Throwing a brick through your own window

Mr Mustard always looks closely at council v council PCN tribunal cases and doubly so if it is the same council taking itself to adjudication. One adjudicator takes the view that a council can't penalise itself and refuses to hear an Appeal.

In this case the council took itself to adjudication and then declined to continue.

Mr Mustard did a little digging and found this to be the location. A clear sign but which is little known, it means 'no vehicles' (as it helpfully says) so no cycles as well as no motor vehicles.

Brick Lane

Mr Mustard then took a cheeky look to see if there were any other live PCNs and found five for this vehicle which are all now settled.

The most shocking PCN is the first one, Tower Hamlets Council sent the debt for a Tower Hamlets Council PCN to a bailiff instructed by Tower Hamlets Council and then, given that the balance shows as negative £130 (it was probably £zero) the PCN was paid. Whether they paid the extra £75 for the first bailiff letter as well as £235 for a bailiff visit and whether or not a council vehicle was clamped isn't clear.

What a weird world we live in. Common sense is clearly out of stock in Tower Hamlets. 

The end.

Seeing round corners - scientific breakthrough in Barnet

 

A US soldier tries to aim an StG 44 with a Krummlauf attachment over a cover. (Creative Commons)

Many motorists think traffic wardens are sniping at them as they appear out of nowhere, issue a PCN and disappear again in less than a minute.

In a recent case brought to him by a local resident with whom Mr Mustard is acquainted the resident in question was expected to see around a corner as the traffic warden clearly had.

The car was parked in this short bay, it has room for 4 average cars but this being Ravenscroft Park, a very desirable address in High Barnet, many residents can afford better than average cars.

Residents parking bay in Ravenscroft Park, EN5

Note that the bay is labelled as being for residents and although the image cuts the end off the bay is about 20m in length. A car within that bay was given a PCN. Although there were signs for roadworks, no suspended bay signage was visible from the bay.

Around the corner to the right is Blenheim Road, a cul-de-sac so unless you are visiting a friend or playing tennis there is no reason to go there.

The sign on the bay looked like this:

Thus it is clear that the bay in question, the suspended bay, is in Blenheim Road not in Ravenscroft Park. The 'side' of 17 Ravenscroft Park is the left as you look at the building i.e. as you would read a sign which was actually in Ravenscroft Park, which is the boundary of Blenheim Rd.

The number of required spaces is 7 (these are imaginary spaces as only pay only bays in Barnet are divided by painted lines) and you can't fit 7 spaces into a 20m parking bay as they are generally held to each be 5 metres long.

The type of parking space which is suspended is a Pay to park space. Here is the sign in the bay from around the corner in Blenheim Road.

and the bay itself

It is abundantly clear that this is the suspended bay, it having the reference 9189 and looking to be about 35m.

One can also see that a suspended bay sign on the pole in that bay could never be seen around the corner in Ravenscroft Park except by a stupidly keen traffic warden (no. 798 who is newish and needs retraining).

This was an obviously invalid PCN. The resident challenged it, not wanting to bother Mr Mustard with such an obvious error which they expected to be cancelled without demur. No such luck. Mr Mustard hasn't seen the challenge that was made as he didn't need to and it was to the effect that an error had been made but it was rejected. This may be evidence that nowadays there isn't a proper consideration of informal challenges, as ones before the Notice to Owner are known, they are all just rejected as apathy rules and most people then give in. Mr Mustard isn't most people.

Mr Mustard doesn't mess about. He emailed a parking manager at 09:36 on Valentine's Day. The message contained just 110 words and a photograph. It included a complaint about the traffic warden, a request for retraining and a suggestion that the council might want to avoid the tribunal and cancel the PCN.

As a measure of the reverence in which Mr Mustard is held by the council, or maybe the opposite, he received a same day reply at 10:04 confirming that the PCN was being cancelled and management would be looking at the CEO's actions.

Everyone in the borough should get the same prompt and high standard investigation of the challenges they make to PCNs.

If the legislation included a penalty to be paid by a council if they blunder like this the quality of PCNs and of the consideration of representations would markedly improve.

Don't take a chance when parking, the traffic warden might be just around the corner, you can't see him, but he can see you, apparently.

The end.

Council stupidity and reversing the burden of proof

Cloning of numberplates is very common. It is an absolute pain for the innocent party who has to engage with the police, the DVLA and all the councils where the naughty car committed a contravention. It is usual for there to be multiple PCNs and rather than all representations being accepted or refused you end up with a mix, utterly stupid. Here is a letter which Barnet Council sent after one such representation and far from being bound by a made up time limit the recipient doesn't even have to reply:

As motorists tend to get nervous about not replying Mr Mustard provides some of the information and did so in this case:

 

Providing the log book and the council's own photographs should have been enough but no, the council rejected the perfect challenge in the hope that an innocent party would part with £65 they didn't owe. Not when Mr Mustard is stood behind them they won't.

Mr Mustard marched on. He started an Appeal to the independent adjudicator at London Tribunals on behalf of Miss M for Mini.

Only a week later Barnet Council threw in the towel and cancelled the PCN. They had incurred a tribunal fee of c. £30 which is just money down the drain. The council were never going to win. A person whose car has been cloned, although it is helpful to provide information, is under no obligation to provide any information at all. The council have to prove the car they wish to obtain a penalty for is your one. Here is a comprehensive decision on the subject.

You can send that decision to any council when telling them your car has been cloned and you are providing a reasonably helpful amount of information. You do not have to jump through all of the council's hoops, tell them they have to prove the car in question is yours.

Once you get the first cloned PCN start taking a photo of your car every time you park it so that you then have a comprehensive record of where it was at all times i.e. you parked at home on Tuesday morning and then didn't move it until Friday afternoon (and so on) is easily evidenced by just 2 photos.

Even before then put distinctive stickers in your front and rear windows or on your numberplates, anything you like, a pokemon, your football team colours, baby on board etc etc and then the cloned vehicle will look visibly different to the real car.

Make 2025 the year that you take no nonsense.

The end.

Havering - the dangerous council

Mr Mustard was asked to help a motorist who, when driving along perfectly legally was presented with a problem requiring instant action. The problem was three cars heading straight towards them and the only sensible option was to enter the bus lane to avoid a head on smash, probable serious injury and possibly death. Havering Council thought that deserved a PCN.

The only other realistic alternative was to stop within your lane but Mr Mustard would have done the same as the motorist as if in doubt, no matter how much you are in the right, you get out of the way of dangerous drivers.

Why did someone at Havering Council think this merited a PCN?

The process is that for a bus lane PCN you can make an informal challenge (although the right is not enshrined in law it is usually offered by councils in London). If that is rejected an Enforcement Notice is issued against which you make formal representations (they can be the same as the informal challenge).  Then you can go to Appeal in front of an independent adjudicator at London Tribunals if rejected.

Adjudicators are truly independent and do not have a financial interest in the outcome, which helps. Councils on the other hand know that if they reject challenges only 1% of PCNs end up at the tribunal. (Close to 100% of Mr Mustard's rejections end up at the tribunal! and 90% of those end in cancellation).

Outside London it is different, there is only one representation stage to the council.

The motorist had already sent in their own informal challenge and seen it rejected as follows:

Here is the first part of the formal representations which Mr Mustard wrote.

 It did not find favour with Havering.

You will note the complete absence of the full consideration which Havering claim to have made. Havering expect you to play chicken with oncoming traffic as they wrote when rejecting the informal challenge. The Notice of Rejection continued:

The Notice of Rejection was a nonsense. The Enforcement Notice had already been received and responded to. Given that recourse to the tribunal was offered the process as far as the council was concerned was over. Mr Mustard could have pointed out their error but their final line suggested this might well be a waste of time so instead an Appeal was duly started at London Tribunals which meant that Havering had to pay a fee of £25.55

The Appeal was based upon the procedural errors of the council. Three weeks passed and then Havering decided to not contest the Appeal and to cancel the PCN. Not that confident in their case then?

If you think you are correct stand up for your rights or ask Mr Mustard to do so on your behalf.

The end.

Redbridge Council - boxes its own ears

Mr Mustard's ears prick up when he sees a Council v Council entry on the tribunal website and he asks the council for all the paperwork behind the PCN. He doesn't always get it all but he gets enough to show the idiocy of the PCN system. In this case the council didn't fight the tribunal Appeal which it started against itself.

Here is the PCN.

There is no profit to be had from this PCN, it is simply a case of moving money from one council budget to another one, or not.

 

Mr Mustard didn't get a copy of the representations which were supposedly exempt but it doesn't really matter, they won't have been that radical.

Mr Mustard did get the video and here it is.

 

He was sent the rejection notice.

The rejection is a dismal piece of work because what you can't see in the video is the exit of the box so no-one knows why the vehicle stopped and the reason has to be because of stationary vehicles, what vehicles? There aren't any in shot. Adjudicators cancel PCNs for this reason all the time.

Mr Mustard went up and down Ley Street on google. It is rather long. Mr Mustard only found one yellow box, viz:

Where is this? It is at the entrance to the council depot. Mr Mustard wonders if the necessary steps were followed before the council painted a box intended to aid their workers but which they now use to penalise their workers? Laurel and Hardy have some competition it seems.

Mr Mustard did ask if the camera had been adjusted to better show the box and the answer was that it had.

Mr Mustard also asked how many PCNs the council had issued to itself in the year ended 31 March 2023. The answer was 107.

Mr Mustard also asked if the motorists caught in that box, which was inadequately covered by camera, would be refunded and of course the answer was 'no'.

There is little honour in Redbridge.

The end.

Havering Council gives itself a pointless kicking

A 'school street' traffic order restricts access to this crescent in Harold Hill at school opening and closing times. That is because, Mr Mustard thinks, there is a rear access point to the school from this probably otherwise quiet crescent.

A Havering Council entered the crescent and was sent a PCN by, wait for it, Havering Council.

The council have redacted the vehicle registration but it is already in the public domain, so that was stupid and pointless.

Mr Mustard asked to see the formal representations and here they are.

Fire inspections could be planned around the banned times. An emergency plumber wouldn't be able to enter the crescent in a dire emergency because he can't obtain a permit in minutes. The emergency would have to wait. Clearly there would be no sympathy from the council if you were an emergency plumber. Stick your finger in the pipe Mrs until 9am and then I will be along! Similarly your home deliveries of food or groceries and parcels generally will have to be delivered at other times.

Mr Mustard doesn't see a 'block' in that crescent, just lots of semi-detached houses.

Guess what, Havering Council rejected Havering Council's representations as no proof was supplied.

The Notice of Rejection was improper in asking for proof to be provided at that stage. This is what an adjudicator held in a Redbridge case:

Havering Council had to make a decision Havering Council's representation as it stood when made. The Havering Council employee who received the Notice of Rejection did the right thing, he/she started an Appeal at London Tribunals which cost Havering Council a £25 fee.

Once received Havering Council discontinued the Appeal against itself as it sent itself further information. The reason was given as 'The evidence requested in the Notice of Rejection was provided to the tribunal.'

Mr Mustard thinks this whole episode was an exercise in futility. Had Havering Council won, Havering Council would have had to pay itself for the PCN.

Mr Mustard also asked the number of PCNs that Havering Council sent itself in the year to 31 March 2023. The answer was 110.

The council is 110 times stupid.

The end.

Stop the rot

Mr Mustard expects that most drivers/residents will know the Golders Green station area as will many coach travellers as it is a stop on some long distance National Express journeys (e.g. Manchester to London). Here is an aerial view

Mr Mustard didn't realise when he snipped the image but there is a handily placed bus to demonstrate bus scale, Mr Mustard having drawn a line to show a gap of 10.9m into which a bus is meant to fit at the lights if going south down the Finchley Road and navigating around the island with the clock on it.

Why is Mr Mustard writing about this subject? It is because of this tribunal decision.

Mr Mustard looked up the coach in question to find it is a Mercedes Benz Tourismo and longer than the gap between the traffic lights and the yellow box it was going over.

Thus, as Mr Thacker said, it is impossible to not overhang the yellow box.

As the adjudicator pointed out the stop was due to red traffic lights not due to a stationary vehicle so absolutely no contravention had occurred and this behaviour is, in the words of regular reader Fraser 'ruthless, venal and rapacious' and Mr Mustard would add stupid and procedurally unfair.

It is hard enough to safely drive a coach through London especially around busy junctions without having to worry if you might get wrongly ticketed by some numpty at NSL who doesn't know the rules and thinks that because the computer controlled cctv has selected this as a possible contravention, that it must be so. In fact, two people are meant to watch the cctv extracts before pressing the PCN button but Mr Mustard suspects that the task is either not being performed or not diligently or with any real thought.

Mr Mustard is going to send this case to the relevant labour councillor who can start to bring some common sense and some law abiding behaviour to the parking / PCN department.

The end (or at least perhaps the beginning of it for revenue raising).
 

Tower Hamlets Council act with whopping unreasonableness

Mr Mustard peruses the list of traffic adjudicator decisions most days. He mainly reads Barnet cases but sometimes there is something elsewhere which is worthy of a read. This list of cases for one company was such a thing.

Here we have 12 PCNs with a total payable of £1,560 should Fox finish up with 12 refusals.

The PCNs were all for driving where you shouldn't, through a newish bus gate in Wapping High St.

 

  

Mr Mustard's eyes were popping once he read the decision. Here it is, absolutely shocking.

The local authority placed marshalls at the site, waved the bus through and then sent a dozen PCNs by post, for contraventions in which they were complicit.

It is hard to adequately express the monstrous duplicity of Tower Hamlets in this situation, trying to extract £1,560 from a company whose driver did exactly as he was told.

Where is the common sense, this bus was actually acting for the council and why haven't they exempted such transport from the prohibition, as they will have done for their refuse lorries?

Costs are rarely awarded and only for wholly unreasonable, vexatious or frivolous behaviour. Tower Hamlets haven't been frivolous but they ought to be paying costs for the time and trouble to which Fox Transport have been put.

Feel free to add your own comments in the box below.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

White City ( Hammersmith & Fulham council ridiculousness )

So you have your car stolen when staying with family and naturally you report it stolen to the police as soon as you come out of the house and find it missing (can you find something which is missing?). The car gets smashed up and dumped in a White City council car park. Here is a photo of it (the black rectangle is where the numberplate was to be found, sitting there casually).

Now consider that the airbags were deployed, the front numberplate is on the bonnet, the front bumper is resting on the ground and clearly a serious accident has occurred.

What should a traffic warden do? Check the stolen cars database or issue a PCN? Traffic warden number 1 decided to issue a PCN (no there aren't ticket targets but you can see why the public think there are).

So did number 2, just 4 days later

and number 3 on the very next day

then we go a whole fortnight before traffic warden number 4 arrives (either the car park isn't patrolled very often or there are some traffic wardens with gumption)

 not traffic warden number 5 though some 3 days later.

The following month the police somehow come across the car (an ANPR equipped police car perhaps?) and give it to the insurance company who now own it, having paid out on the claim. The police take the five PCN and say they will sort them out. Somewhere the system breaks down as all 5 PCN are live with £195 owing on each one (150% of PCN value) on the H&F council website except for one which has been sent to bailiffs so is £202 which with bailiff's fees is now £512, which is how my client heard about it, the new owners of their former residence having been knocked up out of bed at 6am (the earliest time that a bailiff can call). The bailiff gets a phone number from the new occupier for the wife of my client but will not listen to reason about the car being stolen and not being her responsibility (she wisely refuses to give the bailiff a new address). A copy of the warrant (which is invalid in any event as it has the wrong address on it) is refused by the bailiff until she pays it (naughty bailiff, there is an absolute right to know by what authority you demand payment). Luckily the bailiff can't clamp Mr Mustard's client's car as he no longer has one.

Mr Mustard will be logging complaints with the council about their own actions as well as the bailiff's but he likes to share with you some of the stupidity he has to deal with.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Update: 15 May 15

Out of the blue H&F have just cancelled these 5 PCN (as they jolly well should have done)

A pointless Notice

Residents of Sellwood Drive were incensed when the long accepted arrangement of parking with 2 wheels on the pavement was unilaterally removed by the council without written notice. They have been battling with the council ever since, including at the residents forum, for some common sense to be imposed and the existing exemption allowing for 2 wheels on the kerb to be put back until such time as there has been proper consultation about the change. That is where we currently stand, as far as Mr Mustard knows, and quite right too, faceless council officers can't just go around changing things as they please.

The way in which the change was bluntly communicated, rather than sending an explanatory letter to every property in the road,w as to put PCN on cars with a nil value. That is why the code W62 is prefixed with a W which stands for warning (who knew this code existed?)

That should have been an end to the matter but now the new computer software, ICES, has evidently been wrongly set up to chase £nil balances as dire warnings of further action are being issued as per the picture. Hopefully the Traffic Enforcement Centre at Northampton County Court won't let £nil value debts be registered to which a £7 charge would be added and then a £75 letter fee from the bailiff?

The council read this blog so they will now probably tell NSL to sort themselves out and fully cancel all PCN issued for code 62 in Sellwood Drive regardless of the value.

I suppose one could always send the council a cheque for £0.00?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Black Tuesday in North Finchley

funwithhistory

Since at least the start of July, North Finchley has been suffering the attentions of a person or persons unknown who has taken to spray painting the parking signs black thus meaning that motorists could park for free. Now this is naughty behaviour but perfectly understandable when you have a council that doesn't really listen to traders about the 30% downturn in business they have suffered. Richard Cornelius, the council "leader" claims to listen and then says there is nothing he can do or else postulates the theory that a good conservative does nothing. Well Councillor Brian Coleman certainly did something. He single-handedly ruined many businesses in Barnet in 2011 when he hoiked up the charges and took away the cash parking meters. Cash was a convenient payment medium for everybody in the country save for the Queen, who famously doesn't carry money.

Councillors are tinkering with the charges taking 30p off here and there and talking about introducing meters again (when? some unknown future date) for credit and debit cards at least and are now consulting businesses about what they should do. The answer is simple, go back to the situation in 2010 BC (Before Coleman).

Despite having a registered Limited company business in Barnet since 1987 Mr Mustard's alter ego was not on the list of businesses whose business received a consultation letter. He has asked for one. Will it arrive by the 28 September deadline?

What should Barnet Council have done with a vandalised sign? They should have replaced it. They should have done that as many times as vandalism occurred. Ironic that one of the claimed reasons why parking meters were taken away was the cost of repairing vandalised machines (which wasn't as bad as was made out and a profit of £5m p.a. was still made even after all costs of maintenance and cash collection). It has taken the council or NSL at least 2 months to replace these vandalised signs. In the parking contract it says that lines and signs are the responsibility of NSL (although the cost will get passed on doubtless with a markup) and word on the street is that Barnet Council are having to do them because NSL would not take responsibility for signs and lines until they were brought up to snuff.

Simply fixing signs wasn't the council's or NSL's plan. Instead all of a sudden this morning workmen turned up and replaced all of the vandalised signs and a posse of 6 traffic wardens descended like praying mantises and gave all the cars parking tickets. The motorists who have been penalised are not the people who vandalised the signs; they are innocent bystanders caught out by the childish behaviour of the council or their contractor NSL. If this has happened in your area, anywhere in the Country, do please let Mr Mustard know. Unamused Mr Mustard wrote to the "interim" Director of Environment, Planning & Regeneration (parking tickets are not going to regenerate North Finchley now are they?) with a copy to Declan Hoare, the Assistant Director of Highways, and Ian Baruch the Parking Manager (a temp from Hays HR because the council haven't yet been able to find a permanent employee) and to all 63 councillors who need to start to exert some authority over the senior officers if they want to be re-elected in May 2014.

This is what he wrote:

---

Dear Ms Wharfe

North Finchley this morning 

Council has just changed the blacked out parking notices and then systematically given everyone parked there a ticket, no warning, nothing.

Looked liked the (6 at least) parking attendants were laid on especially

arguments
shouting
police called

I am aware that a naughty individual has blacked out some signs and they may or may not be parked there today.

Was this vindictive and stupid idea of retribution one thought up by a member of your team or by NSL?

Innocent motorists are now suffering for having parked perfectly properly and then made into rule breakers by the acts of the council or its contractor.

I note this was done the morning after the North Finchley Traders Forum.

The council really is going out of its way to win friends and influence people.

By the way, there is a general requirement at law for the council to be fair in its dealings with motorists. Do you suppose that a swoop of this kind fits into the fair" category?

Yours sincerely

---

Mr Mustard looks forward to reading the reply.

This is what the council website says its wardens will do:

"We aim to deliver a good quality service in a fair manner, and to provide help and assistance"

except in North Finchley where the traffic wardens saw the signs being installed and then pounced. If you received one of those tickets Mr Mustard will help you appeal for free. Wait until the Notice to Owner arrives and then contact mrmustard@zoho.com

Why did it take from 4 July when the following photograph was taken until 11 September to change a few signs?

This week Barnet Council countenanced squatting at Friern Barnet library. They may just have opened the floodgates to copycat anarchist actions as that is what they react to.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard