking in Barnet in 2011 and set the whole of the borough's traders against them (well not the ones in Brent Cross obviously) instead of simply reversing the bonkers decision to remove parking meters the council simply blunder on despite howls of protest and constructive suggestions. Richard Cornelius and Dean Cohen simply tinker at the edges. A 30p reduction is meant to please traders? It shows an astonishing lack of understanding of the problems faced by Barnet's traders.

Anyway, the council, being bereft of ideas, decided to consult with traders. Mr Mustard should have been consulted but wasn't. The consultation end date was 28 September.

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12 September 

Dear Sirs

We have operated a business in High Barnet for 25 years. We should be consulted about parking arrangements. The Consultation

Please send the referred to letter.

Yours sincerely

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Guess what? Mr Mustard did not get a reply in time and missed the deadline. Never mind, it will be at least 2 years before anything happens so you can still write in if you like. Mr Mustard wrote again today.

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Dear Sirs

I don't know why you didn't respond to my email of 11 September requesting a copy of the letter sent to businesses about parking and so I have missed your consultation deadline.

I am sure that you won't yet have considered the results so there is no prejudice in you now adding my views to the ones received.

In 2010 parking worked; traders and residents were not, on the whole, unhappy.

In 2012 parking is clearly broken with the expected income in the first quarter down by £600k (money talks); traders and residents are very unhappy and there is open revolt in certain quarters and the council, by merely tinkering at the edges, is risking the threat of widespread revolt.

Therefore, in the short term, the answer is simply to reverse what happened in 2011. So put parking meters back that accept cash & add the facility for credit cards. By all means retain pay-by-phone and in the years to come its use will increase although what is more likely is that it will be overtaken by some other new technology. Also put the charges back to what they were at the start of 2010.

In the long term for High Streets the council needs to implement the ideas set out in the Portas review. Primarily there needs to be a free parking period so that people start to visit the local town centres again. I used to visit North Finchley purely to visit the book shop as you could park outside for a while for free and this despite there being, at that time, 2 bookshops in Chipping Barnet (North Finchley had a stock range which wasn't available locally). I would inevitably also go into other shops whilst I was there. Once the now closed Borders opened at London Colney and parking restrictions existed at N Finchley I simply didn't visit that High Street any more (not until in the last 12 months when I found out about Cafe Buzz and when I visit there I either do it by motorcycle which is free to park or I park the van on the edge of the CPZ and walk in).

In addition, all restrictive hours need to be reviewed, as they are a hotchpotch, to see if their times could be reduced, especially CPZs as we have some that are for 1 hour, others all day and some town centres (e.g. Totteridge) without a CPZ and restrictions which are only intended to maximise traffic flow at peak hours. Our High Streets need to be put onto a level playing field with shopping centres which offer free parking even if all day free cannot be managed as there simply isn't the free space.

The areas covered by some of the CPZs are huge and far bigger than the handful of streets envisaged by their enabling legislation. The spread of them should be reviewed to see if they can be reduced as during their hours of operation many roads in all day zones sit empty which is a complete waste of a resource.

In summary, radical change and less local government interference in parking would be a good thing.

Make it simple to park, make it easy to pay, make the charges reasonable, and people will come back to the High St.

Yours sincerely

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This email has been now been added to the response pile as Mr Mustard copied it to an Assistant Director to make sure something happened. 

Right, sit back and wait. Will it be days, weeks, months, years or decades before the results are published or will the answers simply be too unpalatable to the council and never see the light of day?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard