It was 7:20am in Islington when the plumber, from the edge of London, reached the site. He must have been out of bed at sparrow's fart, it was dark, he paid for his parking but selected zone B instead of E. The council happily accepted his £44.65 the same charge as zone E would have been.
At 9:01 he received a PCN which confused him as he had paid for all day. Mr Mustard spotted the zone problem. This is the sort of error for which all councils should exercise discretion and cancel. Mr Mustard made the informal challenge (the one in response to the PCN on the windscreen)
The second argument was a makeweight / just in case one but you never know.
A miserable rejection followed and ignored the bits that Islington Council didn't like:
Next came the Notice to Owner and the formal representation made was a repeat of the informal challenge.
A second rejection arrived.
The empathy faded when it came to the yes / no decision. Following a recent trend the discount was not offered again, it didn't have to be but it guarantees Mr Mustard will proceed to the tribunal as there is nothing to lose.
It was in April that Mr Mustard started the tribunal Appeal. As is currently common there was a 6 month delay as the number of tribunal Appeals has shot up and the number of adjudicators cannot be increased overnight.
It is usual for the council to lay out its arguments in a case summary.
Mr Mustard regarded the RingGo excuse as a feeble one. Islington Council could negotiate a contract with RingGo that says they should refund for all payment errors such as wrong registration, wrong date or wrong bay number / type. They helpfully exhibited the RingGo terms, terms which the motorist has no choice except to accept because only one payment provider exists, this looks like an unfair contract term to Mr Mustard. Mr Mustard went to the RingGo website and clearly they will do whatever the council agrees with them as policy, that was doublespeak from Islington Council
Mr Mustard then looked at the rules of Islington Council as set out in the Traffic Management Order 2023/001 as contained in Regulation 19, you can go straight to (3)
More misleading information in the response. The council has a discretion to refund but it wrote instead that it was not obliged, did they even consider it for a second.
This is why we need an Ombudsman, to get unfair terms taken out of traffic orders, to make councils think more sensibly about the exercise of discretion and to not mislead the public.
The tribunal hearing arrived, the adjudicator had looked in advance at the paperwork and wasn't with Mr Mustard on the B or E argument but Mr Mustard pulled an ace out of his sleeve and identified a failure by the council to prove their case which the adjudicator instantly accepted and ordered the council to cancel the PCN. Justice was done but to some people that £44 could have really stung.
The end.
