Saracens monster CPZ - a review - who knew?

Here is a link to the page.

Tell the council it is overly large, excessively enforced and that a 1 hour restriction would be enough.

The council with their usual rigour have managed to publish two different email addresses on different web pages, one of which misses out the dot and it is a pretty stupidly long email address in any event.

It should be this one eando.consultation@barnet.gov.uk

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

PATAS appeals surge

At the Contract Scrutiny committee meeting of Barnet Council on Tuesday (Mr Mustard watched the film afterwards, and well done to the Barnet Bugle for being there once again) a council officer had to explain away an excess over budget of £40,000+ for extra appeals filed at PATAS. Each one cost £44.46 in the year in question. His answer was that this was not down to (and Mr Mustard will have to paraphrase from memory here as he really can't take watching it again) more incorrect tickets being issued (do try not to laugh) but rather to the plethora of free advice sites which help people to challenge their parking tickets, or exercising one's democratic right to challenge as Mr Mustard prefers to call it.

The answer will inevitably be more complicated than a single reason but the timing is interesting in that the surge in appeals broadly coincides with the appointment of NSL on 1 May 12. There is a time lag of generally 3 to 6 months before cases reach PATAS. Websites offering advice wouldn't exist unless there was a demand for them and it is Mr Mustard's view that the public are fed up with being used as a cash cow and strongly object to tickets that they see as unfair of which plenty of examples have appeared here, on the Miss Feezance blog, on Pepipoo and on lots of other websites, and are now fighting back. The more they find out how easy it is and how many mistakes the council makes, the more the appeals will rise.

Here are the numbers of appeals for which payment is made to London Councils (and 10/10 to them for providing an answer to Mr Mustard's request within 24 hours, just as they did last year and no stupid redacting - take note Barnet Council how information should be provided) who have responsibility for PATAS.

So that is fantastic work by you all and Mr Mustard thinks that a similar increase will be seen in 2013/14.

If you want to understand the appeal process, download the guide which is to the left of this blog.

Questions about that scrutiny meeting's effectiveness are why NSL were not asked to send a representative so that they could be questioned about day-to-day matters and where was the parking manager? Putting forward Directors who spend much of their time in meetings, and for whom parking is only one of their areas of line management, isn't going to lead to effective scrutiny.

Once the council realise that issuing parking tickets at the margin is uneconomic they will stop as it is money which motivates them.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Crossovers - crossed wires

Back in February 2013, Mr Mustard asked Barnet Council about the issue of parking tickets at crossovers (outside of CPZ areas) where the home owner had not asked for an attendance by a traffic warden, viz:

Are PCNs being routinely issued at dropped kerbs outside residential premises or only in response to a request from the occupier?

The answer he got was:

After some reiteration to NSL months ago I am not aware of recent problems where PCN's are being routinely issued at dropped kerbs outside single residential properties without a call or face to face request for help from those resident at the property.

What this response told Mr Mustard was that NSL were running riot at the start of the contract and supposedly aren't any longer. Hmmm.

Now let us look at a decision by the independent adjudicator at PATAS of 8 March.

The appellant denies the contravention. She states that she parked alongside the dropped kerb in front of her own driveway for the purposes of loading and unloading and therefore falls within the exceptions provided by the Traffic Management Act 2004 S.86(3) and S.86(5.

The local authority have not addressed these representations but incorrectly state that it is still a contravention to park outside their own driveway in direct contradiction to the legislation which require a complaint to be made by the owner of the residential premises.

I am therefore not satisfied that the contravention did occur and allow this appeal. If the appellant wishes to pursue a claim for costs she should send in an itemised note of the time and disbursements incurred in defending this appeal.

Costs were considered on 18 June and the adjudicator said:

The appellant has now applied for an order for costs and expenses to be made against the local authority on the basis that their conduct in failing to address her representations or the legislation to be "extremely unreasonable"

Under Regulation 12 of the Road Traffic (Parking Adjudicators) (London) Regulations 1993 it is provided that an Adjudicator shall not normally make an order awarding costs and expenses but may, subject to hearing representations from the party, make such an order against that party if he is of the opinion that the party has acted frivolously or vexatiously or that his conduct in making, pursuing or resisting an appeal was wholly unreasonable. Additionally, an order may be made against the local authority where the Adjudicator considers that the disputed decision, (the decision by the local authority to reject the appellant's representations), was wholly unreasonable.

I find the local authority complete lack of even an attempt at addressing the appellant's representations or checking the legislation despite being placed on Notice by the appellant, and in clear breach of their statutory duty, makes the disputed decision wholly unreasonable.

The local authority have not made any representation as to why a costs award should not be made.

I therefore award the appellant costs in the sum of £62.15 made up as follows:

1) £60.00 for time spent in excess of 5 hours which would be the maximum amount a litigant in person would be able to recover in the Small Claims Court under the Civil Procedure Rules.

2) £2.15 disbursements for the cost of a stamp and recorded delivery.

So now you wonder why the case was allowed to go all the way to PATAS at the very time that Mr Mustard was asking about this problem and why the council don't know as much about the tricks that NSL get up to as Mr Mustard does? The council have wasted £44 of your money on an unnecessary hearing and then had to fork out £62 on the expenses of the resident.

One day, one hopes, the council will become sensible and boring and exhibit some common-sense. Until then, Mr Mustard will keep an eye on them.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

2 caveats

1. Inside a CPZ there will probably be a single yellow across your dropped kerb so even the householder cannot park there during the zone hours. Sometimes there will be a parking bay across your dropped kerb which means, Mr Mustard thinks but this is a complicated area, that the householder could park across their own dropped kerb but no-one else should as a question of courtesy although you could argue you have explicit permission to do so during zone hours.

2. If you have a shared drive neither resident can park across the dropped kerb as it has to be left for access by the other neighbour at all times.

Tomorrow evening at The Library (Friern Barnet, of course) 22 June 7pm

The Friday Joke - Activist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

True activists

Mr Mustard does not think of himself as an "Activist". He doesn't even bear comparison with 1% of the achievements of the true Activists on the link above. What Mr Mustard is sure of is that he is opposed to the reckless gamble that is the One Barnet programme, but that doesn't make him an "Activist", it makes him someone who has carefully studied all of the paperwork he can lay his hands on and make as considered a decision as he can in the circumstances. He certainly doesn't expect to be branded when he makes a relatively minor planning enquiry.

At the bottom of the garden this monstrous carbuncle was built without planning permission, which it turned out was required.

Mr Mustard leapt into action.


24 May - email to the planning officer, copied to Councillors Rams, Longstaff & Joanna Tambourides as she is the Cabinet Member with responsibility for planning.

This isn't your fault (so I am not complaining about you but about the system) but it was some months ago that I pointed out to the council that sending out planning alerts before the documents are on the system is not the most helpful way of going on. When one receives an email one wants to deal with it there and then, not to have to set up a reminder. To properly consider a planning application looking at the drawings is essential. The council's alerts say that documents will be on the system in up to 5 working days which is a week basically. By that time the matter can be forgotten about.

Either you need to slow down the planning alerts by 5 working days or you need to get documents scanned & onto the system more quickly. Please pass this email up the management chain to whoever can make a decision that will enable residents to immediately put themselves in the picture upon receipt of an alert and can then take a greater part in the planning process.

Can you also please email me the documents for the above case.

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A response was received the same day.

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Thanks for copying me in to your email. I am checking in to the point you make and will contact you again shortly.

Cllr. Joanna Tambourides
East Barnet Ward
Cabinet Member for Planning
London Borough of Barnet

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Mr Mustard only had to wait until 28 May for the further contact and here it is, with emphasis added by Mr Mustard:

With regard to your original query, we have now been able to establish that our Planning Alert software does not allow us to wait until all the documents have been uploaded before sending out the alert. As soon as the application is logged on the system, it automatically triggers the alert. Perhaps this might change in the future, but at present we have to work with the system as it is. Even with its faults, it is a very valuable system to residents and activists like yourself across the Borough.

You could always “flag” the alert email, or put it to “Unread” as a way of reminding you to return to it again after a few days when all the documents will have been uploaded – this is what I do all the time.

We always adhere to the national policy about consultation. In many cases our officers will often be more generous in our consultation where there is marked public interest, and on large applications this can and does work out at several thousands of letters (with consequential administrative costs). In this particular case it was confined to those most directly affected, as you have mentioned.

Thank you for your comments.

Cllr. Joanna Tambourides

East Barnet Ward

Cabinet Member for Planning

London Borough of Barnet

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Mr Mustard has never spoken directly to Mrs Tambourides and his only contacts with her has been that she is one of the 63 councillors who get the same round robin letters that Mr Mustard sends on his own behalf now and then, or sometimes on behalf of the famous five Barnet Bloggers, so it isn't like there is any history which would colour her judgment.

Mr Mustard is known for his dogged determination and so he emailed back on 29 May

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Dear Mrs Tambourides

Thank you for your suggestion as to how I might better organise myself. I don't believe in writing lists of things to do unless I really have to. I am a "doer" rather than a "to doer". This might be an area where some fat could be stripped out of the town hall, getting staff to do things rather than write lists, or set reminders, about them.

I don't see why you need to label me as an "activist", rather than merely a resident, when I can see the monstrous carbuncle of the ugly rectangular box dormer from my dining room and thus I wrote as a local person who is concerned for the built environment and the lovely Victorian houses of my street & environs.

I am presuming of course that you are labelling me as an activist as a pejorative term because I oppose the extraordinarily risky punt in the dark that is otherwise known as the One Barnet programme which is irrelevant to my perusal of a local planning issue. That is not to be an "activist" but a rational long-term thinking resident who is concerned that he will have to pay for any mistakes made by the Cabinet whose members couldn't even be bothered to read the massive decade long contracts that it is railroading us into.

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Now that caused some consternation as that afternoon he received a response:

I am not labelling you at all. You have read all sorts of things in to my use of a word. Nothing pejorative was meant at all, I assure you.

Cllr. Joanna Tambourides

East Barnet Ward

Cabinet Member for Planning

London Borough of Barnet

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29 May and Mr Mustard emailed again

Dear Mrs Tambourides

Do you regularly write to residents and call them activists then in response to local planning matters?

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Since then it has been rather quiet and nothing further has been received. Evidently the answer is that Cllr Tamboruides does not normally label residents and Mr Mustard suspects that she will be doubly careful not do so in the future.

Mr Mustard has asked about the costs of the email alert system, you can sign up for it here, and cost and terms of scanning the documents but as the council are suddenly finding his innocent enquiries to be vexatious again it might be some months before he gets a reply.

If you have been written to in an unfortunate manner by your councillor, do please share.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Barnet Alliance for Public Services - 1 July 2013

BARNET ALLIANCE FOR PUBLIC SERVICES

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 

Monday 1st July, 7 pm 
Greek Cypriot Centre Britannia Road N12 9RU 

This will be an opportunity to join BAPS as a member or renew the membership and contribute to the community campaign to defend and improve public services in Barnet. 

The business part of the AGM will be followed by a talk by Gerald Shamash,  Maria Nash's solicitor in her Judicial Review: 

'One Barnet' - A Council On Trial 

Refreshments provided

PCN's cancelled for issue period April 11 to March 13

So here we have a report in which the cancellation of lots of parking tickets is formalised.

Individually they are not large but they do add up somewhat and this is the first report of this kind that Mr Mustard can recall seeing.

There is no data available of the £2,798,473 written off for 2009 to 2011 but the appendices did list out the parking tickets cancelled of those issued from April 11 to March 13.

The pdf format in which the council presented the data wasn't very helpful and Mr Mustard has put it into a spreadsheet for you so that you can look up to see if your old ticket is there and then you can breathe more easily.

The listing is currently in AG number order and you can download the whole listing if you wish and sort it in date order instead by using the filter box at the top of date and then selecting the ascending date sort option.

Barnet Council DPR2065 Special Parking Account Write Off June 13 by MisterMustard

Barnet Council PCN Writes Offs June 13 by MisterMustard