Slow in Southwark

 

Amazing, two years without a permit although the car might have been in the garage or elsewhere when the traffic wardens came calling.

Why do permits only last for a year? Why not give out permits that are valid for as long as you own the car to partly encourage people to change their car less often? Also, permits shouldn't be used as a profit centre when something went wrong with the administration, the whole point of parking zones is to protect residents not to penalise them.

The tribunal website used to show if a council subsequently cancelled or not but not any longer so we don't know what happened next.

The end.

Emailing into nowhere

For at least a couple of years, the email address of Barnet Council's parking permits section has been parking.permits@barnet.gov.uk and it is, in fact, still being put on letters which have your new permit attached, viz:

from a May 15 letter

Now, a reasonable resident might just conclude they could therefore contact the parking permit section by email and many of you have done just that. You have been whistling in the wind as those emails do not get a response because the address is configured for outgoing email only. Mr Mustard has been told that an undeliverable message will automatically be generated.

Now you know Mr Mustard, he likes to test things himself, so he sent an email. He also put delivery and read receipt requests on it. It was delivered, doh!

No-one is looking at them though, delivered or not.

The permit system has been the subject of more than one change since Capita took over. No positive communications explaining this have been pro-actively sent out with residents left to find out the hard way when they don't get a permit nor a response and extra PCN are being issued some of which will end up being paid (not if you go via Mr Mustard they won't) as some people with busy lives just want quiet lives. Coupling a defective email address with a lack of permit renewal reminders is a double whammy and extra income for the council.

So halfway through this blog post and Mr Mustard does get a message

which does seem perfectly reasonable except for all those words at the bottom "blocked:" which makes him think he won't get a cheery little hello back from Crapita in Coventry.

What you do need to do if you have sent documents to that email address is to phone 020 8359 7446 or go to this link and upload your documents rather than email them. You will need your PIN number which you might have to phone up for as no previously allocated reference number for you seems to last 12 months.

If you haven't got your permit also ask for a dispensation and then put a reminder in your phone as you need a new one every 14 days.

It would be much better if the council opened contact points in libraries where this sort of thing could be applied for in person, your documents could be checked and loaded by a council employee and your permit could be printed out on the spot. But that would be to put the needs of residents first which is only an empty mantra, not actuality.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The post Holiday blues

So you travel the world to places like India and Egypt where you don't have to worry about parking tickets and can learn things and soak up the local atmosphere. You meet friendly locals, relax, enjoy the local cuisine and drinks, improve yourself by visiting the wonders of the world and you don't worry about your car thousands of miles away as it is outside the house in the residents bay - what could possibly go wrong?

What could go wrong is that the council didn't send you a permit reminder and it expired before or during your holiday. Mr Mustard has already sorted out one such problem for a teacher in his road and is now challenging two PCN for a second neighbour, a college Head of Department.

The more notable cases though did go abroad on holiday. The first one, a respected pillar of the community, came back and didn't use his car straight away and so didn't see the 3 PCN for a few days. Mr Mustard has sorted them out with the parking manager (you dear reader will have to take your chances with NSL through the usual process unless you care to ask Mr Mustard for help which will be freely given) and discovered that there were actually 4 PCN which had been issued.

The second multiple PCN case was for a businessperson who is very busy with their business in central London. They knew their permit had expired, renewed it and obtained a dispensation which had expired before the permit arrived; a complete mess. They also had 3 PCN and dealt with them themselves and bent the ear of the local councillor who they know reasonably well. Their 3 PCN were cancelled as were the other 4 that they didn't know about.

What Mr Mustard noticed from the 3 PCN he dealt with, once he had downloaded all the photos, was that the number of PCN envelopes in the photos as the days passed by did not go 1,2,3,4 as they should have done. Mr Mustard has noticed lots of individual PCN go missing and that means that the motorist misses out on the opportunity of a 50% reduction if they should choose to pay. What Mr Mustard suspects is that if a traffic warden comes along he might examine the previous PCN (or hunt through 4 or 5 plastic wallets for the most recent) which he/she is allowed to do but that they don't all put them back, they may pocket an earlier one or two. Of course if they open a plastic wallet and put the PCN back in it, it may be open to the weather and get ruined. Some PCN are not stuck to the screen but merely slipped under the wiper, a practice of which Mr Mustard does not approve.

Having examined an existing PCN another one should not be issued within 24 hours, as that is what the Traffic Management Order says, but frequently are. This should be programmed into the software so that a second PCN cannot be issued within 24 hours. Is it any surprise that the default is to issue rather than to not issue?

Mr Mustard's experience is that if the council (NSL) didn't cancel them all and that you ended up at PATAS an adjudicator would, at the worst, treat the car being parked for a week and getting 7 PCN, as having committed one continuous offence and cancel all PCN except the first one and properly argued with evidence of previous year's reminders from the council also cancel the first one on the grounds of reasonable expectation. A total penalty of £770, for going on holiday for a week, does not fit the crime (it isn't a crime but a decriminalised penalty). The parking manager does not agree but he doesn't spend as long reading PATAS reports as Mr Mustard does.

The council need a change of system. One phone call should set a dispensation, put an immediate electronic marker on the traffic warden's equipment, cancel all PCN since the permit expired and get the replacement permit emailed or posted to the resident. that would be putting the resident first.

It won't happen, of course.

This sort of nonsense with permits and PCN is one reason why the council scores so badly in the residents' perception survey when it comes to parking.

Just to check that Mr Mustard's street wasn't being picked on he went for a walk in Finchley and checked a road of 130 houses which had 80 cars parked in it. The very first car had a permit which expired on 3 July 14 and a dispensation number in the window.

A further one had a dispensation as the permit was awaited.

A third car had a PCN and a note saying a blue badge was awaited.

So 4% of cars had a problem that was permit related. If that is repeated across the borough there are hundreds of people with permit problems.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Permits - Is that your final answer?

Barnet Council are shockingly bad at figures. Here are part of the answers sent to the CPZ Action Group in respect of Resident Parking permits. The answers were from two different officers, the more senior one first and then a junior one.

The answer dated 28 December 2011

2011/12 (to date)
Number of residents permits sold = 9,510

2010/11
Number of residents permits sold  = 13,453

The answer dated 31 January 2012

18/04/2011 to 07/01/2012
Number of residents permits sold = 8,825

2010/11 -  01/04/2010 to 31/03/2011
Number of residents permits sold  = 13,453

Let us put these numbers in a table and project the annual sales on a straight line basis.

From	To	Number	Days	Per day	Full year
01/04/2011	28/12/2011	9,510	272	34.96	12,762
18/04/2011	07/01/2012	8,825	265	33.30	12,155

So how many were sold in the year ended 31 March 2011?

13,453 according to the two FOI answers.

13,056 according to Brian Coleman in a written answer. An officer will have looked the answer up for him.

Mr Mustard is having trouble believing any figures that come from Barnet Council. He can't think of a good reason why permits would go down from 09/10 to 10/11 as the price didn't change in those 2 years so is more inclined to accept the 13,453. If that is correct then the number of sales projected for 2011/12 are down by either 5% or by nearly 10% dependant upon which of the full year numbers in the table above is nearer to the truth.

What is crystal clear though ( unless every statistic is wrong and that would be just plain embarrassing ) is that sales of annual permits to residents have reduced and this is an understandable effect of increasing the price by 150%. Somewhere in the range of 700 to 1300 residents have simply not renewed their permits.

There people will either be parking at the edge of the zone ( the Saint Albans Road is now always heavily parked up ) or are parking in their front garden instead which is making the borough a less green place. Barnet Council is very lax when it comes to allowing parking in front gardens with the requirement seen in almost every other borough to have a space the size of a typical saloon not being the case in Barnet and, if the top of Totteridge Lane is a guide, with cars frequently crammed into small front gardens where there isn't a lowered kerb and also with the body of the car overhanging the pavement to the detriment of the blind, pushchair and wheelchair users, enforcement does not occur. It is also an eyesore which is a surprise to see tolerated in the Totteridge ward.

So there we have it. Why it is called OneBarnet when there is never just the one answer is beyond Mr Mustard.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Form an orderly queue now !

The stupid cashless system of Barnet, ill conceived and badly implemented, is based upon Westminster, a central London borough which is completely different to Barnet. Sorry, Curzon Mayfair but Mr Mustard and his arty film loving friend aren't coming anywhere near you, on a Sunday or of an evening, until they can again park for free. We will vote with our wheels and go elsewhere. 

Mr Mustard has already blogged about how one can simply insert your credit or debit card into a machine in Westminster without registering with some faceless corporation. Not so in Barnet.

Barnet Cllr Brian Coleman is quoted as saying "We are going completely cashless. It's a common sense modern approach to parking. It works perfectly well in Westminster."

However, today's blog is about the councillor who is bringing in changes to parking in Westminster. In the Evening Standard of 10 November 2011 Cllr Lee Rowley of Westminster is reported on as follows:

He earns £19,000 a year as a cabinet member but handed back a permit letting him park free in any Westminster residents bay while on official business. He says he had no use for it and preferred to apy for his own parking. 

So councillors & MPs of Barnet please do the same if you are to accurately follow the lead of Westminster.

The following hold a permit or two:

Cllr Brian Coleman ( as representative of the GLA )
Cllr Andrew Strongolou
Cllr Helena Hart
Cllr Joan Scannell
Cllr Barry Evangeli
Cllr Monroe Palmer
Cllr Sury Khatri - 2 permits !
Cllr Graham Old
Cllr John Hart
Cllr Daniel Seal
Cllr Richard Cornelius
Cllr Stephen Sowerby
Cllr Rowan Turner
Cllr Brian Schama - 1 permit with 2 vehicle registrations !
Cllr Mark Shooter
Cllr Sachin Rajput
Cllr Brian Salinger
Cllr Andrew Harper
Cllr Joanna Tambourides
Cllr Lisa Rutter
Cllr Darrel Yawitch
Cllr Brian Gordon

There are also MPs who hold a permit.

Theresa Villiers MP

Matthew Offord MP

Mike Freer MP holds two permits

So please form an orderly queue ladies and gentlemen and hand your permits back in to Barnet Council so that you can experience for yourself the hideous administrative hoops that the typical resident or visitor to Barnet has to go through in order to manage the simple task of parking their car.

Until you do this you will be out of touch with the man or woman in the street. Come on, don't dilly dally, if it is such a wonderful system, even a councillor or MP will be able to cope. What's keeping you?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard