No-one seems to be able to log in to PePiPoo and the worst is feared. The fears were unfounded.
So that motorists aren't left high and dry a number of the contributing experts, including Mr Mustard, have started their own forum, which you can find here.
If you had a thread on PePiPoo and still need help please start a new thread.
You now have a choice of forums.
End.
The answer was a huge number of PCN processing events in which the gap between two stages, which can be as little as 14 days has taken a year or more, sometimes four years.
So having been sent a Charge Certificate which notifies an increase in the PCN value of 50% (not exactly the Valentine's day card that you might like to receive) on 14 February 2018 Ealing Council then sat on their hands until 9 December 2022.
Councils endowed with penal powers have obligations. One as pronounced by Lord Mustill is to act 'in a manner which is fair in all the circumstances' which has been interpreted as acting with reasonable expedition i.e. get on with it.
Clearly Ealing Council have not done so in 19,876 cases.
Why does it matter you ask?
It matters because people move. If the council chase you about a PCN and you don't hear about it for a year you might well throw the paperwork away having not unreasonably assumed that the council has decided not to pursue you any further, it not being the case that a council has to put every PCN through the whole process all the way to the bailiff.
In London people are changing address all the time and no-one is going to think to tell a council that they moved when they haven't heard from them for a year.
The Order for Recovery if not responded to then leads on to a bailiff being instructed three weeks later, or maybe a year and three weeks given how haphazard Ealing Council have been.
Old PCNs should be written off, not chased at addresses which could well be out of date.
The end.
Mr Mustard came across this junction on the PePiPoo web forum, odd name but very useful site.
It is in the Kingston Road, New Malden at the junction with Elm Road (google street view is out of date so this is a relatively recent change).
The red sign says 'Give priority to Pedestrians and Cyclists at side road' which to Mr Mustard's eyes is unclear. Mr Mustard thinks it means give priority to pedestrians crossing the road at the give way markings and also give priority to cyclists who are riding along the cycle lane and going straight on if a motor vehicle wants to turn left across their path. Mr Mustard doesn't think the sign helps. Mr Mustard loves the double yellows though and loading ban (double kerb blips) but suspects they should be inside the cycle lane (Mr Mustard waits for comments to tell him he is wrong about that as he hasn't opened any of his signage guides). They should stop blue badge holders from parking there though.
Mr Mustard thinks that the yellow box is too long at both ends as if you extend the imaginary lines from the edges of the carriageway in Elm Road (the side road on the left) they would remove a car length of box at both ends. A yellow box junction should be placed, in the context of this location, 'at a junction between two or more roads' and Mr Mustard thinks that all of his readers, and for their part adjudicators, would agree that the green circle above is outside of the junction and therefore any car that stops there is not committing a contravention.
If you have a PCN at this location, or a tribunal hearing booked, and got caught at one end or the other of the box, please email mrmustard@zoho.com for free help.
The end.
For years council staff could tell the public anything they liked about a PCN and the public would accept it was true and meekly pay their PCN. There were a small number of PCN experts but they were spread quite thinly. Nowadays, with the explosion in PCN numbers the number of experts has also grown and they help each other to learn and share knowledge. Thus, council staff are regularly tested and in rare cases councils are having to appoint barristers to fight us at the tribunal as we have uncovered fundamental flaws in the legitimacy of their PCNs.
Why, with the increased scrutiny, council (or possibly outsourced provider) staff, opposed in a tribunal case by an expert with an eye for detail, think they can tell a whopping great lie in a witness statement is a mystery. Here is the statement. Mr Mustard has redacted the officer's name as this case may be sent to the council's fraud department. ('Officer' just means member of staff).
Mr Mustard had watched the footage, the camera didn't move which suggested a fixed installation and he also didn't think staff would be poring over cctv at gone 5.30pm on Christmas Eve so he asked what sort of camera was in use.
So there we have it. A Witness statement which is patently untrue and leaves the witness open to prosecution. Mr Mustard will now ask the motorist (whose Appeal was decided on the grounds that the PCN was invalid so the witness statement wasn't considered) if he wishes to report the officer to the Fraud department. The council take fraud by residents sufficiently seriously to put it in their policy, will they equally investigate fraud by their own staff?
If a PCN offers the ability to make representations by email
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Mr Mustard will ask Islington Council to either accept emailed representations or remove the option from their documents.
The end.
Mr Mustard has a regular client, let us call him Mr L, who, due to working all over London collects a few PCNs. If Mr Mustard can find an angle, he fights them. Every PCN won is £50 to the North London Hospice. This time Mr L, who is good at paperwork, said he had received a Charge Certificate but not the postal PCN for driving where he shouldn't have. Mr Mustard knows that Mr L and his secretary are well organised so he could believe what they said.
The PCN was supposedly sent on 9 February.
The above explanation was wishful thinking. A Charge Certificate can only be served if 28 days have elapsed from the service of the PCN, if a PCN has not been sent then the Charge Certificate isn't lawful and is good grounds for cancellation of the PCN. Islington looked like they were trying to get away with it but were forced to change their minds by circumstances.
Mr Mustard made a challenge, it was a simple but effective one:
The PCN value was quietly set to zero without a formal Notice of Acceptance (Mr Mustard checks balances weekly).
Mr Mustard also made a request for information and that has been responded to, as follows:
Islington cancelled once the extent of the problem became clear, they couldn't cope with their phone lines melting.
