Where's the fire? (not in Lambeth I hope)

Mr Mustard keeps half an eye on the public Register of the Environment & Traffic adjudicators who ultimately decide the fate of PCN. One case yesterday jumped off the page at him as the Appellant was the London Fire Brigade. Here is part of what the adjudicator had to say:

This was double pinnacle of incompetence by Lambeth Council whose traffic warden gave a PCN to a fire officer's car and then the back office were blinded by the assumption that the motorist must be in the wrong and they wasted the time of a LFB employee (we are paying from our taxes) going up to Chancery Lane to present his case.

Mr Mustard imagines the scene on the end of the 999 line one day

Hello 999, it is Lambeth Council here. It's the middle of the night and the parking office is on fire. There isn't anyone in there but it will cost us millions if you don't come and extinguish the fire pretty quickly. 

What's that, what sort of parking restrictions are there at the scene? Well double yellow lines but you can park on those as it is an emergency. What, you don't want to as last time you parked on a mere single yellow we gave you a ticket and wouldn't cancel it. We promise we won't be so stupid again. Now, are you on your way, pretty please?

Mr Mustard has now woken up. Of course the LFB would visit the scene of all fires.

Looking back through the register Mr Mustard can see that LFB have very careful procedures to ensure that the exemtpion with which they are provided is not mis-used and that the following boroughs have put them through needless Appeals since 2010:

Barking & Dagenham, Waltham Forest, Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Harrow, Bexley and

Transport for London &

the City of London

Could all those authorities please start to employ people with more common sense.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Havant a heart

Those not very clear yellow marks across the kerb mean no unloading and hence no blue badge parking. There was one in this car.

The story concerns Angelica and Alan (the names have been changed although Mr Mustard has a picture of 'Alan' lying serenely on his hospice bed, which he has permission to use, but has decided not to) and Angelica found Mr Mustard after his repeat TV performance on Parking Mad and this is what she wrote:

Hi Mr Mustard,

I saw your programme last night and I think you're doing a brilliant job.

If you have the time I wonder if you could give me some advice. I know you mostly deal with Barnet and I'm in Havant, Hampshire.

I'll try and keep it brief.

I do voluntary work at our local hospice, mostly on the wards but I do also visit the terminally ill in their homes. On this occasion my 'client' was having a good day and wanted to go to Specsavers to sort out his glasses. At that time he was using a zimmer frame but was very slow and had to keep stopping for breath. He has a disabled badge and so I parked on double yellow lines as near to Specsavers as I could. We were gone approximately half an hour. When I got back to the car I saw I had a ticket and the warden was just walking away. When I approached him he said I was parked in a no loading area. I had seen the white lines and sign for the loading zone but had parked a few yards away on the yellow lines. I didn't realise that the double yellow lines on the kerbstones also denoted a no loading area. I explained the situation and by that time Alan had caught me up, whereupon he also explained that he was terminally ill. He was quite upset and stressed by the situation. The warden could see how ill Alan was but said that he couldn't rescind the ticket. He said I should have read the disabled manual and I explained I didn't have one as the disabled badge was Alan's.  He did say he would go into the office the next day and explain the situation, I thought this was a good sign. He also said the conversation was being recorded.

I challenged the parking ticket on compassionate grounds explaining the situation. Alan's family also wrote in. I had a letter saying my appeal had been rejected. I then waited for the Notice to Owner and explained the situation again as they had said as I was a driver for the hospice I should know the rules. I explained I wasn't a driver for the hospice, just a voluntary worker. Again the appeal was rejected.

I was just going to give up and pay up as technically I was in the wrong, until I saw the TV programme last night.

My question is, do you think I should take it to the Tribunal? In some ways if I just paid up it would be the end of the matter and I could forget about it but part of me feels aggrieved at the callousness of the council. It's not about the money.

I would be most grateful for your advice.

King regards

Angelica

Mr Mustard was amazed, but shouldn't be, at the robotic response of the traffic warden; surely we can train them to be more human than this? A man has stood in front of you and told you he is about to die and you want to tell their driver they should have read a Rights & Responsibilities booklet they have never seen.

The Notice of Rejection is also pretty awful. It says "I am unable to cancel this PCN..." which is a patent lie. A council can cancel any PCN for any reason at any time even if it is 100% correct.

Mr Mustard's advice was clear:

1.  The kerb marks may not be clear enough to be considered as substantially compliant.

2.  The Unable to Cancel statement is untrue.

3.  The council have failed to properly exercise their discretion as they are required to do. They have to at least think, "this person had terrible medical problems, should we be nice and cancel even though technically we think the PCN was correct"? Councils misdirect themselves all the time about this and when asked for a goodwill cancellation they focus instead on the technical merits.

For Mr Mustard the decision is an easy one. Once you have a Notice of Rejection and Tribunal Appeal Form you fill it in and post it off straightaway as the, in this case, £70 PCN does not get any worse. If you win at the tribunal you save £70. If you lose at the tribunal you pay the £70 you would have had to pay if you had not completed the Appeal form. The council have to pay a fee to the tribunal for the Appeal process and the more of those they have to pay the harder they might think about things.

Mr Mustard has submitted the Appeal form which Havant Council have now had on their desk for 10 days. They have not yet cancelled the PCN so it looks like they plan to contest the Appeal. Mr Mustard has his motor running ready for the trip to Southampton (Angelica has equally offered to pop to London for the hearing).

The final words are Angelica's:

Just an update for you. Sadly Alan passed away on Saturday. I was in doing ward duties yesterday and saw his name on the list.

I had visited him on Thursday but didn't stay long as I could see he wasn't up for visiting.  Just a few days before he had been in good spirits and was talking about the 'Parking case'.  Your comment about 'Havant a Heart Council' made him chuckle.

Yours very sadly

Mr Mustard

Update 9 September 2015

The Traffic Penalty Tribunal have written to say that "The council has decided not to contest this appeal". Looking at it further Havant BC issue PCN as agents of  Hampshire County Council (who did read this blog entry) and so which one of them made the good and bad decisions will never be known. This is a tale of persistence though on the part of Angelica because had she not seen Mr Mustard on the TV she would have meekly paid up and councils bully people because that is the usual outcome. It is not the outcome when Mr Mustard is involved, it will be a fight to the end, with him coming out the winner more often than not. Local authorities take note.

Nothing talks louder than money inside Hendon Town Hall - a guest blog

Cricklewood Open Space (Thomas Bell Photographs)

This is what Barnet Council says to justify the selling off of Cricklewood's last green space:

The subject plot fronting B&Q, on Cricklewood Lane is currently an open space primarily used as a disabled access ramp to the B&Q store. It is regularly fly-tipped and attracts rough sleepers among other social issues such as alcohol and substance misuse. The proximity to local businesses means on-going disturbance to businesses, environmental degradation, and Health & Safety concerns resulting from substance/alcohol misuse and excessive littering. Retention of the site in its existing condition would not only allow these problems to continue, but also drain the Council’s resources in terms of on-going management costs.

Campaigners and residents from Barnet and Council came together in November 2013  to protest at the possible disposal of the green space outside B&Q in Cricklewood and are organising again as a planning application to build on it goes before Barnet Council on September 7th.

November 2013

The Coalition for a Sustainable Brent Cross Development sent this message over the weekend:

Barnet Council are meeting on September 7th to discuss the sale of Cricklewood’s only green space, outside B&Q. It was given as public open space in 1987 when the retail park was built. Crown Estates sold it to Barnet in 2004 with a stipulation it would not be built on.  Barnet have managed to remove this requirement, and are selling public land with no public consultation.



All the known Cricklewood Green Space material is now on the BX Coalition website  LINK - scroll down for the last few postings there:

Actions you can take
-          Tweet @Barnetcouncil using #CricklewoodGreen
-          Sign the petition if you haven’t before and ask your neighbours to sign LINK
-          Write to the papers
-          Write to the committee about the sale of public land without consultation,
-          Join us in a protest outside the meeting on September 7th (check blog)
-          Keep checking the blog and Twitter @BXcoalition

From the Coalition for a Sustainable Brent Cross Development
Our co-ordinator  Alison is on holiday, please contact fiona.colgan@yahoo.co.uk

Brighton doesn't rock

You are a kind person, you lend your battered old Citroen to a 'friend' who parks in a less than satisfactory manner in Brighton and picks up seven PCNs in a fortnight, not for parking on the pavement, as that isn't a problem in Brighton, although it really should be, but because of the double yellows which extend in enforcement terms from the middle of the carriageway to the building line (not many people know that). The double yellows turn out to be the saving grace. Another car length and the double yellows finished so rather surprisingly the car would not have been in contravention unlike in Greater London where this sort of parking is frowned upon.

The vehicle owner was at risk for £490 (only £420 once the driver had paid one PCN). Not much reward for lending your car out.

Mr Mustard set to work, Brighton Council were helpful and engaged in the process outside of the formal procedure so full credit goes to them.

The very first PCN each week was correctly issued. The others not as each week was one continuous contravention and so only one PCN should have been issued each week (assuming the car was moved at the weekend). Strangely, most of the PCNs went missing. Traffic wardens in Brighton must have large pockets on their work wear? Brighton's reasons for cancelling included that they were out of time for responding to formal representations (56 days) even though they weren't but Mr Mustard has seen councils make up face-saving reasons to cancel before; he doesn't care why only that they do cancel.

The driver paid the first PCN in the second week. Mr Mustard expects that the Owner will be demanding £70 from the driver for the first week, although Mr Mustard has asked for a Review of the Adjudicator's decision as two serious substantive points from his Appeal do not appear to have been considered. Reviews, and even more so, successful reviews, are rarer than hen's teeth.

The alternative is that the driver could have used Just Park and avoided any risk of a PCN. A mere 700m away, in Central Brighton, there was a private car parking space for a mere £44 for the week

which has got to be well worth thinking about for peace of mind and a guaranteed place to park your car & which is also likely to be safer than on the public highway, or pavement come to that.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The Flying Car comes to Barnet

I don't think so

The evidence packs that Barnet Council / NSL submit to London Tribunals for consideration by an independent adjudicator usually contain a site map.

One particular adjudicator hates Barnet's evidence as it is such evident nonsense, like the above photograph showing where my client was parked. What this evidence does is then cast doubt upon the rest of the council's evidence.

Mr Mustard's client doesn't always manage to park very well but he hasn't yet managed to park half way up a lamp post.

There isn't a PCN contravention code for parking in mid air.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Brent Council talk ball (joint)s

Mr Mustard's client challenged a Brent Council PCN on the grounds that the ball joint had failed and so he left his car in a residents bay for a short while until a mobile mechanic came and fixed it, the car not being drivable.

A copy of the repair invoice was sent to Brent Council and contained the following detail.

Brent Council have rejected the challenge, as follows:

How could they make a decision based upon a false factual statement?

Ball joints get inspected annually as part of the MOT.

Toyota only require them to be inspected every 15,000 miles.

The council have not got the maintenance record to refer to.

There is no actual maintenance schedule, only an inspection schedule.

Brent don't know their ball joints from their hose elbows.

PCN clerks are probably not mechanically qualified. Clearly they all have cars which never breakdown when they least expect and none of them are therefore members of the RAC or AA (other breakdown services are available).

Anyone would think that they were trying to put the motorist off the idea of challenging the PCN. Mr Mustard will see you Brent, in due course, at London Tribunals (formerly PATAS).

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Don't you know who I am? Why? don't you? Haringey Council know now.

extracts of Barnet Council's ludicrous attempt to nobble Mr Mustard in 2011

Haringey Council wanted Mr Mustard to prove he was one and the same as Derek Dishman, or the other way around, before answering his questions about what, if anything, the parking department had written about either of them. It would have been a data breach for Haringey Council to phone Barnet Council and ask who I was but that sort of thing does not (oops) go amongst councils. Searching on google for "Derek Dishman Mr Mustard" also brings up ample proof in a second.

Anyway, as he is so helpful, he did prove it.

Dear Ms Pietikäinen

I refer to your below email.

I prove that Mr Mustard is my nom-de-plume by the following methods:

·         I have placed your below email on the Mr Mustard blog

·         Your chief Executive, Nick Walkley, can confirm my identity

·         I attach a complaint made to the ICO, which was not upheld, by Barnet Council which understands that Mr Mustard is Derek Dishman and that the blog should have been registered under Data Protection Act.

·         Derek Dishman as his character Mr Mustard has been seen on BBC1 in the programme Parking Mad. The following iPlayer link will work for 2 weeks http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b041d6z6

·         Derek Dishman as Mr Mustard was seen on C4 news which you can watch on this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfJ6QOz-iC4

·         Derek Dishman mentioned Mr Mustard is his evidence to the transport select committee (PE33) http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmtran/118/118vw29.htm

·         Just one example from the local paper http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/13612861.Man_criticises_Barnet_council_s__soviet_style__parking_rules/

I look forward to my request now being complied with.

Please add to my SAR request all internal council communications with any member of the Feedback & Information Team since 1 January 2015 in my real name or nom-de-plume.

Best regards

Derek

---

Since doing this Mr Mustard, or his alter ego, have received an email thanking them for the £10 cheque and saying that an answer should be provided by 3 October.

It will be interesting reading.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard