Beam me up Scotty

Mr Mustard is indebted to a PCN client who reads The Archer

www.the-archer.co.uk

and to The Archer (good for all news of East Finchley) themselves for giving permission to reproduce the following article from their February 16 monthly newspaper.

To add some detail, it is common for instant PCN to be given which completely lacks common-sense or fairness but the traffic warden must speed on his/her way to issue as many PCN as humanly possible, even though there aren't targets, no sirree.

Barnet Parking Services are not in Sheffield, a scanning machine is. Back Office parking is in Croydon (of course) senior management are in the North London Business Park (for now) and traffic wardens are based in Solar House in North Finchley. Joined up government if ever there was any. Oh yes, and permits seem to be processed by Capita in Coventry although that isn't very clear at present.

Eva is bang on the money.

The adjudicator, as quoted above, was correct and was much milder than some adjudicators on the subject of getting a visitor permit beamed from a property to a car without human help (perhaps we will all soon have to own a drone to send the voucher down to the car?).

The council are obliged to accept the decision of the adjudicator unless he applied the law wrongly which he didn't so they were stuck and had no say in the matter, they just have to suck it up.

The council will still use this stupid idea in their letters of rejection. Be like Eva, fight them to the end, it costs the council c. £33 in tribunal fees. If you need help with a similar PCN please email copies to mrmustard@zoho.com

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

(PO) Boxed into a corner

no value in writing to Worthing

The above address is the return address from an envelope that came with a Notice to Owner in the last few days. It is very odd as the Notice has an address to send your challenge to of PO Box 197, Lowton Way, Hellaby, Sheffield S98 1LW and so we could reasonable expect the envelope to bear the same address.

Now either NSL haven't told their printers (they outsource bulk printing of documents as far as Mr Mustard can see, to a company called Infinity Print?) or NSL or the printer has acted like cheapskates and decided to use up the existing stock of envelopes rather than waste them (they could be given to charity to find a use for).

Why does it matter? It matters because if a document is sent to you by NSL on behalf of Barnet Council which you don't receive it will take an age, if ever, to be returned via the special sorting office for undelivered post at Royal Mail Belfast to the Sheffield address inside. If you end up filing an out-of-time witness statement due to non-receipt of a vital document the council, acting by their agent, NSL will file a statement of truth that mail sent by them was not returned undelivered. It was impossible for the item to be returned if the PO box on the envelope was no longer in use. This is the sort of truth which is not the whole truth.

Mr Mustard thinks that the Worthing PO Box has been quietly abandoned as the test item he sent there by the 1st Class Signed for service on 17 July 14 has not yet been delivered.

If you have written to this Worthing address in the last month send your letter again to the Sheffield one as it is going to go into a black hole. If you have had an item returned please send copies to Mr Mustard so we can work out when the PO Box was closed as Mr Mustard suspects it has been for some time. Mr Mustard also asked the Royal Mail to confirm the delivery address and they couldn't find a live record for the PO Box in Worthing.

He rather thought that this was just an NSL (or their agent) failing but finds the council to be equally behind the times. He looked up their website and look, no mention of Sheffield! The address on the link will change as soon as Barnet Parking read this blog page so Mr Mustard has cut the address out of it as it stands today:

So you are not getting 100% consistent information from either NSL or the council. It's a poor show.

What should have happened is that the council should have had a pop-up box or flashing information panel about the new address on the PCN web entry page and a cautionary note should have been enclosed with every communication on a piece of coloured paper so it doesn't get missed. It isn't too late for the council to make partial amends by doing this now. The council also need to accept as valid any representations that were sent to Worthing in error when the motorist didn't see that their PCN said Worthing and the Notice to Owner said Sheffield.

Silence which leads to motorist error is simply not good enough. A Rabbi fell foul of the fax machine being withdrawn overnight in 2012 and he sent 4 faxes for all of which he got delivery receipts and the council denied receipt of all 4. He ended up paying the bailiff. Don't find yourself in the same boat.

If the entire parking service was managed in-house Mr Mustard feels sure that this change of address would have been carried out in a more joined up manner.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Address - the problem

PARSEQ, Lowton Way, Hellaby, Sheffield

When the parking contract with NSL started on 1 May 12 the start had been delayed by a month so that their partner company RR Donnelley, who did the scanning of incoming correspondence, could be added to the pension scheme as a provider. Their partnership seems to have been short-lived, at least as far as Barnet is concerned, as no longer is the address on PCNs and Notices to Owner etc. this one 

PO Box 4894, Worthing, BN11 9WT

but this one

PO Box 197, Lowton Way, Hellaby, Sheffield, S98 1LW.

This change was never announced as such, there was no shouting from the rooftops, and it is vital that you write to the correct address as one day, and it may have already arrived, post sent to Worthing will simply be ignored and your opportunity to challenge your parking ticket (PCN) will be lost. You will become guilty by default and your PCN will be registered as a debt at the Traffic Enforcement Centre (part of Northampton County Court) and sent to bailiffs.

You might think this wouldn't happen and that if you showed Barnet Council that you had written to Worthing they would reconsider but Mr Mustard very much doubts it, they would point to the Sheffield address on the last document you received, which you didn't notice had quietly changed and blame you. This happened in 2013 to a customer who faxed his challenges to the fax number he always used to use and Barnet Council deny receipt of any of the 4 faxes despite the motorist, a man of the cloth, having proof of the faxes getting through.

Welcome to the miserable world of parking tickets.

Do please write now to Sheffield. If in doubt, send the same letter to Worthing. Whenever you write to the council parking department, use the signed for service (£1.72) as then your document is less likely to be "lost" inside the huge building. Documents don't get lost so much as scanned to the wrong file.

It isn't mentioned on official documents but challenges can also be sent to barnet@nslservices.co.uk which is the method that Mr Mustard always employs. He almost never uses the webform on the council's website as it is a straitjacket and you can't file what you wrote in with your emails in the usual way.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard