The 56 day law

Mr Mustard had a PCN cancelled by Barnet Council parking management yesterday on the simple basis that they were acting ultra vires (outside of its powers).

For parking PCN (not for moving traffic contraventions or bus lanes where there is a 90 day guideline) where you have made 'formal representations' (just a challenge in plain English) against a PCN received through the post (as it acts in effect as the Notice to Owner) or where you have made formal representations after receiving a Notice to Owner the council get 56 days, starting with the date on which they received the said representations, to write and accept or reject them. If the council fail to respond they are deemed to have accepted the representations and the PCN cannot be chased further. (The fact that the public only get 28 days to respond to a Notice to Owner is an inbuilt system unfairness).

Mr Mustard had submitted the representations by email (you can do this to barnet@nsl.co.uk - set a delivery receipt) on 15 June and that is day 1. The council therefore had to serve their response by 9 August. What they did was to post their negative response (Notice of Rejection of representations) on 9 August and service is, unless shown otherwise, presumed to have occurred on 11 August. The council were therefore late and their Notice of Rejection was an unlawful offer to make an Appeal to the Adjudicator or to pay £110.

Mr Mustard counts the days (is 8 weeks) on a printed calendar or uses a spreadsheet to calculate 56 days but there is a useful on line calculator here

and Mr Mustard has given you the worked example for 56 days from 15 June

As this calculator counts the start date you choose as day 0 not day 1 you only add 55 days and you should do the same with your chosen date.

Mr Mustard is now waiting to find out the answer as to why there are not systems in place to stop the council from breaking the law in the way they did. This case will not be the only one in which they have acted illegally, they just tried to defraud £110 from the wrong victim this time.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard was misguided

Mr Mustard is perfectly capable of being mislead. He thought Barnet Council had messed up Blue Badge parking at Edgware because of what he read on page 16 of the Department for Transport guide "Rights and responsibilities" which is reproduced below.

and he wrote a blog which came out at 8am and which was then deleted at about 8.03 as it was wrong as Mr Mustard woke up early with a bell going off deep in his brain. Mr Mustard reflected as to what was wrong & then printed out the guide and looked at page 18, viz

so page 16 tells blue badge holders they can park for ever at a parking meter (or pay by phone bay) and then page 18, which they haven't read because there was no need, overturns the earlier advice. Great, as by now you could have a PCN.

This all came about because Mr Mustard was told about new limits introduced in 2013, on pay-by-phone bays in Edgware. Here is the relevant sign.

a free ad for the vegetarian Chinese

So you want to do a little shopping in Edgware and are happy to pay to park? You can't because the lower sign says that the bay is limited to disabled (blue badge) holders only for the entire day. It is impossible for a motorist who wants to pay to park to comply with this parking restriction. 

Every sign like this one in the whole borough (probably only actually in three of our High Streets) will have to be changed, to remove the word "only".

Blue badge holders, remember to put your time clock out.

Mr Mustard has tweeted the Department for Transport and suggested that the guide is misleading. Hopefully they will use clearer wording in the next issue.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard