Southwark Council - bus lane PCN template error

 

A short bus lane in Southwark Bridge Road

There are a few professional PCN fighters who link up in disparate loose ways. One such is Phillip Morgan and Mr Mustard has to raise his hat to him for his work on bus lanes in Southwark.

 

Council blunders simply never stop even when all they have to do is to copy some words out of the legislation.

 

It was Phillip who spotted Southwark's major blunder in that the words on their PCN were simply not correct thus rendering a PCN a meaningless piece of paper.

Here is a copy of the Freedom of Information response he was sent in August 25:

Full credit to Southwark Council for throwing in the towel (they had to be prodded a few times before they were forced to do this) but a news report elsewhere tells Mr Mustard that the contractor picked up the tab. If a contractor can swallow a hit of half a million pounds they are being overpaid for the services supplied?

There will doubtless be another blunder along soon.

The end. 

Sodded about by Southwark Council

Mr Mustard's client wasn't in a lorry but parked here perhaps because she had before when it was ok. As always he checked the rules in case there was a technical problem. The rules are map based in Southwark as they are in many boroughs these days and didn't disclose a loading bay at the location and so he challenged the PCN

 

 

The informal challenge was rejected.

Note the absence of any consideration of the traffic order in the response, the sign must tell drivers what the rules are, it can't be installed without underlying rules.

The Notice to Owner was patiently awaited and the same grounds were put forward.

This was a clearer way of expressing the challenge.

Good news that the PCN was cancelled although that was nothing to do with goodwill, why would a council show goodwill to a car driver getting in the way of a lorry driver trying to go about his work? Most people would stop there but Mr Mustard isn't happy being spoon-fed a load of tosh. If the mapping is the traffic order it cannot be both right and wrong. Mr Mustard therefore dragged the FOI/EIR team into the case. It is handy that they have to reply as getting a reply from parking once a PCN is closed is hard work.

The reply came and referred him to the source he had seen.

'Streets' is not as good as 'Traffweb' which other boroughs use.

Back went Mr Mustard for a proper response.

More nonsense followed:

There are no words setting the rules for particular locations, they are on the map, so back Mr Mustard went asking the vital question:

 

An attempt to baffle Mr Mustard by introducing yet another map system which he hadn't looked at or mentioned. It didn't work:

See how calm Mr Mustard was in the face of being led a merry dance. He asked the central question afresh and asked a very closed, yes or no, question. Finally we got there.

So finally we know, the signs are wrong and will be replaced.

Now you know the value of persistence which runs through Mr Mustard.

if you worry about the discount this is a good example of why you shouldn't. Had the motorist paid up then the council would have enjoyed an unjust enrichment of £80 (the 50% rate) and so all motorists should be trying to work out at the earliest stage exactly what their chances are and then sticking it out until they are proved correct. In this case we didn't have to go as far as the tribunal perhaps because Southwark Council know Mr Mustard well from meeting and opposing him at the tribunal (the meetings folk are fair, just their back office colleagues who are a bit below par based on this case) so that did save some time. Southwark also saved themselves from wasting the 330 tribunal fee.

If you are correct, stand your ground.

The end. 

Councils need to watch out for enthusiastic amateurs - Philip Morgan in this case

Mr Mustard first encountered Phillip Morgan over a decade ago when Mr Mustard was new to 'parking tickets' (Penalty charge notices) having been given one for the wrong reason. Mr Mustard's thoughts, as a former civil servant and local government temp himself, was that councils wouldn't be doing much wrong. That naivety is long gone. Councils make lots of errors and have not stopped doing so for a decade. Sometimes they correct one error only to introduce a different one.

Parking, bus lane and moving traffic PCNs are all based on different laws and the minutia of the additional Regulations, Orders and Acts set traps for the unwary. For years there were only a couple of individuals who helped the public to fight back and the famous/infamous Barrie Segal has now retired from the fray.

There are now a dozen or more self taught experts who have little time for socialising being as they are, under the burden of hundreds of PCNs at any one time. Lots of them give their time for free on this website.

Until this year there was the choice at London Tribunals, the home of the independent adjudicators of having a postal hearing based on the papers alone (a bad a choice as the single justice procedure in the Magistrates Courts) or, if you really wanted to win, an in person hearing in Furnival St in the Chancery Lane area (the legal district of London) where you basically sat across the desk from the adjudicator and argued your case (techncially you assist the adjudicator to make his/her decision).

After the hearings were concluded & if another expert happened to be there on the same day and you both had finished you might repair to a local hostelry and toast your successess and drown your failures. Thus it was that Mr Mustard would sit and chat with Phillip and talk about PCNs and anything else in the world. Nowadays with all hearings by video there is less opportunity.

Sometimes experts don't agree and you try to dissuade them from their chosen course but all the experts are headstrong and likely to stick to their guns.

Phillip Morgan though was spot on when he noticed that Southwark Council's bus lane PCNs were issued under the wrong legislation.

Bus Lane enforcement in London came about with The London Local Authorities Act 1996 (as amended since then). The 2003 Act relied upon by Southwark is the primary legislation for alleged moving traffic contraventions (turning left where you shouldn't, stopping in yellow box junctions etc) and the 1991 Act whilst relating to traffic matters and driving penalties wasn't do do with bus lanes and was 5 years too early.

Phillip obtained the penalty income data using the Freedom of Information legislation:

The pedantic answer to Q1 could have been zero but that would have been a silly answer and just caused more work in dealing with the follow up reworded question.

The council was under the threat of a Judicial Review their hand and rather than spend tens of thousands on defending a legal action they wisely decided to refund everyone, a decision doubless helped by their contractor picking up the bill.

 

Mr Mustard thinks the contractor is APCOA, who are about to take over in Barnet as it happens. Mr Mustard will be looking out for their errors.

There is lots of profit in parking. The last published results for Apcoa Parking (UK) Ltd* showed turnover of £124,947,119 a gross profit of £33,982,300 and a profit before tax of £7,438,686 (*not sure if this is the correct APCOA identity but the underlying message is they aren't small and can afford to pay out half a million for a cockup). Mr Mustard wonders if councils generally are driving a hard enough bargain?

Well done Phillip.

The end. 

Surprise in Southwark

 

The above was the informal challenge which Mr Mustard made for a mate of his who is a plumber and works all over London. Whenever possible he asks the customer to obtain parking rights but sometimes it goes wrong or doesn't happen and a PCN arises. Mr Mustard proceeded on the basis that parking had not been paid for which turned out to be correct and incorrect.

The response from Southwark Council was a surprise. They were completely reasonable.

 

A period of 35 minutes is way beyond what an adjudicator would consider as reasonable for the time taken to pay after parking, with reasonableness usually running out around the 5 minute mark and motorists being found against if they left the vehicle in order to pay, even though they may have been on the hunt for a better phone signal.

It is obviously great to have an easy cancellation but Mr Mustard wonders if the sub-plot is that Southwark Council didn't want a substantive decision against them on the sign?

The end.

Southwark Council - would you belief it?

 

In order to send a PCN a council, Southwark in this case, must have a belief that a contravention has occurred.

 

The modern day method of recording possible contraventions is that a computer does it, it then extracts a few seconds of footage, sends off to DVLA for keeper details and then prints out and posts out a PCN.

 

In this big brother system a human being is meant, on behalf of the council, to watch the footage and confirm that a contravention occurred.

As Southwark issued 16,983 bus lane PCNs in the year to 31 March 24 that is an awful lot of tediously boring clips to watch but none should have been issued in Denmark Hill once the markings were eroded to the extent above. Whoever approved this PCN should be sacked but as lease companies will have been paying these on receipt, because the law to transfer is not available for hires of up to 6 months (and transfer for longer agreements requires a degree of permanence in the lease) without looking at them in any detail and gleefully making a load of administrative charges for doing not much, the council cash cow will keep on milking the public.

The operators who are meant to check these clips also should be watching 139,526 moving traffic contraventions (banned turns, yellow box junctions & no motor vehicles low traffic neighbourhoods etc) and must fairly be in a trance by the end of the day if that is all they do.

As Mr Mustard has said before, if patently unlawful PCNs are issued the council should have to give you £130 for each one. A level playing field.

The keeper was in a panic about the PCN and discount as honest people often are. Mr Mustard offered to pay the PCN if it all went wrong in order to bring calm to the situation.

Southwark were quick to see the problem and cancelled at the first time of asking.

 The end.

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.

(Dog) collared after 3 years in Southwark

 

 

 

 

 

Mr Mustard often looks at cases where the adjudicator's decision is to refuse the Appeal but suggest (recommend) to the council that they cancel the PCN (or not collect the sum due under it).

As soon as the first PCN was issued the Reverend, or his wife, should have woken up and put the blue badge in the car and stopped the rot. It is unlikely that the blue badge would have been stolen in the short time it would have taken to obtain a new AD permit on line.

Shocking really, no PCN for three years and then three in a fortnight. Doubtless the council didn't follow up with residents who hadn't transferred from a paper permit to a virtual one. Mr Mustard's experience in Barnet is that they leave you to find out each time the system changes, rather than proactively helping the public.

Southwark should really have proved that they made the Reverend aware of the new system at the time and, given that this bay was installed especially for Mrs Lucas, not treated it as a profit centre but public service went west a long time ago in parking departments.

End.

PCNs - exercise of discretion - #28 Southwark

Coming soon - Mr Mustard's request may have prompted or speeded up this policy.

End.

Gross incompetence

The 18T weight limit sign is clear enough

No enforcement authority sends representatives to the tribunal more often than Southwark. Mr Mustard doesn't fight many Southwark PCNs but expects to see one or two representatives when he does. They are always happy to chat, and good at what they do and Mr Mustard always enjoys it when they turn up & a good clean fight ensues. Honours are pretty even so far.

Now it may be that on the day in question that none of the, at least 4, regular representatives were available but more likely Mr Mustard thinks they realised they were going to lose so didn't waste time attending. Mr Musatrd suddenly thought to check the register. There were two other cases decided on 22 June which were attended between them by 3 different representatives of Southwark Council so staff were available. Bwak Bwak Bwaaak.

Here is the decision which was made on 22 June.

At this scheduled personal hearing the appellant Company were represented by Mr Scott Sharkey but the Enforcement Authority did not attend and were not represented. The Enforcement Authority had previously indicated that they would be attending but have today contacted the Hearing Centre to say that no one will attend.

A contravention can occur if a vehicle is driven so as to fail to comply with a prohibition on certain vehicles.

There appears to be no dispute that the vehicle was in Tower Bridge Road, as shown in the closed circuit television (cctv) images produced by the Enforcement Authority.

The Enforcement Authority state in their case summary “It is not permitted for a vehicle which has a MGW [maximum gross weight] of 18 tonnes to drive through a restriction prohibiting vehicles with a MGW of 18 tonnes, regardless of whether the un-laden weight is lower than the restriction. The line is drawn at the MGW to avoid drivers guessing whether their load at that time is below the restriction and posing what could possibly be a detrimental effect on the road network.”

This is wholly incorrect. The sign at the location shown in the images produced by the Enforcement Authority is a permitted variant of that prescribed by Diagram 622.1A at Item 13 in Part 2 of Schedule 3 to the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 for the restriction that goods vehicles exceeding the maximum gross weight indicated are prohibited.

Indeed, this complies with the A100 GLA Road (Weight Restriction) Traffic Order 2003, Article 4 of which provides that except as provided in Article 6, no person shall cause any goods vehicle the maximum gross weight which exceeds 18 tonnes to enter or proceed in the lengths of road listed.

The plating certificate, a copy of which was supplied to the Enforcement Authority by the Appellant Company and the original of which I have been shown today, confirms that the gross weight of this vehicle is 1800 [kilograms] which is 18 tonnes. (18,000 kilos?)

The Enforcement Authority further state in the case summary “The vehicle had a forklift truck on the back on the vehicle which exceeds the weight limit.” Again, this is incorrect. The gross vehicle weight includes all parts of the vehicle and everything carried on or it in. This is what the term ‘gross’ means.

Considering all the evidence before me carefully I find that the Appellant Company have no case to answer and the Enforcement Authority have failed to show that a contravention could have occurred.

This appeal must be allowed.

Unsurprisingly, the Appellant, a truck company, applied for costs.

Regulation 12(1) of the Road Traffic (Parking Adjudicators) (London) Regulations 1993¸ being the relevant provisions in this regard, provides that the adjudicator shall not normally make an order awarding costs and expenses against any party. The Adjudicator can only make such an award if he is of the opinion that that party has acted frivolously or vexatiously or that his conduct in making, pursuing or resisting an appeal was wholly unreasonable; or against the local authority, where it considers that the disputed decision was wholly unreasonable.

I decided this substantive appeal by making findings of fact and applying the law as it stands.

At the original personal hearing the Appellant Company’s representative made a detailed application for costs in the sum of £199, being £142 for the return fare from Swindon of the representative who attended the hearing that day and three hours preparation for the case, being £57 at the rate of £19 per hour allowed to a self-represented litigant under rule 45.39(5)(b) and rule 46.5(4)(b) of the Civil Procedure Rules.

Regulation 12(2) provides that an order shall not be made under paragraph (1) against a party unless that party has been given an opportunity of making representations against the making of the order. Accordingly, on 25 June 2018 the Enforcement Authority were informed of the application in order to make representations. They have failed to make any.

For the reasons fully set out in my original decision I found that the appellant Company had no case to answer and the Enforcement Authority had failed to show that a contravention could have occurred.

Considering everything before me carefully I find that resisting this appeal was wholly unreasonable.

According, I award costs in the sum sought of £199.
That should make Southwark Council more careful in future.
What they had done was to reject a perfectly reasonable challenge.
Then they opposed a perfectly reasonable Appeal to the tribunal.
They ducked out of the hearing.
They caused an employee to lose most of a day's work travelling to and from Swindon.
They didn't oppose the granting of costs but disrespectfully to the tribunal, did not say so.
Southwark Council got what they deserved.

Professionalism in parking? A long way to go.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

 

Southwark Council accuse Tower Hamlets of moneymaking

Moneymaking, perish the thought.

Mr Mustard is not absolutely sure where the alleged contravention took place but think it is here. The photos are from September 17 when the supposed contravention occurred.

Sign well before the junction but not one at the junction which would be more useful.

The sign on the next pole, why is the approaching motorist being told about humps if he can't turn down there?

Finally the junction itself.

A right mess. Road closed signs but also a single dotted line which you are therefore invited to cross, 20 painted on the left hand carriageway as you enter, a single no entry sign you can barely see & barriers which don't close off the carriageway.

This is the decision of the adjudicator (spelling errors included)

The Council's case is that the Appellant's vehicle performed a prohibited turn in when it worth street on 27 September 2017. A penalty charge notice was issued 1403.　

The Appellant states that there were a lot of roadworks in the area and the temporary sign had been erected which was "not visible due to the blindspot in my car, obscuring the sign". He states that the road markings has not been changed; that the signage was confusing and that the CCTV was "not unauthorised device" and that it was simply a "moneymaking exercise."
　
The Council rely upon their CCTV footage. This shows the Appellant's vehicle turning left at the junction immediately adjacent to a no left turn sign, beneath which is a camera enforcement sign. The Council has also submitted a location image of the sign.
　
I am satisfied on the evidence provided that the signage was adequate to convey the restriction. I am not persuaded that any of the Appellant's arguments amount to a successful defence to the contravention. Certification of the camera device is not required for this contravention.

While the Appellant may have made a genuine error, this is mitigation only and I am unable, as the Adjudicator, to cancel penalties on the basis mitigation. As I am satisfied that the contravention occurred and the penalty charge notice was lawfully issued, I must refuse the appeal.

There aren't, of course, any moneymaking cctv traffic cameras in Southwark, oh no, all installed for good traffic management reasons, the £millions earnt from them just being an unhappy side effect that the council wring their hands with dismay about.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Some councils are making it harder to challenge PCN

A public body has a general duty at law to be procedurally fair. They should not therefore add further stages into a process which is enshrined in law. Mr Mustard has noticed some councils (not Barnet) make you go through several extra input screens before you can actually state your challenge, this will exhaust some people whose attention span or determination is not as great as Mr Mustard's (Mr Mustard has been prompted to write this blog post because a gentleman who has asked for advice about an Ealing PCN did not know what his contravention code was. You have to know where to look as it is in tiny type).

You only need the 52 but having tested the system Mr Mustard has discovered that you can type in any existing code number and see what 'sage advice' is being given for that particular contravention code.

On the home page of Ealing Council (they are not the only guilty party, Southwark is the same & there will be others) you find this car icon to roll your mouse over

That changes the box to this one, click on 'Manage & View'

That takes you to this screen which you think will be the place where you make a challenge or representation (a challenge to an on street PCN or a representation to a postal PCN, Notice to Owner to Enforcement Notice - documents with similar purposes, to notify the vehicle Owner of a contravention)

Having chosen 'Challenge a parking ticket' you get to enter your PCN number and contravention code (a number from 01 to 99) in the boxes

Click continue and you then get offered some reasons to choose from. At this point Mr Mustard ignores the proffered options and simply clicks 'continue' as he does not need to read any partial, misguided advice.

However, for the purposes of the blog he duly clicked. He found he was only allowed to click 4 reasons so he pressed F5 and could then click the rest. Why would a council want to limit the public's search for information?

For funerals a council could ask for more information or they could take account of the tone of the challenge and perhaps decide that the person is telling the truth. They do not have to check, it is an option. Why should the public trust a council which does not trust them?

The phrase 'the PCN remains valid' is misleading. It was certainly validly issued but it wasn't valid if it contained an error in the street name or bore the wrong registration number or if the traffic warden put it back in their pocket having not served it for some reason. Don't rely on non-service as a reason to challenge, find some other ground of representation. Mr Mustard is merely pointing out here the misleading language which councils use in an effort to get you to give up and pay (Mr Mustard doesn't do that).

Ealing Council seem to have omitted all sorts of other possible reasons, such as 'I was not the Owner of the vehicle' which is a statutory ground so this is very poor of them.

A sign that prohibits all vehicles (including cycles except if pushed) has no words. It is a round white sign with a red border. (Hardly anyone seems to recognise that sign). The flying motorbike sign (a motorbike on top of a car) does not mean that motorbikes and cars are prohibited but all motor vehicles and so Ealing's explanation about picturing the type of vehicle is just plain wrong.

I'm a visitor, I wasn't aware of the rules (which is a naughty way to try and get you to implicate yourself) could have the explanation that the rules were not properly signed.

You could live in Ealing and still be the victim of cloning.

The advice that Ealing are giving needs to be clear, comprehensive, accurate and meet with the Regulations & any Court decisions; it doesn't.

 

Loading; if you were moving home and unloading your possessions then you won't have loading paperwork but you might have a new rental agreement which it would be better to produce. If you are helping a friend then a letter from them is the best thing to produce.

Not everyone uses a breakdown emergency service. If you break down and your partner is handy with mechanical things, they may have come out to help you, or a friend or neighbour. Best to produce a letter from them explaining what happened. 

There is not a 24 hour limitation. If the breakdown was following an accident after which you were hospitalised for 48 hours that would be a reason beyond your control and grounds for cancellation.

If you do as Mr Mustard does and ignore all the peripheral nonsense and simply click continue, then you get this screen. Ealing are not helpful, they make you enter your registration number again. Really, Ealing, anyone would think you were trying to make it difficult for the motorist.

https://ealing.xrxpsc.com/OCM/Default.aspx

Would you like to cut out the cr@p & go straight to that screen, then simply click here.

Mr Mustard then thought he would make a quick comparison of the sage advice being dished out by Southwark for code 01 to see if it was the same, it wasn't.

Their loading explanation is better except that you don't have to have multiple items so a single trip is fine, unlike what Southwark say. A fridge, new or used, is one item and it is usually bulky &/or heavy so counts as a load. You do not have to provide official paperwork as you might have an old fridge which you are lending or giving to a friend as you have purchased a new one.

To cut the cr@p in Southwark, use this link.

Local authorities, eh, what can you do with them.

Mr Mustard's conclusion is that some councils don't really want you to challenge your PCN, just to pay it. That process has of course been made really easy.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Nine PCN Polish-ed off

It was back in March that Mr Mustard had a rather worried Polish builder contact him as he had received 9 PCN whilst working on one job for 4 weeks near to the Tate Modern in Southwark. He had charged his customer the cost of the congestion charge (he lives outside London) and 8 hours of parking a day at £4.80 an hour so clearly he had intended to always park properly. This was the sensible action of a man who has been in the country for over a decade. He was though somewhat overrun with the paperwork and the borough had left the street name out of his address so much of it had gone missing. At the point Mr Mustard jumped into his car and went straight to see him at home; the reason being that if clients come to Mr Mustard they always leave at least one vital piece of the jigsaw at home, or in the case of a builder, on the dashboard of their van.

It has been a bit of an epic as many of the PCN had already been registered as debts at the Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC) and so the builder was facing a total payment of £1,725 to avoid a single PCN going to a bailiff (9 bailiff letters would have added another £675 which makes the bailiff fee for writing the first demand letter look rather generous as all 9 PCN could be put in one demand). Mr Mustard filed the appropriate in time (only just for some of them) witness statements at the TEC and all the PCN were then wound back to the Notice to Owner stage (the liability was then down to a potential £1,130 as there were 8 higher level PCN at £130 each and one lower level at £80).

Mr Mustard then set to with his challenges. A number had been given for parking on the pavement. The spot concerned was laid out with the pavement and carriageway being level with one another and bollards existed to stop vehicles going where the council didn't want them to go but that encouraged people to park partly on the carriageway, straddle the double yellows and be on the pavement. When you are refitting a kitchen and have no room to turn around in a tiny riverside flat you keep needing to bring your van close to the property to load and unload tools, materials and debris and thus commit one &  sometimes two contraventions at one and the same time and there is always a traffic warden lurking nearby.

Amusingly the same error was made three times. The building had a plaque saying it was on Bankside. It was at the front but the van was at the back and so it was in Hopton St. That made those 3 PCN invalid. The council recognised their untenable position pretty quickly and cancelled those once challenged. They also cancelled one where payment and the PCN occurred at pretty much the same instant. 

As Mr Mustard produced an invoice for building works Southwark Council also accepted unloading on all but two of the PCN which Mr Mustard then took to London Tribunals (formerly PATAS). Mr Mustard awoke early this morning and was idling through the tribunal register when he saw that Southwark have decided not to contest the two Appeals to the tribunal which now makes the outcome of the 9 PCN this:

So that is a potential outlay of £1,725 reduced to £nil. Don't feel sorry for Southwark Council (who have been entirely reasonable throughout) as they gathered in £800 of parking receipts for the one van during a month. The Polish builder has now retained his profit from the job which would have been pretty much wiped out by these PCN.

Please don't leave it until your PCN is registered as a debt at the TEC if you think you might need Mr Mustard. Never ignore PCN paperwork, always stick to the timetable. If you are going into hospital or abroad for a number of weeks, get someone you trust to open your post.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard