Sainsbury's express ticketing

Since J Sainsbury's new small store came to Finchley Central hundreds of people have been caught out by the parking bay right in front of the store - so tempting to stop there thinking it is for shoppers? The previous signs (photo from October 13) were like this

So that limited parking at certain times (to allow for deliveries) and limited parking during the day to 1h 30m in which time you certainly could buy some shopping. The situation was further confused by a single yellow line through half of the bay. Many people got this wrong and now eventually changes have been made. This is the new sign and the yellow line is gone.

That is slightly clearer and free in the day but how many people are going to get caught after 8pm buying what will turn into a very expensive pint of milk? 

15 minutes isn't a great deal of use. All it will take is a small queue to pay and you will be over your time once you have filled a basket with groceries.

Let's see how many people get caught out under this new regime.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

From worse to bad - looks like a phishing attempt

Mr Mustard heard about the above letter being very poorly presented and is now lucky(?) enough to have seen a copy of it. There wasn't a letterhead nor a named contact and signature. One could be forgiven for throwing it away as it couldn't possibly have come form the council or one of their contractors, or could it? Probably thanks to complaints received a revised letter was cobbled together but it really isn't much better.

The second letter is marginally better in that it has the borough logo on the bottom but would have benefited from all the usual address and communication details in the top right. It still looks dodgy.

What really made the recipient think it was fishy (the no cash parking council offering to accept cash?) was that they never paid by debit or credit card in the first place.

They paid by cheque, which has already cleared.

Well done Crapita, down to your usual standard.

Best send a properly drawn up third letter (don't charge us council tax payers for it please).

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Looks like the traffic warden was a bit too crafty

Mr Mustard has tweeted about PCNs going missing. he has suggested to the council that they log places and traffic warden numbers of instances in which the PCN goes missing to see if there any patterns. Either there are phantom ticket nickers about in certain streets or it's always, mysteriously, the same traffic warden's tickets that go astray. Their pockets should be checked when they gets back to base?

This PCN doesn't look very well attached

but it should still have hung on unless a hurricane passed through Barnet.

The unfortunate thing for this traffic warden is that he/she issued 2 PCN within 3 minutes of one away to vehicles parked next to each other and neither driver got their PCN. Mr Mustard has worked in High Barnet for 27 years so is well known and he knew both drivers, honest people, who passed on their Notices to Owner to him. Mr Mustard doubts that anyone would steal a PCN from a vehicle parked outside a shop. He strongly suspects that both PCN were removed afterwards by the traffic warden who clearly doesn't know what he/she is doing, or maybe they do?

So that is the front vehicle of the two that Mr Mustard is dealing with. You can see two signs, one of which is angled away and not visible from the driver's seat. The driver can see the right hand sign which is a dual resident and business bay for which the vehicle had a valid permit. The left hand sign is PayByPhone. Can you see the join between the two bays? (nice fresh lines - pretty but wrongly painted) no you can't and that is because it wasn't visible before they were repainted as the 2 payment bays were only introduced about a year ago. So the driver could see a sign and walked off as he was correctly parked, or so he thought. Which sign did the traffic warden photograph, the incorrectly aligned left one (which would enable the issue of a PCN as no payment had been made) or the right one which the van was entitled to be parked against. Yes, you guessed correctly

This action by the traffic warden is at the sly end of the scale if not downright cheating.

He took his final photograph at 9:26 and then proceeded to ticket the other van at 9:27 for code 11 which in Barnet contractually requires a 3 minute observation period; was it given? Mr Mustard doesn't know as the PCN went missing. It is possible that both vehicles were observed at the same time and Mr mustard will ask the parking manager as he is just about to email him.

If you have had a PCN recently in Union St, High Barnet thanks to this confusion Mr Mustard will help you to sort it out. Email him at mrmustard@zoho.com.

This sort of behaviour is unacceptable from a contractor to a council. At the very least their contract should not be extended or renewed. We should look to bring the task back in house asap and only employ traffic wardens who sign a declaration that they will only issue a PCN when there is no doubt about their right to do so. 

It says in the current contract that signs and lines should be checked before the issue of a PCN. Clearly, that isn't happening.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

"Human kindness is in short supply in Barnet" - PATAS adjudicator

The Appellant, who is very severely disabled, returned to the vehicle a few minutes late as he was "taken poorly" and had to rest on his way back.

It seems to me quite astonishing that the Council on reading the circumstances described by the Appellant, supported by medical evidence and the subsequent grant of a disabled badge on the strength of it, should not immediately have exercised its discretion to cancel the PCN, whether or not the PCN was technically correctly issued. He states "I live my life in my bedroom and this was a wonderful day for me I was upset my ticket was not cancelled for human kindness reasons". It would appear that human kindness is in short supply in Barnet.

Be that as it may, it seems to me that on looking at the facts of the situation as described by the Appellant, and which I see no reason to doubt, I take the view that the delay in returning to the vehicle , and hence the reason for the vehicle waiting there  was caused by circumstances beyond his control. Although the CEO cannot be faulted for issuing the PCN , as it transpires I am satisfied it was incorrectly issued and the Appeal is allowed.

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The parking enforcement contract needs to be taken out of the clutches of NSL and returned to the council (there is a slim chance that a council employee saw this case and let it proceed but NSL produce the evidence for PATAS to consider). They should then find a suitable employee, with a heart, to decide upon representations of this kind and make common sense decisions.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Parking appeals - 8 to 20 months later

Mr Mustard is indebted to the Barnet Bugle (who is usually at interesting meetings with his camera so that important matters get recorded) for these extracts neatly edited together of last night's full council meeting. They show Cllr Alan Schneiderman asking serious supplementary questions about the PATAS parking ticket Appeal statistics for the year to March 14 and Cllr Dean Cohen vaguely promising action at some unspecified future date. Although the figures were only published last month, the council tracked them throughout the year so they shouldn't have been news to Dean and thus putting a plan in place in November 14 is rather slow work.

Mr Mustard only accounted for about 2% of the Appeals to PATAS.

Dean's replies were without substance. That isn't how the democratic process should work. Dean should have been able to say what actual steps were being taken to file evidence packs in more cases, get fewer Appeals in the first place and increase the success rate. Did he not know?

The arrival of a permanent parking manager, as opposed to a passing through interim, has seen a number of technical paperwork errors be corrected and so, as it happens, the council success rate will go up once the erroneous notices have worked their way through the system.

If you are reading Dean and want to see some PATAS cases being heard you can simply turn up there at Angel, Islington on any working day or Saturday morning (not Wednesday afternoon) and watch any hearing as a member of the public. You could see how a number of boroughs perform as against Barnet. If you want to sit in on any Appeals for which Mr Mustard is the representative do send him an email and he'll tell you when there is a good list of cases. Mr Mustard currently has 4 cases at 10am on 4 December (one against Hackney and three against Barnet) but Barnet may throw the towel in before then, as is customary, so best to check first.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

No times = no valid PCN

Today Mr Mustard and the parking manager were in complete agreement. This worries him (the manager) but it does happen.

The above sign is in Marsh Drive, NW9. Mr Mustard's client had 2 PCN which he received over a  weekend. Apparently, since the button factory closed, there aren't any business permit holders needing to park in Marsh Drive and at weekends residents have parked there without problem, until recently that is.

A sign with no times on it operates 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Mr Mustard thought it unlikely that the hours for a business bay would be much more than 8am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday. He suggested as much to the Parking Manager who entirely agreed and said he would check the Traffic Management Order which sets out the rules. Having done so this sign has been found to be wrong and will be replaced. Every PCN issued there recently is also being cancelled. That means that 5 people with a PCN will find that if they challenge the PCN they will be told it has already been cancelled and if they try to pay on line the system won't take their money. Luckily no-one had paid so ticket issuing here must have been the new wheeze of a particular traffic warden - a wheeze which is no more.

So well done to the manager for agreeing straight away to cancel everything that was wrong. It is the sort of honesty that residents are entitled to expect as routine. If a PCN had been paid getting a refund might have been harder but the question wasn't tested.

Mr Mustard is looking out for any other Business permit holder only bays with equally defective signage. If you see one, do let Mr Mustard know by sending a photograph to mrmustard@zoho.com.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Not a sign of the times

It was only in August that the Secretary of State for Transport approved a suspnded bay sign for Barnet Council. Before that they didn't have one and so every parking ticket for a suspended bay or space could be contested. Now they do have one but it doesn't look like the one above which was erected on Saturday.

Firstly that is insufficient notice. If you had gone away for a long weekend you could have been ticketed before you got back. 5 days is seen as the bare minimum for suspension except in an emergency.

This is what the sign should look like.

There is no mention in the authorisation that gaffer tape is an acceptable material.

The sign should be in 3 parts so that once folded and mounted it can be seen from both sides of the suspended section. It should really contain details of exactly what section of road is suspended (this cannot be done by the use of cones as in this instance as they tend to "walk" along the road) and there shouldn't be an advert for the surfacing contractor on the sign although there should be a telephone number to call in case of query. The sign in this case is within a residents' bay that holds a dozen cars. How much is suspended? probably only about a 5m section but you could argue it is the whole bay. We'll see what traffic wardens make of it and then NSL will get yet more representations to deal with from Mr Mustard which they will doubtless reject. No wonder Appeals to PATAS have risen so much.

The parking contractor should not be left to erect their own signs as appears to be the case here as the result of any slackness on their part is a PCN for an unsuspecting motorist.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard