Newham Council are Cheats - #43

 

The above tribunal decision is one of the most coruscating criticisms that Mr Mustard has ever seen. Mr Mustard doesn't comment much on adjudicators but Mr Walsh was premier league (Mr Mustard won 2 cases and lost 1 before him and wishes he was still there) and has deservedly been elevated to the position of District Judge in Willesden Magistrates Court.

What this case amply demonstrates is the wilful blindness which Mr Mustard has long suspected exists PCN enforcement offices (council and contractors) and the reject everything philosophy which he thinks exists.

Many of the public still naively believe that a council will be fair but it isn't necessarily so, the urgent need to revenue raise has elbowed public service and fairness out of the way in many councils.

It was no surprise that an order for costs was sought and granted even though they rarely are.

Just before that long read here is the sign that was there and the sign the council blindly assumed was there:

 

Make yourself a cup of tea and settle into a comfy chair.

 

Newham Council tried to get out cheap at £50 which considering they tried to extract an unlawful £130 was pretty mean of them. 

The council are described in this decision as dishonest & deceptive a characterisation which Mr Mustard agrees with and which is often the case.

Now a general warning for all taxi drivers, black can and private hire alike, this rather odd restriction applies overnight from 10pm to 3am so after collecting someone from the City Airport the driver needs to choose a route which avoids this particular dual carriageway.

 

and this is how it looks on the ground, being unable to exit a roundabout is unusual, a red no entry sign would be clearer

Remember: not all councils can be trusted to be unbiased in their consideration of your arguments. Adjudicators can be trusted as they don't receive the penalty if they do find against you.

The end, thank you for your patience. 

Unfairness built into the PCN system

 

You park your car up for 10 days as you know you won't use it in that time due a personal matter and use an unrestricted bay. It is probably only marked out to keep you away from junctions and to keep passing traffic more central. You return to your car and find that during your absence it has had a 24 hour disabled bay painted around it and you have two PCNs. You make informal challenges to the PCNs which get rejected and then you make formal representations against the Notices to Owner and one of those is rejected (and the other was pending).

The motorist started an Appeal at the tribunal, who are independent, and as soon as he did that Ealing Council cancelled both PCNs.

Lots of things wrong here to think about.

Firstly, why did a 'traffic warden' (Civil Enforcement Officer) issue the first PCN and why was the second PCN issued?

Taking the second one first, when a bay operates continuously you only commit one contravention when you park. You do not magically commit a fresh contravention each day. The second PCN was therefore unlawful from the off.

There are an awful lot of traffic wardens who do not see the obvious clues.

Firstly, they should come out of the base each morning armed with a list of about to be painted bays so that they can be aware of them and not issue a PCN in this situation rather than give out clearly unfair PCNs which the public have to spend their time fighting and not everyone is as robust as this motorist was. Anyone of a nervous disposition might just pay up, anyone who can't afford to pay the full penalty value would rather pay 50%, or anyone with a lease car might see the lease company pay it and recharge them and add a fee. The concept of innocent until proven guilty does not work in parking, here the burden of proof is reversed.

Secondly, the traffic warden is required to check that signs and lines are correct. Surely they must see how crisp the lines are as compared to the free bays, they should also see the chalk lines which are placed so that nice straight lines get painted and chalk lines are quickly washed away so the clues are there if you look for them.

Thirdly the traffic warden will have a mental map of their patch and should know this disabled bay wasn't there last time they came this way.

Fourthly they should notice that the bay has been incorrectly painted as there should be two transverse markings, one to mark the end of the bay pay and one to mark the end of the disabled bay.

The traffic warden (s) get 0/10 here.

Now we look at the Notice of Rejection. Is that perfect?

The council knew when the bay lines were painted and the motorist told them that when he parked the disabled bay was not there (it really isn't something you would make up). Did they check the list of vehicles which were parked there when the lines were painted, by the same council (Ealing) or their contractor. That is a logical thing to do. Many authorities do it when they suspend a bay. The letter does not say if they checked the notes of whoever installed the bay. If Ealing Council don't have such a procedure they are being unfair to the public.

The paragraph which starts with 'Although we sympathise...' is utter bunkum. They have been told the bay had not been painted and thus there was no sign to face and you cannot comply with a sign which does not exist. Their sympathy is crocodile tears.

Pretending that they are somehow prevented from cancelling this PCN due to a need to be fair is self-serving nonsense. No-one else knows if your PCN is cancelled or not and every PCN has to be considered on its own facts. The Statutory Guidance of the Secretary of State says that a council can cancel a PCN even if it is correct. Ealing Council were being unfair to this motorist.

Even a decision by an independent adjudicator, a qualified lawyer, doesn't set a precedent so no decision by a council employee, or their contractor, will do so. It is a sentence included to try and make out that the council are hidebound 'we would love to cancel your PCN but our hands are tied...' no, they aren't.

Then comes the very generous offer, oh so tempting. You did nothing wrong so you can pay 50% of the penalty for being innocent. Luckily this motorist said no.

There is a threat which follows closely. If you take us to the tribunal we will come after you for the 100% the whole £130.

So that's 0/10 for the Notice of Rejection.

Many motorists give up at that point as they think the tribunal might be a scary place with judges in wigs and gowns and a lot of formality which they won't be able to cope with. It isn't at all like that. The hearings can now take place by video call so you don't have to troop into central London, as Mr Mustard has been doing nearly every week for a decade. The hearings are informal and if you did attend one in person it is just you sat across a large desk from the adjudicator on the other side and you have a chat about the PCN, that's it.

As soon as the Appeal was started at London Tribunals, where the independent adjudicators work, Ealing Council threw in the towel, cancelled this PCN and the other one. What happened to precedent? surely this is unfair on all the other motorists whose appeals they are still contesting?

What do you know? it was all a big bluff. If you think you are in the right ignore all the bluff and bluster which the council come out with, start down your chosen course and challenge the PCN, make representations against the Notice to Owner, and then go to London Tribunals with your Appeal against the Notice of Rejection. Put all thoughts of the discount out of your head except the notion of having a 100% discount.

Ealing Council are no worse than any other, they are playing the system as best they can to maximise their income. They had all the facts about this PCN at this disposal from the off, or at least they should have done. They tried to crowbar 50% out of an unfair PCN, it didn't work and they burned a tribunal fee of c.£30 in the process.

Never take a council at face value, put your PCN on www.ftla.uk to receive independent expert advice from multiple experts which includes Mr Mustard.

The end.

Barnet Council are unfair

 

This is a decision which Mr Mustard found on the register.

 

Whilst Mr Mustard understands the benefits of school streets the over-riding consideration, based on what rejection letters say, seems to be the penalty charge revenue. You can't easily contact the council to obtain an exemption and given that only permanent employees of schools are eligible for a permit according to council policy it wouldn't help in any event.

I contrast this approach with that overseas, such as in Bordeaux which Mr Mustard recently visited. Restricted roads there are impossible to drive into as they have rising bollards and adjacent to that is an intercom on which you can explain your need for access and, if accepted, the bollard is lowered for you.

Could it be that because such arrangements cost money instead of raising it, British style, councils don't use rising bollards? Surely not.

The end.

M1 and M mashup

 

Another random decision which Mr Mustard found on the tribunal register.

 

This is typical behaviour in parking departments all over London. You make a mistake and you will be pilloried for £80 (or £130). If Barnet Council make a mistake they also want £80 from you.

The resident has no control over the permit application system which is managed (badly you might say) by NSL. Therefore unless the zone code is clearly wrong, you are offered Q instead of A for example, then why would the resident query it?

The resident had a second defence which the adjudicator alluded to, the doctrine of  'legitimate expectation' about which you can read further here.

Well done Mr Swales for standing up for yourself and risking £80, justice was served, to Barnet Council. Will this change how they behave? Mr Mustard doubts it.

The end.

Newham Council - not staffed by Knights of the Road

This story concerns a road near the Tate and Lyle factory, not all that far from the Thames Barrier.  It is a rather industrial area sandwiched between the river and docks.

It could do with a weekly wash.

The sign that was there in 2020 was nowhere to be seen two years later. Local workers will naturally and legally take advantage of free parking. It seems that signs at this location disappear or are vandalised quite often. The council's solution is to put new signs up, send a traffic warden or two down there straightaway, issue PCNs and then tow en masse. Naughty, as they should wait a day before enforcing, but an adjudicator had their measure.

This is Mr Goring's only entry in the PCN Appeal register so we can be fairly sure he is a victim not a sign stealer.

Mr Mustard doesn't know why he read this particular decision on 22 August but he did and it piqued his interest so he sent Newham Council some questions.

Very sensibly, the response was provided by way of a table which Mr Mustard has rearranged into PCN time order.

Look at that efficiency, 6 PCNs issued in 12 minutes. One traffic warden could do that but more likely there were 2 or 3. Removals also at pace. There must have been two lorries as there were removals 4 and 5 minutes apart.

The second PCN is that of Mr Goring. Two other people made representations but then didn't fight the rejection at the tribunal. If they had, they might have got their money back. 

Four motorists didn't even bother to try and challenge their PCNs. If all seven had gone to the tribunal three or four at least would have won. There was no risk of having to pay further monies. If you are towed you pay the 50% in order to release your vehicle, which freezes the PCN and you also pay £200 for the tow. If ever you are towed you must make representations as they are a free throw of the dice (unless you are monumentally stupid or selfish and parked on a zebra crossing).

Assuming everyone recovered their vehicles on the same day, so didn't pay £40 for overnight storage, Newham Council raked in £265 * 6 = £1,590

This is what parking has become. An immoral machine for sucking money out of the wallets and purses of innocent people. We need an independent external body to police the behaviour of councils and contractors and to force them to behave in a proper manner.

This ridiculous logo was on the bottom of the council's letter:

Best start building Newham Council as you are patently and obviously unfair.

The end.

Bluff and nonsense in Redbridge

A double decker bus weighs between 11 and 14 metric tonnes. Will you therefore play chicken with it when two lanes go into one and you might end up impaled on a traffic island and traffic light? No, nor would Mr Mustard.

Miss Careful (not her real name) came to Mr Mustard for help as she had been sent a PCN for stopping in a box junction. She did stop, but to avoid being squashed and possibly killed. Redbridge Council have a video of the way in which she crossed the box which clearly confirms the facts. In order to preserve secrecy Mr Mustard is just going to give you 5 stills from the cctv, in time order, from which you can see what happened.

Where is the car? You may well ask, masked by the bus.

The car still isn't visible

Now, finally you can see the car

In this frame you can see that the car has sensibly given way to the bus

Onwards we all go

Mr Mustard made the representations as follows and set out the law to save the council the bother of looking it up:

Lots of representations get rejected for two reasons. The first is that the person considering the matter doesn't know what they are doing. The second is that many recipients of rejections worry about the discount, which Mr Mustard doesn't as he is aiming to pay nothing at all, and meekly pay up if knocked back. Mr Mustard is not meek.

An uninformed rejection duly arrived:

The exit probably was clear on entry but the cctv doesn't show it and it does clearly show bullying behaviour by the bus and that the stop was not caused by a stationary vehicle.

Mr Mustard ploughed on, much like the bus, an unstoppable force. He started an Appeal to the tribunal. Redbridge threw in the towel because they could see they were going to lose.

It shouldn't be like this.

The PCN should never have been sent. If the car was leased the PCN might have been paid by the lease company which would penalise an innocent driver.

The Notice of Rejection should never have been sent as it didn't impartially consider the facts.

The message for motorists is that if you think you are correct you should ignore the discount and continue to the tribunal stage where you will get a fair hearing from an adjudicator who does not seek to benefit from a refusal, as councils do.

The end.

Barnet Council traffic wardens give no quarter

This event happened in the Broadway, Mill Hill.

The reason that traffic wardens need body worn video to record 'code red' situations, i.e. when they are about to be thumped, is because they have been ridiculously unreasonable in the past, pouncing with indecent haste on motorists who are in the act of paying. Mr Mustard would hazard that the main reason the council did not produce the video recording is that it showed 100% that what the motorist was saying was true.

A clever motorist who screenshot his phone screen (on an Android phone hold power and volume down for a couple of seconds simultaneously or on an iPhone press the side button and volume up at the same time) and thus he had evidence of what he was doing. The council could also have obtained from PayByPhone evidence of what button presses were made using the App at the relevant time but mysteriously didn't produce that evidence either.

A smart motorist who saw the flaw in the council's argument that you can't leave your car; if the sign is 25m away and a box luton van is parked in front of you then there is zero choice, Adjudicators are sharp as tacks and apply common sense, a commodity which is severely lacking in many traffic wardens and in the council back office.

As well as not producing evidence which was in favour of the motorist the council also appear to have misrepresented his position in the case summary for the tribunal (or in the Notice of Rejection, Mr Mustard has not seen the case papers). The council often appears to be desperate when you look at the way in which they deal with tribunal cases. If they continue to be partial, adjudicators will notice and motorists will get the benefit of the doubt due to the poor reputation of Barnet Council for knowingly not being even-handed.

This action will not have endeared Barnet Council to the motorist in question. Councils have been given too much power which they use in an unfair fashion in order to raise funds to help plug the budget gap.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Leaves on the lines

There are a lot of leaves on the ground at the moment, Barnet being so rich in trees, and this can lead to people thinking they have parked where there aren't lines, when there are.

The same goes for snow.

What the public are entitled to is clear information as to where a restriction starts and ends and what it is. This can be conveyed, since 2016, by signs or lines or both (a different road surface can be used to demarcate a restricted area nowadays, with Camden making great use of this near the British Museum).

The above car received a PCN as he found the lines to not be clear enough but as Mr Mustard could clearly see a yellow line both in front and behind the car he suggested not going to the tribunal as he expected the motorist to lose. Adjudicators take different views on this question and it is one within their factual judgment. Here is one such decision which Mr Mustard thinks is a bit harsh, there is nothing in the law that says motorists have to carry a broom with them:

On the other hand, Mr Mustard has a decision in which the Adjudicator said that if the council want to enforce in the snow, they need to clear the roads first. Here it is:

should read 'not visible'

Snow may have melted away between the time when the car was parked and when the traffic warden came along later (although Mr Mustard thinks they should not be sent out in the snow and ice for their own personal safety).

There have been a few frosty mornings. Occasionally Mr Mustard's girlfriend, who lives outside of a cpz, forgets to obtain a visitor parking voucher from him to display in the windscreen and then suddenly remembers at about 9 on a Saturday morning, an hour after the zone has started. So far the luck has been on her side and she has not been ticketed. One morning Mr Mustard looked out of the loft room window at the cars parked in the street and noted that all the windscreens were frosted over. That isn't a problem for residents vouchers as they are now electronic but for cardboard scratch off visitor vouchers and blue badges, they won't be visible after a hard frost and the traffic warden isn't likely to clear your screen for you. Logic, reasonableness and common sense would be that they have to walk on but no, Mr Mustard will bet you a pound to a penny that he will soon be dealing with cars displaying a visitor voucher, that have a frosted windscreen and a PCN tucked under the wiper blade, if it can be prised off the glass.

In fact, here is one of Mr Mustard's successes from 2012

Now Mr Mustard believes in playing with a straight bat and telling the truth but if traffic wardens are to start going about giving out patently unfair tickets when they don't have the grounds to believe a contravention had occurred, as they can't see if there is a voucher on display or not, then he won't be surprised if residents start saying there was a visitor voucher on display when there wasn't, as the council will not be able to disprove that assertion. Sauce for the goose and all that.

Let's see if Mr Mustard's inbox sees any of this type of unfair PCN landing in it.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Time to stop this sort of PCN

This is the type of situation which Mr Mustard hopes will arise less often if the residents decide to vote Labour councillors into power as Mr Mustard thinks that they will be more inclined to listen to his advice and be more reasonable towards the public.

The above car was given a ticket for not being 'parked correctly within the markings of a bay or space'. The driver is a blue badge holder and that is a disabled space that his car is within. Given the large distance to the next bay, which is now an electric vehicle charging bay, no difficulty would arise for any car in the adjoining bay as there is plenty of space within which to open car doors.

One question is therefore why this sort of borderline but miserable PCN gets issued? (and this one to a client of a money advice centre which Mr Mustard assists) and the answer that Mr Mustard comes to is that ruling councillors take very little interest in day to day ticketing activities carried out by NSL, their outsourced supplier of traffic wardens, unless a resident complains and residents tend not to.

The second question is to whether the car is outside the markings of the bay at all, as the hatched area can be seen to be part of the bay, at least up until the mid-point between two bays. Mr Mustard can't see an adjudicator upholding such a PCN given the complete lack of a traffic management purpose, the only obvious purpose being the raising of revenue.

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