Hedge Fund

Update Monday 12 October 15: The parking process manager (he isn't silly) has cancelled the PCN. Poor lad, back off his holidays to tricksy emails from the local blogger. The state of the car park is being referred upwards to his boss.

10 October 15



Mr Mustard is dealing with a PCN in the Bunns Lane Car Park for parking outside of the bay parkings. It is in the following line of cars; all but the tiny Fiat 500 seem to be outside of the bay.

A parking bay in a car park should, based upon Traffic Management Orders for other car parks, be 5.5m in length. If it isn't then the council can't enforce its rule that the maximum vehicle length which can be parked is 5.5m (and a maximum height of 2m).

Mr Mustard went there in his car which is 4.6m in length so should easily fit into a bay. Did it?

At most then the bays are about 4m in length. Mr Mustard did go for a wander around Mill Hill and spent money in 2 shops to give a traffic warden time to pop by and ticket him. No such luck!

Mr Mustard was also a bit miffed that he had to use his phone to get 3 hours of free parking as there isn't even a single parking meter in this car park, unlike the ones in High Barnet (why not?). The sum due was £nil but the 3 digit security cvv/cv2 code for his credit card was mandatory despite nothing being due to be charged to his card.

edited in blue by Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard took other photographs whilst he was there

If you don't have a phone you won't do your Saturday shopping in Mill Hill

Apparently, this is a blue badge holder's bay!

Rubbish, weeds and broken glass everywhere, lines not clear, bays too short & too narrow

This a VW Polo, not quite 4m in length

now this car does deserve a PCN on a busy day although no harm has been done today

The council are making £7m a year, net of costs, out of parking.

The council need to spend some of it on resurfacing 75% of the car park, removing all the rubbish (including on the stepped path which no-one can use), killing the weeds, cutting the foliage back, remarking the whole car park with bays which are all at least 5.5m long and installing at least one parking meter so that people can pay on the spot with a credit or debit card or obtain a printed receipt for 3 hours of free parking on a Saturday.

Has there been much publicity for these three free hours as Mr Mustard didn't have to fight for a space? The main users were driving instructors who could teach novices to park without any danger of hitting a parked car.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Let's twist again, like we did last summer

You don't need to go back to 1961 to do the twist if you are a Barnet Council / NSL traffic warden. You can try and twist motorists out of money in the summer of 2015 and simultaneously shoot yourself in the foot.

His client, who Mr Mustard always believed, but apparently her husband was sceptical, parked in Finchley Road, Temple Fortune and displayed her blue badge, but the council claimed the bay was suspended. The lady did not see the suspended bay sign (and it was not the triangle shape that they often are in order to try and attain all round visibility) and challenged the PCN on the following grounds:

"As you will see from my photos not only was the sign turned to face away from the road but it was not at all visible from the bay in which I parked my car."

The council refused the challenge and said:

Please be advised that the signage taken by the CEO (sic) at the time of the contravention is facing the correct way. The council can confirm that the signage in place is complaint (sic) with the relevant legislations (sic) and deem you liable for the charge incurred.

Several points here. What matters is which way the sign was facing at the time that the lady parked not at the time that the traffic warden wandered along and (innocently?) turned the sign to get a better photo. (A complaint is about to be logged as that is tampering with the evidence).

The council meant to say "photos of the signage taken by the CEO" not that he took the sign away!

They mean that the signage is compliant with the legislation. It isn't as it omits some mandatory information.

The council cannot deem you liable for the charge. Until you either fail to contest a PCN in time or an adjudicator finds against you a PCN and associated documents are just that, so much paperwork. It is language designed to induce you to pay up (not likely when you are being represented by Mr Mustard, or are on your own but know that an injustice has been done to you).

The case has now reached the adjudication stage and an evidence pack has been received in good time (Barnet are actually much better than many councils, they send a pack to Mr Mustard and another one to the motorist so they can pat themselves on the back for that) but it contains something that hurts their case (and the duty is to submit all evidence good or bad. Mr Mustard is obliged as a regular representative to assist the tribunal which means saying when something is against him. Amusingly, he withdrew a point recently and the adjudicator asked him why he had done so and Mr Mustard told him the argument was pants (he didn't exactly say that) and the adjudicator then responded that it was and he had been looking forward to a good argument about it!) and it is this sentence in the case summary: 

Furthermore, the council would add the signage was in fact directly next to the appellant's vehicle also seen in Google Street View the position of the suspension signage.

The vehicle was not "directly next to" the signage, she was in pole position in bay #1 and the sign is perpendicularly placed alongside bay #2.

Off to google went Mr Mustard and here is what he found, from two angles:

the view from where the lady parked, you wouldn't see the suspension sign unless you were an eagle

The view from bays #2/#3

Mr Mustard had to be helped up from the floor where he was almost laughing his feet off (even funnier than laughing your socks off).

What does the council's own evidence show? It shows (in black & white when it should be in colour) a similar street map image as Mr Mustard's one, with the sign turned to the left. 

Gotcha!

A complaint is about to be made to the council as the traffic warden must have put the sign straight, a member of the public wouldn't touch it. If the council continue to oppose the Appeal Mr Mustard will be claiming costs for vexatious and/or wholly unreasonable behaviour (costs are rarely awarded but this is a deserving case) and he has spent time visiting his client and she will attend at the tribunal to give evidence in person so between 5 & 10 hours in total at the legislated flat rate of £18 per hour.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Nine PCN Polish-ed off

It was back in March that Mr Mustard had a rather worried Polish builder contact him as he had received 9 PCN whilst working on one job for 4 weeks near to the Tate Modern in Southwark. He had charged his customer the cost of the congestion charge (he lives outside London) and 8 hours of parking a day at £4.80 an hour so clearly he had intended to always park properly. This was the sensible action of a man who has been in the country for over a decade. He was though somewhat overrun with the paperwork and the borough had left the street name out of his address so much of it had gone missing. At the point Mr Mustard jumped into his car and went straight to see him at home; the reason being that if clients come to Mr Mustard they always leave at least one vital piece of the jigsaw at home, or in the case of a builder, on the dashboard of their van.

It has been a bit of an epic as many of the PCN had already been registered as debts at the Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC) and so the builder was facing a total payment of £1,725 to avoid a single PCN going to a bailiff (9 bailiff letters would have added another £675 which makes the bailiff fee for writing the first demand letter look rather generous as all 9 PCN could be put in one demand). Mr Mustard filed the appropriate in time (only just for some of them) witness statements at the TEC and all the PCN were then wound back to the Notice to Owner stage (the liability was then down to a potential £1,130 as there were 8 higher level PCN at £130 each and one lower level at £80).

Mr Mustard then set to with his challenges. A number had been given for parking on the pavement. The spot concerned was laid out with the pavement and carriageway being level with one another and bollards existed to stop vehicles going where the council didn't want them to go but that encouraged people to park partly on the carriageway, straddle the double yellows and be on the pavement. When you are refitting a kitchen and have no room to turn around in a tiny riverside flat you keep needing to bring your van close to the property to load and unload tools, materials and debris and thus commit one &  sometimes two contraventions at one and the same time and there is always a traffic warden lurking nearby.

Amusingly the same error was made three times. The building had a plaque saying it was on Bankside. It was at the front but the van was at the back and so it was in Hopton St. That made those 3 PCN invalid. The council recognised their untenable position pretty quickly and cancelled those once challenged. They also cancelled one where payment and the PCN occurred at pretty much the same instant. 

As Mr Mustard produced an invoice for building works Southwark Council also accepted unloading on all but two of the PCN which Mr Mustard then took to London Tribunals (formerly PATAS). Mr Mustard awoke early this morning and was idling through the tribunal register when he saw that Southwark have decided not to contest the two Appeals to the tribunal which now makes the outcome of the 9 PCN this:

So that is a potential outlay of £1,725 reduced to £nil. Don't feel sorry for Southwark Council (who have been entirely reasonable throughout) as they gathered in £800 of parking receipts for the one van during a month. The Polish builder has now retained his profit from the job which would have been pretty much wiped out by these PCN.

Please don't leave it until your PCN is registered as a debt at the TEC if you think you might need Mr Mustard. Never ignore PCN paperwork, always stick to the timetable. If you are going into hospital or abroad for a number of weeks, get someone you trust to open your post.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

CPZ permits for teachers, you decide

The council have kindly provided Mr Mustard with a cleaner copy of the questionnaire than the scan that he did of his paper copy. You have until the 30th to make your views known. You can ignore the equalities section and then the form will only take 2 minutes

Schools Permit Consultation Questionaire_Paper

A profitable problem (not solved) Connell Crescent, Ealing W5

Scouting around the internet Mr Mustard found that residents of Connell Crescent (close to the Hanger Lane gyratory) have been unhappy about their road being used as a short cut from the A40 to the North Circular since at least 2005.

The local residents association wrote about it in a 2015 newsletter:

be careful what you wish for; some Connell Crescent residents received PCN!

The council duly implemented a "no motor vehicles" restriction from 3 to 7pm.

Did the council know the extent of the problem?
No, and here is the proof in a letter from an Engineer in Highways. (an expert in financial engineering Mr Mustard would hazard)

The council now know the extent of the problem because they have been issuing PCNs like confetti.

So the council now know that c.300 cars a day are still using Connell Crescent when they shouldn't (the council didn't try very hard to warn people did it, with only 1 in 10 motorists being sent a warning? and no extra warning signs of a new restriction, or council staff giving out leaflets on site) so the residents are still suffering, despite the council imposed "solution" but this road is now a nice little big earner for Ealing Council. Trebles all round.

On Thursday 24 September you will find three NoToMob members on site who will put a dent in the daily figures and try to get them as near to nil as possible. In that way the NoToMob will be doing the councils job for them and helping the residents to have a more peaceful life. Do pop along to say hello to Bald Eagle and CoCo.

Just look at the income though that Ealing Council could gather in a year.

52 weeks at £167,570 a week is nearly £9million.

Of course many people will pay at half price but that would still be over £4million of lovely revenue.

Local residents will slowly catch on as they are caught out (one incurred 8 PCN before the first one arrived in the post) and so then it will only be visitors who are caught but there are plenty of those on the A40 and until every satnav is updated (Mr Mustard's is 4 years old so he reads the road signs) there will be victims aplenty for Ealing.

They will probably resist change now that they have such an earner (the council only made £8.5m in PCN income in the last financial year so this one spot will, incredibly, double their revenue) and they only issued 3,024 code 52 (no motor vehicles is 52J) PCNs in the whole year which figure they have passed in a fortnight at Connell Crescent, so something must be done.

Clearly, this level of non-compliance suggests that the signs are inadequate.

What are the choices for this location?

1  A physical barrier, either an arm that comes down but lifts to let vehicles exit, or bollards which rise and fall.

2  An illuminated No Entry sign (the red circle which has a 99.9% compliance rate) which only lights up during the 3 - 7pm restriction time.

3  Make the road one way westwards with permanent no entry signs at the Boden shop (Hanger Green) end.

If the council stick with the status quo that would tell Mr Mustard they don't give a fig about residents but have become addicted to the revenue.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Barnet Council: Schools Parking Permit Consultation

For those of you, like Mr Mustard, who don't believe in placing your data on a US controlled server, here is the paper version of the survey.

Barnet Council's Schools Parking Permit Consultation by MisterMustard

Once downloaded, printed out and completed please send it to:

Paul Millard
London Borough of Barnet
Building 2
North London Business Park
London
N11 1NP

by 30 September please.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Art Reach Barnet

Mr Mustard had a parking consultation with a lady with mental health problems this morning at 10am in Hatch End so he could not hang around to see the unveiling of the mural in the Chipping Barnet Library Garden which volunteers rescued from council neglect

He did meet the project manager Amanda Lyddon and he has previously met landscape gardener Ali Amos both of whom are pictured here

 

the Art Reach charity helps people who are recovering from mental illness. You can read about them here and here.

The event was a success, here is the email which Mr Mustard received from Amanda

Hi Mr Mustard

It was lovely to meet you.

We had a wonderful morning celebrating the unveiling of The Library Garden Mosaic outside the library in Chipping Barnet.

Art Reach and Members of the Community Garden (their kids and dogs!), local residents and staff at the Library all toasted the unveiling with pink lemonade generously donated by Waitrose.

We raised £78 selling angel bracelets which will help us to fund our next mosaic.

Please support this charity if you can.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard