The perils of AI

 

Mr Mustard prefers real intelligence to artificial. He recently had cause to complain to St Albans City & District Council as they sent a PCN which was in the representation stage to bailiffs (Civil Enforcement Officers) a blunder of the first water.

When he went online to try and find an email address to send his complaint to which is a problem with many councils not providing an email address for such a purpose he did find the above page. Mr Mustard found himself agreeing with much of what St Albans had to say. Most AI produced text is too verbose but it is quite good at sticking facts in order, a task that Mr Mustard can manage for himself. Many motorists come to him and send an AI generated challenge which 90% of the time is of no use to Mr Mustard and he has to waste a lot of time reading it just in case.

Complaining to St Albans was harder than it should have been. Mr Mustard likes to communicate by email which councils try to avoid. The profferred online system is useless as you are strait jacketed by most systems into answering questions instead of setting things out as you wish. In addition it isn't possible to attach a document so Mr Mustard couldn't attach his client authority so his complaint is likely to get rejected for that reason. Mr Mustard posted that in.

His advice if you need to write as a council doesn't give you an email address is to write an email to them as if they have, send the email to yourself and then print it out and post it, no need to make it look like a traditional letter.

Don't put up with wrong things, complain.

Mr Mustard will write about the bailiff problem once he has found out how widespread a problem it was. 

The end. 

Tfl PCN - 6 pages is OTT

 

This is the first of six A4 pages that you need to read in full to make sure you don't need anything. This is a 2 cups of tea read. It will take some time to be sure that not only have you read it, but that you understand it.

It shouldn't say Blackwall Tunnel on the top, the scooter didn't go there, it is as relevant as saying Channel Tunnel.

You already have Mr Mustard's opinion that the consequences box should not be there, this is also not the place for a PR message about how marvellous the tunnel is. If it was marvellous there wouldn't be a charge for 2 wheeled vehicles which relieve congestion as there is one less car on the road.

An exhortation to 'pay your charge now' should not be there for two reasons. The first is that it isn't 'your' charge as you aren't at liberty to cancel it, it is TfL's charge, they are the ones who will try to punish you if you don't pay. In addition, that is a one-sided exhortation which assumes guilt, you should also be reminded to challenge the PCN now but TfL apparently don't want you to do that.

The Notice about Service isn't at all helpful. The Regulations have been changed to allow for these documents to be sent other than by first class post. Service is assumed to be two working days for first class and 4 working days for other classes. What this means is that the actual date of service will vary and therefore TfL should not have put a date of service on page 1 as they don't know what it was. That could fetter your rights as you might think you are too late to challenge and then go off and pay. Service is what is known as a 'rebuttable presumption' i.e. you can prove the assumption is not correct.

The privacy notice is just another thing to read which doesn't help you with the problem at all. It should be cut, everyone knows TfL get your data from DVLA.

The tear off slip is also longer than it needs to be. No need to tear it off as the rest of the page contains surplus wording. Better not to attach it as a cheque could get damaged and it won't fall out of a sealed envelope. No need to write the PCN ref on the back of the cheque, it is on the payment slip, don't do TfL's work for them, they scan everything anyway. The quickest and easiest way to pay isn't for your benefit, you choose what works best for you.

The only way to make representations should not be in writing. If you are disabled TfL are obliged to make due adjustment so that you can, if needs be, make a verbal representation which they record for you.

TfL are misrepresenting the law at para 1. It is:

(3) The grounds are—

(a)that the recipient—

(i)never was the registered keeper in relation to the vehicle in question;

and

(4) Where the ground mentioned in paragraph (3)(a)(ii) is relied on in any representations made under this regulation, those representations must include a statement of the name and address of the person to whom the vehicle was disposed of by the person making the representations (if that information is in his possession)

Mr Mustard has underlined for you an important exemption. If you bought or sold the vehicle from a man in the pub (which may be foolish but it happens) you don't have to run around proving for TfL who the keeper is, you simply have to show you were not the keeper at the relevant time. You may easily have been given a false name and address as that is what some dodgy traders do to avoid taxes and other liabilities.

Mr Mustard has looked up the Sensitive Casework Team who appear to deal with bereavements, is that the right place to go? Just notify DVLA online in the usual way. 

You are probably already sick of the PCN and we are only halfway.

Mr Mustard doesn't think this page even exists. The vast majority of challenges are almost certainly made online and the art of letter writing isn't yet dead so people could just write in or there could be a downloadable form. As ever with forms you need to decide to what extent you want to complete the boxes. Leave off your telephone number (why would you give one that isn't current?) and email (it doesn't say current email so is inconsistent) as these will be recorded and could be given to bailiffs later. If you send a letter you don't have to include the false statement confirmation but please do tell the truth. Mr Mustard doubts that more than a handful of people, if any, have ever been prosecuted.

TfL are a bit funny about company representation and were too lazy on a recent case to look up Companies House and see that the individual whose right to make representations that they queried is the sole director of the company so is naturally fully empowered. They spent longer writing two futile letters.

Mr Mustard thinks that with a bit of careful thought this four page PCN could become two pages.

Then we get the extra blurb which isn't part of the PCN and Mr Mustard would stick through the shredder. First, the really objectionable page:

This is the first you know of the alleged contravention. You have the legal right to contest it which seems to not count for much. Imagine your Council Tax bill arrived with the following warnings:

That is the equivalent leaflet. It is all true but extremely unlikely and an excessive and grossly bullying warning when your bill has only just arrived and the first instalment won't be due for 3 weeks. Mr Mustard thinks if that leaflet went out with the Council Tax bills this year the second poll tax riots would occur and the leaflet would not be used again.

Now, the final page of so-called Frequently Asked Questions which are made up by TfL:

The only new part of these FAQ is the How to Avoid PCNs which is, to be fair, useful. Everything else is within the PCN so the same information is provided with different wordings which is simply a recipe for confusion and is wasting the time of the public to wade through all this guff.

TfL should not fetter their discretion by saying they are unlikely to cancel for reason 'x' - they have to consider on its own merits each and every challenge that is made.

Mr Mustard hopes that wiser counsel prevails at TfL and they change the PCN and extra documents to something more succinct and necessary.

The end. 

TfL bully boys ?

 

This PCN is the first that Mr Mustard has seen with this new layout. If TfL find it improves the rate of payment you can be sure that other enforcement authorities in London will follow suit. To Mr Mustard's mind the red section is all wrong.

Certain information on a PCN is statutory and anything else can be added by TfL. The enforcement process items it must contain are the full price of the penalty and the 50% discounted price. It must also tell you that if you do not pay or make representations within 28 days of service (=receipt) that TfL may increase the balance by 50% and send you a charge certificate to that effect.

Given the parlous state of the payment system the PCN may not arrive very quickly and it could easily be 4,5 or 6 days before you receive it especially as first class post is no longer mandatory for this type of PCN (which is a backward step given the state of the Royal Mail). Therefore, TfL should not put a fixed date (2 October) within the PCN which could make you think you are out of time when you are still within it. Mr Mustard posted a Power of Attorney to his Solicitor recently that took 8 days to reach Godalming, by first class post. He could have cycled there and back in 2. Keep the envelope in which your PCN was sent if you want to ask Mr Mustard about the PCN.

What bothers Mr Mustard even more are the next two red sections for Debt Registration and Enforcement Agent (bailiff). No-one sensible ignores a PCN but the assumption should be that the recipient will choose to deal with it. This just looks like bullying to Mr Mustard. He needs to obtain the other 3 pages of the PCN and the 2 pages of notes before he can decide how unfair the whole thing is but his first reaction is that this is bang out of order.

If you disagree with the PCN make sure you fight it and do it now, don't be a last minute merchant.

More soon.

Just been sent the rest, look at this page. 

From the very start you are being threatened, this is completely unacceptable, you are allowed 28 days in which to act and take advice. Mr Mustard will be fighting this PCN (it has already been at the county court stage once and TfL have cheated so this should end up going away and nowhere near a bailiff) which the recipient of is happy about and will take his chances (Mr Mustard wins 90% of the time) which might cost him an extra £90 but he knows and accepts the low risk.

Yet more soon. 

Added 9 September: Enforcement authorities, such as TfL, are given powers that are discretionary. They have the power to progress your PCN through various stages but the legislation does not say they have to use those powers, each PCn should be considered on an individual basis. To so otherwise and automate progression is an abuse of power and fetters their discretion but all systems are automated to the maximum.

Many enforcement authorities take stock just before the Order for Recovery stage as they have to pay an £11 fee to the Court to proceed. If the motorist then signs a statutory declaration that, for example, the original postal PCN was not received, as in this case, TfL suffer a loss of £11 as the charge reverts to the 100% PCN value. 

If the proposed bailiff screens the PCNs proposed for registration at the TEC and decides they are unlikely to succeed then the authority may not bother to invest the £11 and the PCN will stay stuck where it is. Mr Mustard watches PCNs for a long time, as they sometimes come back to life, including one for Kensington & Chelsea on which the stage hasn't changed since he checked it on 31 December 2024, probably due to their cyber attack.

Suspect suspension

 

A resident, let's call him Mr G, received a PCN at this location on 10 July having observed that the works were complete. What really should happen is that to be helpful to the public the workers should be empowered to take down the sign once works are complete but that doesn't happen in Barnet.

Mr Mustard advised Mr G to ask some questions of the council as he thought the sign looked a bit amateur and not in line with the version authorised by the Secretary of State.

The questions and answers were as follows:

The photos have not been published. However, what appears to have happened is that a certain period of suspension was requested but a different one was advertised. The CEO (traffic warden) isn't to know that, they rely entirely on the erected sign and assume it will be correct and clearly that isn't always the case.

Separately Mr G received another response which quite fairly cancelled the PCN as it wasn't sustainable, the advertised suspension not being the authorised one. Mr Mustard has not known this happen before.

What this tells you is that it is worth asking to see all of the records about the suspension to make sure it was properly arranged as if it wasn't the council will cancel your PCN. Properly typed up 3 sided signs bearing reference numbers are likely to be correct (but could still be wrong) and dodgy looking handwritten signs are the most susceptible to challenge.

You can submit your questions by email to foi@barnet.gov.uk

The end.

 

 

 

Unusual process error in Barnet

 

The above is Claverley Villas in Finchley Central. It has a single yellow line restricted from 2 to 3pm to stop all day parking and local business people park on it a lot and maybe move to avoid the hour or just take a chance. One such local professional person spotted the warden at 2:05pm on 16 February got his keys and scarpered rapidly. A PCN was not placed on the car or in his hand.

Let us call him Mr Bolt. The next thing he knew of a PCN having been issued was the receipt of a Charge Certificate dated 27 April. He had not received a Notice to Owner.

It was open to the council to send a PCN in the post due to the driving away but it seems the 'traffic warden' (CEO) must have recorded it as served at the scene.

If you want to fight there is nothing to do with a Charge Certificate except to wait for the Order for Recovery. That arrived at the end of May. The door is opened at that point to filing a witness statement that the Notice to Owner (or postal PCN) was not received. A signed witness statement was duly filed on 29 May that a Notice to Owner was not received. 

The Traffic Enforcement centre cancels the Charge Certificate and authorises the council to serve a fresh Notice to Owner. It duly arrived dated 16 June 26. Mr Mustard looked at it and was confused. It alleged that the vehicle in question was parked in a restricted street (i.e. one with a yellow line) being Claverley Villas but on 6 March 2026 at 09:51

There were two errors there, the council had no photos taken on 6 March and it isn't a contravention to park on that single yellow at 09:51

Someone had used some fancy footwork at the council and got two different processes mixed together. Mr Mustard was pushing at an open door when he made the representation denying the date and time. Barnet Council rapidly caved in.

Funny stuff, detail, it has to be correct. This was a new error which Mr Mustard had not seen in his 17 years of fighting PCNs. 

 

Newham Council are Cheats - #54

 

This is, pardon my French, a clusterfcuk

What Mr Dada has demonstrated is the advantage of good planning and preparation and presenting a clear, simple argument which is well documented. That makes it easy for the adjudicator to find in your favour.

This isn't one of Mr Mustard's cases but there is enough description for him to identify the bay in question.

Looking on google the far bay is also one without a sign which must be cluster 1.

The adjudicator noted the presence of single yellow lines which bookend cluster 3 in the middle of this square. They should not be there as they can only be placed at the edge of a carriageway.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, Newham need to do better. Mr Mustard presumes this is to stop motorists parking in invisible spaces 6 or zero (i.e. at each end of the 5 bays) but no lines are required to enforce if someone parks that way, they will have their entire vehicle more than 50cm from the edge of the carriageway and not within a marked out bay so a PCN can be issued for that.

Back to the PCN in question. There being no sign adjacent to the bay in which Mr Dada parked he was at liberty to park there for free and a warning PCN would have been unfair. What Newham should do when they erect the new sign is to make a note of all vehicles in those 5 spaces at that time and not ticket them until they have left and returned (if they do, making note of tyre valve positions facilitates that knowledge).

The traffic warden (CEO) having taken a photo of a sign from a different bay had cheated and the back office had reinforced this by rejecting a perfectly valid representation and then contesting the Appeal at the tribunal. Cheats all of them and found out. 

The end, but not of cheating.

Barnet Council double lash up

 

Mr R was a bit surprised to receive the above PCN when he parked in a location he knew well, on a single yellow line but outside the restricted times, and thought he could sort it out himself given that it was an obvious error.

Mr R made his own informal challenge and was, to his even greater surprise, rejected. At that point he came to Mr Mustard. Here is the absolute load of tosh which was the rejection letter and the usual generous offer to accept £80 for a penalty that is not due (why would you pay that?):

 Here is the car in question and the bay sign.

You can just see a hint of a single yellow line in front of the car.

Next is an image from google street view which clearly shows the vehicle was to the left of the sign and the disabled bay is to the right. The photos taken by the CEO ('traffic warden'), whether by accident or design, didn't include any which showed the painted legend 'DISABLED' on the carriageway.

Here is an older google image which also makes the situation clear. These images can of course be looked at by back office staff of the council (or its contractor APCOA).

All of the parking restrictions in the borough of Barnet are recorded on a map based system which is freely available to the public here and this shows exactly where the disabled bay is located. A traffic warden in doubt could equally look at that and it ought to be on his hand held equipment based upon the co-ordinates of where he is standing at that time.

Note that the rejection letter states that the car was parked outside no. 10 and clearly the disabled bay is outside no. 12

The problem was quickly fixed by Mr Mustard logging the formal representations and sending two complaints to the parking manager who, to his credit, always responds pretty quickly and usually agrees with Mr Mustard. What other choice did he have here? The two complaints were about the actions of both the CEO and the back office and the PCN was cancelled a week later. For a nervous type this could all have been too much and Mr Mustard knows that completely wrong PCNs do get paid by people who can't afford to pay 100% if they are wrong, who think the council must be correct despite the evidence of their own eyes, or whose knees buckle at the slightest hint of trouble. Mr Mustard isn't one of those types.

The two big questions about this PCN are:

1. How the heck did the CEO get this wrong ? 

2. Does the back office reject all informal challenges without looking at the facts as they know many people will give up at that stage ?

Is there cynical behaviour inside the council PCN factories ? You decide.

The end. 

 

 

 

Hammersmith & Fulham Council - delay: avoidable & otherwise

 

On 30 June you lend your car to a friend to pop to the chemists for you and they drive this way as they are from overseas, don't know the area very well and have cognitive dissonance when it comes to open roads which aren't open. The blue must go left sign doesn't help.

On 10 July H&F issue a PCN by post. The motorist sends it to Mr Mustard.

On 26 July Mr Mustard makes the formal representations on line. He then watches and waits whilst checking the PCN value each week so he might know if something happens (not a foolproof system).

On 14 November H&F decide to reject the representation. There is a 56 day time limits for parking PCNs but not for moving traffic ones. The council need to act with reasonable expedition.

On 2 December Mr Mustard starts a tribunal Appeal, one of his points is the unreasonable delay (motorists never getting more than 28 days to do anything).

The tribunal set a hearing date of 13 May . At least 5 days before then it is the duty of H&F to provide the tribunal with all of the paperwork. There is a completely redacted email on 2 May about the case but the contents are top secret for some unknown and unfathomable reason.

On 4 May H&F produce the evidence pack. They have to serve it by post on Mr Mustard as he can legally insist on printed evidence.

On 5 May H&F manage to get it into the post.

Mr Mustard was working away from home and so only received it when he returned on Saturday 9 May after a 200 mile drive. Dealing with it had to wait for a short while.

On Monday 11 May he filed the skeleton argument which was certainly faster moving than H&F. What he didn't know about was the emailing going on about him at H&F which has only recently come to light & is a post-mortem of the hearing.

 

Mr Mustard has asked H&F to note that he is not and does not claim to be a solicitor. The complaint that he asks for a PCN to be cancelled if the evidence pack isn't sent to him but to the motorist is because the tribunal ask the Appellant (the motorist) to provide their proper address for service. Naturally and quite properly Mr Mustard uses his home address as most motorists are overwhelmed by 50-100 page evidence packs. That comment by H&F displays their ignorance of procedure and law.

It is wrong that Mr Mustard does not submit arguments. You have to tick a box stating the category of your argument in order to start an Appeal at the tribunal. He does add extra arguments if they arise from the evidence pack, he would be failing the motorist if he didn't. The law allows for that.

At the hearing an employee of H&F started by trying to get the skeleton argument struck out but the adjudicator was having none of it, it being clear it had been produced in very short order indeed. The delay by H&F however, was fatal to the PCN:

 

Finally, Mr Mustard does not look for loopholes as suggested. He looks for mistakes by councils and as H&F abundantly demonstrate, they make loads of them.

If and when he is sent the unredacted internal emails, there will be another blog. Doubtless the emails paint Mr Mustard in as black a light as the redacting ink. 

Hammersmith & Fulham Council: following Mr M for ages

 

Following on from an interesting PCN tribunal hearing in May 2026 which tried to paint Mr Mustard in a bad light, Mr Mustard asked to see all emails which mentioned him, in the parking department, from 1 January 2025. He didn't expect there to be any from 2025 as he doesn't fight many H&F Council PCNs, he has records of 12 in 9 years. Here is the PCN in question.

That location description should be much simpler, who knows that CANw stands for Clean Air Neighbourhood west? (not many people). 

Why did Mr Mustard 'complain' about the signage? as it was turned away and couldn't therefore be seen by a driver.

Of course he will 'complain' (make representations about inadequacy) about the signage if it is invisible to drivers and leads then into error. He would not be representing his client very well if he didn't do so.

What H&F forgot whilst poking at Mr Mustard's behaviour is that there is a legal duty on them to erect and maintain adequate signage. 

They need to put their own house in order before they write sniffy internal emails about Mr Mustard who barely bothers H&F.

More to follow on this topic later given that an unredacted copy of the email has been requested, reasons for the redactions not having been given.

(Mr Mustard is not and has never claimed to be a 'lawyer' in the legally qualified sense of the word.  Elsewhere H&F described him as a 'solicitor' and he has objected to both descriptions being in their records which should only contain accurate data).

A costly bank statement

 

Mr Mustard had his attention drawn to this tribunal case by another expert. Both play with a straight bat with the tribunal as anything else would undermine your future credibility. Mr Mustard has accidentally said things which turned out not to be true and if that comes to light he puts his hand up during the hearing to admit he was wrong and to explain why or even in a later hearing with the same adjudicator. That is why his unsupported word as to facts can be accepted.

Not so in this case. One problem for the motorist is that if there were a league table of enforcement authorities and their diligence with PCNs Camden Council would generally be in the top 3.

The initial Appeal hearing did not go well for the motorist (often in the Court system an Appeal is against an earlier Court decision but in PCN circles it is an Appeal against the council's refusal to cancel).

The payment was thought of as a user error. The story could have stopped there with £160 to be paid. The motorist decided to ask for a 'Review'. These are rarely granted as that is how the system is designed because one hearing is proportionate to the penalty at issue. That hearing went badly for the motorist.

A back pedalling motorist isn't a good look. It looks like a narrow escape to me. Camden Council however, had done a lot of work and although costs are, by law, rarely awarded, they had put a lot of work in and wanted a contribution. There therefore had to be yet another hearing and the motorist was still keen to be heard:

The motorist's behaviour was found to be 'wholly unreasonable' which is one of the legal tests, frivolous or vexatious being the others.

Trying to hoodwink an adjudicator is pretty stupid, they do hundreds of PCN Appeals. They also have to be legally qualified and have been so for 5 years before they are eligible to become an adjudicator, they have doubtless assessed lots of evidence during their careers and won't easily be fooled. Just tell the truth and pay your PCN if you are bang to rights.

The end.

Double trouble

 

Barnet High Street, towards the common, had been left to get in a terrible state with potholes everywhere and lines absolutely worn away. You can't be sure if this is where a bay is meant to be marked or if there is a single yellow line nor where one changes to the other. In such a situation no PCN should be issued but of course it was, to Miss B who takes advantage of free parking when she can.

The receipt of the PCN is unclear, Mr Mustard came to this at the Notice to Owner stage. It was dated 17 February 2026

 

Mr Mustard posted the formal representations off on 24 February. Barnet Council get 56 days, by law, in which to respond.

Come 26 March nothing had been heard in response to the representation, that the lines, whatever they were, were too far gone. What did arrive, and this had never happened before, was a second Notice to Owner, which Mr Mustard felt must be a procedural impropriety which is a guaranteed cancellation at the tribunal:

 

Fortunately Mr Mustard has the ear of a parking manager, even if the manager doesn't like anything arriving in it, but he nearly always reacts very quickly and fixes things which are wrong. Mr Mustard suspected this was a software error at APCOA who had taken over enforcement on 1 December 2025 and just 3 days after the pointed out the unusual event the PCN was zero and Mr Mustard was told the matter was being looked into. 

It can't have been a large number of errors as otherwise more people would have come to Mr Mustard.

The end.

Lack of diplomacy in Westminster

 

One of the benefits of over a decade of PCN fighting experience is that experts get to know arcane information. Mr Mustard knows than an enforcement authority, such as the City of Westminster, has the legal right to suspend parking bays but only for the reasons they write in their traffic orders. Common reasons include people moving home, filming, street events, scaffolding & building works, crane works and the like. Mr Mustard couldn't recall having read an Order which allowed for parking to be suspended so that diplomats could park (presumably somewhere different to usual). It isn't really necessary as they often don't pay their PCNs in any event so they may as well just have been left to park as best they could.

Mr Mustard decided that Miss W wasn't going to be paying the PCN she was given at twenty past midnight, a time when the 9 diplomats were not likely to be in the office in any event. Miss W had been to watch a film, ironically called Predator : Badlands which turned out to be set in Westminster

 

Mr Mustard made the informal challenge on 11 November which was as follows:

The rejection of the informal challenge was issued 8 days later and completely failed to deal with the only argument that had been made:

This is a typical method of trying to fool the public. Write a load of stuff which is true but irrelevant, sophistry in action but not sophisticated and it gets nowhere with Mr Mustard. In fact it helps him as the legal duty on the authority is to consider the representations which were made not ones which were not made.

Mr Mustard asked Miss W to trust him and to send him the Notice to Owner once received. She did so after it was issued on 6 January. On 9 January Mr Mustard made the formal representation.  All Mr Mustard had to do was change the heading from 'Informal challenge' to 'Formal Representations' and change the date at the bottom, the content of the representation was identical.

The rejection was slightly different and went on for longer but it still dodged the only argument that had been raised:

 

Mr Mustard and Miss W swapped some messages:

Mr M:  Had a few minutes gap at work so read the letter. Westminster have not answered the only point I made which is that they have not given themselves the right to suspend a space for diplomats so I would hope to win at the tribunal but can't guarantee it. If I lose the 50% discount goes but I think as a principle we should fight. I do all the tribunal paperwork.

Miss W: Ah okay hmm if you think it’s worth a shot let’s go for it. Have you come across a case like this before do they normally get thrown out?

Mr M:  This is a first but that may be because not many people fight back like I do. I often create new Appeals that are revolutionary and then followed by other experts and vice versa

Miss W: Thanks. I’m open to fighting it, but realistically what do you think the chances are? I just want to weigh that against losing the discount.

Mr M: Chances are 90% win.

So off we went to the tribunal on 12 February 2026. This PCN had moved pretty rapidly through the process.

Grounds of Appeal: The Notice of Rejection contains nothing in response to the argument that the council had no legal right to issue the PCN. That is a procedural impropriety.

There is currently a delay in obtaining a hearing at London Tribunals which is being worked on but Mr Mustard doesn't mind, it gives motorists time to save up in case they might lose. The hearing date set was 10 August 2026.

Miss W had a good attitude: Thanks, I’ve never seen this process before so quite interesting to see it unfold. Appreciate it!

Mr Mustard missed it at the time, as he has 50 tribunal Appeals running concurrently but on 10 June the City of Westminster decided to throw in the towel.

The Council no longer wish to contest this appeal and the PCN has been cancelled.

Mr Mustard surmised that they didn't want a tribunal decision against them on this point as although it isn't a precedent it would make their position precarious for future cases and that they will carry on suspending bays for this reason and issuing PCNs unlawfully.

There was no traffic management purpose to this PCN it was a pure revenue raising tool. Justice has been served. Westminster lost £32 on this (the approximate tribunal fee).

The end.

Barnet Council ignore their own error

 

Miss P went to Mill Hill Broadway. She parked in bay 9499 but she paid for the wrong vehicle. She received a PCN

Mr Mustard looked at all of the photos which the 'traffic warden' had taken. He knew they weren't of Station Road, NW7 but of The Broadway at Mill Hill.

Dental Wellness of Mill Hill are visible in the background, their address is 46 The Broadway, NW7. Mr Mustard checked location 9499 on the PayByPhone App, the location was 67 The Broadway.

Mr Mustard smiled, the PCN was a dead duck.

Mr Mustard made the informal challenge, as the first challenge in response to a PCN is called.

One problem with contracting out to so-called experts is that they aren't anywhere near Barnet (APCOA have an office in Wigan) so don't know Mill Hill from Millwall. They could have checked the bay location in the same way as Mr Mustard did but that would have taken diligence, which went missing.

The rejection ignores the difficult fact about location which 100% must be accurate and focusses on the lack of payment which wasn't challenged. APCOA, the sub-contractor, knew that Mr Mustard was acting so they should also know they were merely putting off the inevitable.

As he often does when contractors go wrong Mr Mustard emailed a parking manager at Barnet Council. 

Usually the manager responds in 24 - 48 hours but not this time. Mr Mustard was content to let the process run its course.

The Notice to Owner arrived. The location had been slightly amended since the PCN was issued, which is irregular. It now said 'Station Road, NW7 , Mill Hill' but that didn't make the address correct and so the same blank denial was put forward as formal representations.

It only took 4 days and the council responded

This time the council admit their error, which is as it should be. There was no explanation as to why the same challenge was rejected at the earlier stage, it wouldn't be the need to raise money would it?

The does not set a precedent line is a waste of ink, every location the council get wrong is a good ground for cancellation.

The end.