Stop parking in parking bays! Yes really.

Mr Mustard has permission to blog this

nice motor

Look! a car with a parking ticket. Is it for parking with a wheel outside of the bay? which would be perfectly understandable as the bay is narrow and the car is wide. No. The London Council's CEO handbook says that an entire wheel should be outside a bay before a PCN is issued and that is not the case here. The car is parked such that all of the zig-zag is visible. The alleged contravention was this one:

Stopped on a pedestrian crossing or crossing area marked by zig zags in Golders Green Road.

Now do you think that this offence has been committed because Mr Mustard doesn't? There is clearly a bay marked out for parking outside of the zigzags and they only apply to the area between the lines, not across the carriageway up to the building line, as is the case with yellow lines.

For locals, this is near Woodstock Avenue.

Formal representations were submitted in response to the Notice to Owner saying that the alleged contravention did not occur.

The back office in Croydon agreed and cancelled the PCN which should not have been issued in the first place, thus wasting everyone's time.  This line appeared in the cancellation letter:

Although we have cancelled your penalty charge notice in (sic) this occasion, please be advised that vehicles are not permitted to park there and alternative parking should be sought next time. Mr Mustard suggests Potters Bar or Welwyn Garden City or anywhere else that gives you some free parking time. Hertsmere Council have it right.

So there you have it readers. You must stop parking in marked out parking bays in Golders Green or risk getting a PCN. Now tell Mr Mustard why shops are finding trading so tough in the London Borough of Barnet. Could it be that NSL's traffic wardens are completely out of control?

It is a good job that this case didn't reach PATAS as it looks like a sure fire case for costs to be paid for wasting the motorist's time, or the necessary "wholly unreasonable behaviour" by Barnet Council.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The long way round

or go to Marks & Spencers in the High Rd or your corner shop?

Yesterday Mr Mustard had to pop to North Finchley. He took his motorbike so that he could park in the Lodge Lane car park for free. He was wearing a Mr Mustard t-shirt and a couple of people stopped him to say hello which was nice.

A visitor from Haringey couldn't believe that his coins were of no use. He had come out without his credit/debit card ready to spend his folding money in the local shops and was about to leave as he was going to follow the advice of Barnet Council and park elsewhere, which was going to be back in Haringey. Mr Mustard took the man's £1.30 and put a Mr Mustard credit card in the parking meter for him and handed over the ticket.

Then a lady told him that she was sick of listening to the PayByPhone message which, whilst you are actually trying to PayByPhone, pointlessly tells you that you can download an App or use the website. That is her time being frittered away on every visit, she doesn't like it. John, more of him later, told Mr Mustard that using the App is slower than using the calling up method. It is also very much harder when the sun is shining brightly as it was yesterday as flat screens are pretty useless except in the shade.

Mr Mustard took a while to get where he was going but that didn't matter as he wasn't in a rush. He did notice that from the far end of the car park where Mr Mustard had put his motorbike out of the way, that it was impossible to see the debit/credit card meter because there is a car space somewhat perilously placed right in front of it. Mr Mustard seems to recall suggesting to Cllr Dean Cohen, whose responsibilities include parking, that signs in the Car Park would be a good idea. He couldn't find his email so simply sent another one today. Let's see how long it takes before signs are put up alerting people to the presence of a debit/credit card meter. Surely the council want people to use these shiny new meters?

Now John, a splendid gentleman who paid for his parking with the App but couldn't remember the location number and has to check on the board every time, had different information for Mr Mustard about the hole in the road that is Totteridge Lane at the moment and here it is:

Hello Mr. Mustard,
It was interesting to meet you in the Lodge Lane car park today (and you too John). You suggested that I send you my thoughts on the Totteridge Lane diversion routes - so here goes.
During road works in the top stretch of Totteridge Lane, traffic is not allowed to enter Totteridge Lane from the High Road in Whetstone. Barnet Council have published two alternative routes, both of which are ludicrously long. They may be necessary for large vehicles, but there are much shorter routes suitable for cars.

Route 1 is to go south on the High Road to North Finchley, Ballards Lane, Alexandra Grove, Argyle Road, Chanctonbury Way, Southover, Longland Drive to Totteridge Lane. A much shorter route is to leave the High Road via Woodside Lane and take Ridgeview Road and Naylor Road to Totteridge Lane.

Route 2 is even more crazy (Mr Mustard thought Route 1 was pretty crazy). It is to go north on the High Road and continue all the way to Barnet Church. Then go via Wood Street and Barnet Road through Arkley to Stirling Corner. Then south on the A1 almost to Apex Corner and follow Marsh Lane, Highwood Hill, Totteridge Common, Totteridge Village to Totteridge Lane. A much shorter route is to turn left at the bottom of Barnet Hill, onto Mays Lane, then via Barnet Lane to Totteridge Village and Totteridge Lane.

The Whetstone branch of Waitrose has a car park entered from Totteridge Lane, just below the road works. I understand Waitrose issued leaflets to customers, recommending the alternative routes which I have suggested above. Waitrose were contacted by the Council and told that they must advise customers to use the official routes and not the alternatives. Waitrose complied and changed their leaflets. I do not understand what authority the council have to issue such instructions to Waitrose.

Yours sincerely

John

Of course local people will take the shorter routes that they know but sending strangers 10 miles out of their way isn't good for the planet and will probably be defeated by satnav. What was somebody thinking? If you have copies of the leaflets please send them to mrmustard@zoho.com

Here is the 200 yard journey turned into one of 10 miles.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Update: Unusually Cllr Dean Cohen has responded the same day and will get officers to sort out signs in the car park. Good man.

Second update: The Waitrose issued maps above shows their North Finchley store and the joke is that if coming north up Ballards Lane intending to go to Waitrose N20 you would be directed left by the council's sign 50m before the N Finchley store. Great.

Mr Mustard no longer believes in Father Christmas

Link to statement on council website

Capita man: Do you still believe in Father Christmas?

Richard Cornelius : Oh, rather.

Richard is going to feel so foolish later when he finds out that Father Christmas doesn't exist and older boys and girls knew all along and either didn't tell him or did tell him and he didn't want to believe them. Boo hoo.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Permit me - to be very slow

Here is a report from an independent adjudicator at PATAS

As a matter of fact the appellant did not display his business permit and the contravention is made out since he had parked his vehicle without paying the appropriate parking charge. However, there are a number of factors in this case which lead to make a recommendation to the Authority to cancel the PCN.
 

The appellant did not have dispensation to park because at the time of parking he had not yet received his business permit. Nevertheless, I note that he applied for the permit on 11 th March 2013 and had paid £840 for the business permit which would be valid for 12 months. On 19th March 2013 the appellant still had not received his permit so contacted the Authority with an original intention to cancel the permit due to delay, but the permit was never cancelled and the appellant was informed that the permit would be despatched on 28th March 2013.

Unwisely the appellant parked his vehicle prior to receipt of the permit and on 21st March received a PCN. 

The appellant could not have displayed his permit on 21st March because at that time he had not received it even though it had been paid for by the appellant. When despatched the permit was valid for 12 months until 11th March 2014 which implies that the application and fees were received on 11th March 2013. The appellant may have acted naively, but he had paid for the permit prior to its despatch as the expiry date implies. He will no doubt have learnt his lesson and will not act presumptively in the future.

I accordingly refuse the appeal but make a recommendation that the PCN be cancelled.

This worries Mr Mustard that if the permit section are dealing with refunds of the CPZ overcharges they will not be able to cope as they can't deal with a simple renewal.

The business is paying £840 for a permit and the council cannot manage to get it out the same day. The council should be sending the permit to the business by courier on the same day as a valid application is received. The council want their business rates paid on time, not 3 weeks later; why should you stand for such sloppy service?

Mr G of High Barnet, the council owe you either a 3 week extension on your permit renewal date or a refund of £49. Make sure you get it.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Parking prices - the future

Yesterday saw Richard Cornelius, the leader of the council, responding to the many emails he had received that suggested the council not appeal the decision of Mrs Justice Lang, DBE, that the revenue raising CPZ permit price increase was unlawful.

Here is the entire email sent to a friend:

no appeal
Richard

That could be misconstrued by the voters Richard,  they may take you at your word and vote for a nice new independent candidate?

Mr Mustard blogged yesterday about refunds. You can do them online using one of those horrible webforms, here, or you can send an email here. One email will suffice; if you moved since May 2011 give the council both addresses so they can find you more easily. I am told that a separate email is needed for each permit (a tweet has been sent to the council to see if that is true but given that Mr Mustard sold his car and purchased the blogger bus in that time then it might be sensible to do separate claims) and the council website says that it will take up to 8 weeks to process a refund. Come on Barnet Council that isn't cricket. You give people 4 weeks to pay up for a parking ticket or you increase the penalty by 50%. Doesn't asking for 8 weeks look a teensy weensy bit one-sided? 

You have had 2 years to plan for this day, why are you not better organised and staffed up for this. You will have to get temps in and it is a sausage factory operation so easy to manage. Did the applicant pay or not, yes or no, is all you have to decide and then record the refund in such a way that it does not get paid twice.

Mr Mustard didn't want Richard to feel all lonely now that CPZ emails will come to a stop and so he rattled off his thoughts, as follows:



Dear Richard

Thank you for taking the trouble to reply.

I presume that prices will revert to the old ones and then that there will be a root and branch reform of all parking charges to look to the future. That would also be a good time to look at cash parking meters again. There must be room for some compromise. You may be told they are expensive to collect cash from but paybyphone costs are about 10% of income which isn't that far short of what cash collecting costs.

There are two places where cash meters are, in my view, essential and that is car parks and the High Street. They could probably be covered by about 100 machines (there used to be about 450) especially if a number of short term free bays were also introduced at the same time to cut down the number required. Rationing space can be done by time as well as by money; look at Whetstone which merely limits you from parking on one side of the road or the other (with no time limit I think) and how busy it is.

You aren't in it for the money remember.

Best regards

Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard will of course attend any committee at which this subject is discussed and keep an eye out for a Delegated Powers Report by which method it might be dealt (although given the importance it really should be properly discussed by committee).

It isn't only the resident permits that need looking at. If a business is within a CPZ zone it can buy a permit for £525 (or £840 for a permit to cover any registration - intended to help businesses who rent their delivery vans and so have frequent changes of registration) and they can then park in business permit holder spaces. Mr Mustard is struggling to see how a permit to park a vehicle, possibly an estate car or Morris Minor sized van, which belongs to a business can be justified to cost £525 when it takes up the same space as a resident's car or less space than the blogger bus (a Renault Trafic) which has a resident permit. It looks like the council are revenue raising from businesses and will have to stop. A business is limited to 3 permits (that won't encourage businesses with 500 employees to come to Barnet) and so there is some logic in charging the same price for a permit as to Residents.

Near High Barnet tube there has been a campaign to have a CPZ zone extended. It is the D zone. You will find a report here.

Here are some short extracts:

As a result of the consultation the Council received 53 email or letter responses frommembers of the public relating to the proposals which included comments, objections
and requests to revise the proposal. Of the 53 items of correspondence, two were epetitions (which can be viewed at http://petitions.barnet.gov.uk/SupportCPZ and
http://petitions.barnet.gov.uk/ValeDrive ) and 51 were received from local residents.
Of the 53 items, 12 (22.6%) were against the proposed CPZ extension while 41
(77.3%) were in favour.

An e-petition containing 215 signatories not in support of the proposals from
people who work for, represent or visit regularly Vale Drive Primary Care Centre and
St Catherine’s County RC School. Both St Catherine’s and Vale Drive Health Clinic
have a large number of staff who live outside walking distance, who work full time at
these premises. Both buildings have small car parks, which have the space to
provide parking for approximately 40% of their workforce. The remainder of
employees currently use the non-restricted zones in the surrounding roads. The
implications of the extended parking zones is considered by the petitioners to be a
huge inconvenience to staff, it also means vehicles will be parking in Mays Lane
EN5, which already currently becomes hugely congested. The Council has been
informed that at St Catherine’s staff rely on a large number of volunteers to help with
the day-to-day running of the school including school trips, extra curricular activities
and classroom assistance. The proposed restrictions will be a further deterrent to the
willing and kind local community who currently assist the school with the education of
Barnet children.

An e-petition containing 85 signatories in support of the CPZ extension proposal
was received from residents of Elton Avenue, Woodfall Avenue and Milton Avenue
who are currently competing for parking space with commuters, clinic workers,
school workers and college students, leaving little or no room for resident parking
during the day. The detail of the petition goes on to highlight Barnet has plenty of
spaces in the station car park, and Fitzohn (sic) Avenue car park which could conceivably
accommodate these commuters, leaving the residents, and their visitors, (including
carers) to park near their own houses.

Clearly the council want to support its local communities in which St Catherine’s
County RC School plays a vital role so it is also mindful of adversely affecting
amenities that service the area and need support. The Council has recognised this
across the board, and with this in mind the council is, under a separate process,
considering establishing permits for teaching staff that will entitle those eligible staff
of those qualifying schools within the borough, to park in the relevant CPZs. It is
considered that should it be agreed that teachers permits be introduced, that subject
to all statutory processes, they could be in place this autumn. In relation to St
Catherine’s County RC School, it is considered that as the roads are part controlled,
if the CPZ extension is agreed the whole length of each road would have the capacity
for both resident and teaching staff parking.

In terms of the staff of the health centre, no permits are envisaged; however it is
considered that parking provision exists for those motorists wishing to park
throughout the day, through the Council-operated and private car parks situated
nearby.

Following the conclusion of the statutory consultation it is still considered that there is
merit in the nature of the measures proposed for the area to improve the parking
conditions for residents, however, following considerations of comments and
objections received, the council is confident that the proposal would not detract from
what the council originally aimed to achieve in the area, with various concerns about
non-resident parking able to be managed in other ways.

Officers wrote to Underhill Ward Councillors prior to the statutory consultation in
order to ascertain their views on the proposal. No comments were received in the
three weeks given. (Why do we have councillors?)

What do you think of this CPZ zone extension? An unusual precedent has been set (do please tell Mr Mustard if exceptions have been made for teachers anywhere else in the borough) with permits being planned for teachers but not for nurses and with local businesses just up the hill paying £525 for a permit. Mr Mustard doesn't think that the council have got this balancing act right (he readily accepts it wasn't easy).

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

CPZ - move your money back

Here is a link to the refund application email address, here

Thank you councillors Richard Cornelius & Dean Cohen (presumably you both had something to do with the decision).

Now how about getting that clamped and removed car returned like you promised Richard?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

RAC report on excessive council parking surpluses

Barnet Council - figures from SPA reports

The RAC Foundation have produced a great report on council parking income, here.

They have used the figures found in official returns of income and expenditure but Mr Mustard thinks they show a misleading picture (don't blame the RAC) and so he has done a comparison to the figures shown in the SPA, the Special Parking Account, which he thinks shows a clearer, more accurate picture. The SPA excludes income from off-street car parks which for 12/13 was £444,000 & which was down on previous years, due in the opinion of Mr Mustard, to the removal of cash parking meters and the hiking of charges during the rein of Cllr Brian Coleman as the cabinet member with responsibility for parking (he would disagree of course! & the council committee report blames the recession).

Barnet Council parking surpluses

Year	RAC £	SPA £
09/10	2,904,000	2,744,694
10/11	1,307,000	2.088.340
11/12	-156,000	5,708,039
12/13	unknown	7,193,142

What is clear from this table is that the way in which parking income and expenditure is reported leads to lower reported surpluses overall than are actually the case. The RAC say Barnet Council's costs doubled over 2 years which is not shown in the SPA figures, which apart from the year of getting ready to out-source, with attendant costs, shows costs are steadily reducing.

Year	Costs £
09/10	6,751,712
10/11	6,271,885
11/12	6,567,971
12/13	4,661,253

One thing is clear; Barnet Council is making excessive surpluses from parking and the effects are visible in empty High Streets and this is a policy they have been following since 09/10 to steadily increase the surplus from parking which, in effect, subsidises council tax.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Footnote: Mr Mustard wonders if the reason for the loss in the RAC's figures in 11/12 is because c. 450 parking meters were thrown on the scrap heap and the depreciated capitalised cost remaining on the books had to be written off. If there were 450 meters at an average installation cost of say £5,000 were written off on a straight line basis over, say, 4 years then the Accounts would have taken a one-off hit of £1,125,000. Mr Mustard can't ask the council as they are refusing to ask his perfectly reasonable questions on parking. You can ask.