17 March 2024

Nonsense from Newham

 

Parking departments don't live in the real world. It isn't the intended function of penalty charge notices to make the life of people with limited mobility any harder. It is as many motorists would say, all about the money.
 
Here we have a case of a good son collecting his dad, who uses a stick, from the mosque on a Tuesday evening towards 8pm. The son parked as near as he could which was on the double yellow lines in Hilda Road just out of picture (which was excluded as it is pixellated for some reason).
 
Whilst he went inside to find his father and then slowly come out to the car due to his use of a walking aid, a PCN was issued with a 2 minute observation. The son made his own challenge, probably expecting it to be accepted (reasonable but optimistic these days) but it wasn't, as follows:
 
The rejection makes it sound like Newham Council only very rarely (exceptional circumstances) cancel a PCN. They are required to have due regard to the statutory guidance of the Secretary of State which includes:

Authorities should take account of the CEO’s actions in issuing the penalty charge but should always give challenges and representations a fresh and impartial consideration.

Under general principles of public law, authorities have a duty to act fairly and proportionately and are encouraged to exercise discretion sensibly and reasonably and with due regard to the public interest. Failure to act in accordance with the general principles of public law may lead to a claim for a decision to be judicially reviewed.

Enforcement authorities have a duty not to fetter their discretion, so should ensure that PCNs, NtOs, leaflets and any other advice they give do not mislead the public about what they may consider in the way of representations.

They should approach the exercise of discretion objectively and without regard to any financial interest in the penalty or decisions that may have been taken at an earlier stage in proceedings.

What Newham Council have also forgotten is their own traffic order, which has this section:

The two minute rule doesn't apply as this is a little side road (not in Schedules 5 and 2) and not within the 2 minute limited times.

Therefore the time which is allowed, for a person who uses a stick or a frame or who simply walks slowly without any aids, due to age or infirmity, is as long as it takes. Newham Council have therefore unreasonably rejected a perfectly fair challenge (and also tried to put the motorist off a further challenge by the usual reminder that the discount will be gone at the next stage).

Mr Mustard doesn't much care for the discount expect for one of 100% as he fights to the end and generally knows the parameters an independent adjudicator, who makes decisions without an eye on the income, will apply. They will generally allow at least 5 minutes for assisted boarding. The frailty of a passenger can be demonstrated by a medical report, a photo of them with their stick or frame or a 10 second video of them walking.

Mr Mustard doesn't fear Newham Council. He has fought 38 of their PCNs since 2017 of which 24 went as far as the independent adjudicators. He has lost 2. He isn't about to lose a third case.

To their credit, Newham Council weren't 100% unhelpful, they did add this to their letter:


We only know that father walks with an aid, we don't know whether or not he could make his own application, which would be a more respectful way to write.

The end (for now).

 

4 March 2024

Parasites

Mr Mustard is used to perfectly good challenges being rejected. Mr Mustard isn't medically qualified but is an advanced motorist and a human being. The person, Mr Mustard uses the term loosely, who rejected the below motorist's challenge is none of the above (one can't be sure they aren't an IAM or ROSPA member but Mr Mustard doesn't want to be their passenger if the safety of a fitting passenger isn't their first priority.)




Mr Mustard thinks that many people will be absolutely astonished by this rejection. Mr Mustard wasn't as he sees similar rejections all the time and is one reason why he keeps winning at the tribunal as there is an absolute disconnect between common sense, fairness & safety and the relentless drive to fill multi million pound holes in council budgets.

Barnet Council aren't unusual in this respect partly because there is a small handful of unaccountable outsourcing companies who process PCNs, like NSL, as in this case, whose disconnected employees sit in remote back offices (Dingwall in Scotland and Oldham) have probably never visited Barnet and will never be face to face with a motorist and have to be utterly hateful to their face. The concept of public service has been lost.

Councillors are too hands off. Do they speak to parking management to ensure that all challenges are given a fair and impartial consideration without any thought as to the income as the Secretary of State requires? Based on this response, it would seem not.

Get yourself ready for a sudden goodwill (PR based) cancellation, the PCN was correctly issued, blah blah, a one off error by a new officer, blah blah.

Mr Mustard is on the case. The Notice to Owner is awaited and will be robustly challenged.

The end, for now.

 

 

18 February 2024

Councils can't afford to be kind

When he gets a fresh PCN Mr Mustard often has to warn people that, more likely than not, the council will not look kindly on the reason why they received the PCN. The council want your money, most of the time, and whilst they have a wide discretion, councils can cancel any PCN for any reason, the adjudicator cannot & must strictly apply the law. Adjudicators can only recommend that a council think again although Mr Mustard has seen them bend the law in order to excuse an error.

Here is a classic example of a situation in which Mr Mustard thinks the public would expect leniency to come into play but he wasn't at all surprised when it didn't. This is a situation which, other things being equal, will only happen the once.

The informal challenge submitted to Lewisham Council:


and the relevant part of their response:


This is a Catch 22 response. There is no evidence that the writer thought about exercising their discretion. Their explanation is that because the contravention happened, which was already conceded by the motorist, the council won't cancel because the contravention happened.

What should happen is that Lewisham Council should consider the mitigation put forward, decide if it has the ring of truth (why would you stay in a hotel in SE13 when you live in SE6?) which it does and then consider whether or not to cancel the PCN. There is no revenue loss to the council which didn't instigate an automatic refund of a payment for which no value was given (once you have a PCN you cannot get another the same day, unless the rules of the bay change, if you don't move).

The rejection letter should explain why discretion is not being exercised, like one of these responses:

a    your proof is not credible

b    we don't think the mitigation is sufficient as you could have paid the night before (if you can, although the driver might have been intending to get up early, buy flowers and attempt a reconciliation)

c    we want your money so won't cancel

d    we are venal and rapacious. (* copyright another PCN expert, Incandescent).

The law assumes that a public body endowed with absolute power will exercise that power in a manner which is fair in all the circumstances. Although this appeal for clemency can be argued both for and against what is apparent from hundreds of PCNs that Mr Mustard has seen is that in many councils heartlessness and ruthlessness are the order of the day (He does have good experiences, he recounted one with Islington Council on twitter last week but he sees far more bad than good).

The problem is that councils are not routinely monitored or inspected for the way they go about the issue and enforcement of PCNs. We need an outside body which referees the whole system and can visit councils and encourage best practice and fairness. There are 7 million PCNs issued in London every year. Councils are out of control in their quest for revenue.

Time to create OffPen.

The end.


17 February 2024

Hounslow Community Transport - breaching Human Rights

One always finds lovely cuddly statements on the websites of public facing organisations. Here is part of the HCT's claimed values:

Those values are looking like mere words on a screen today.

Look at this minibus parked outside of a space in the Montague Road, Hounslow car park.

 


What could be behind it, you might wonder? The answer is the car of a member of the public who parked in the dark and didn't see the little fairly well hidden sign.

 


What is to the side of the blue car?

Yes, you guessed it, another minibus .

The blocked in photos were taken at midnight. Mr Bluecar (not his real name) phoned up HCT and asked them for help. They declined and put the phone down. Not a very charitable act in the view of Mr Mustard. Mr Bluecar had to take the bus 6 miles to get home.

HCT don't answer the phone on a Saturday morning so Mr Bluecar didn't know when he might be able to get his car back. He tried his luck late morning and he could drive away. There was however a piece of paper which caught his attention on the windscreen. It wasn't a rude note. Yes, you guessed it:


Mr Mustard has challenged the PCN on the grounds of events beyond the control of the driver.

Mr Mustard has emailed HCT pointing out the relevant part of the Human Rights Act


Mr Mustard rather expects that management will not be as happy to break the law as one of their drivers was.

We'll see. Watch this space.

The end, for now.

Update 21 February. Hounslow Council responded quickly, they have cancelled the PCN. HCT not yet responded.


 


15 January 2024

Westminster decide that 4 arguments do not a representation make

This might be a bit of a long read as a lot happened but if you want to know more about processing of a parking PCN it will be useful to you.

We start on 6 September 2023 with a PCN being put on the car in Albemarle St. which has, Mr Mustard finds, associations at different times with Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde

The sign, which the driver only spotted afterwards, was missed because it was within a suspended section and turned away.

After the event, on finding the PCN, the driver thought that the sign was the one above the suspended bay sign, the one we can see the back of. Mr Mustard wouldn't find himself in Westminster in a car but if he did he would be more inquisitive before concluding that a spot of free parking was in order. We were where we were. Although Mr Mustard acts regularly for the company which owns the car the driver decided to make their own challenge on the grounds of inadequate signage which they did on 20 September.
 
The City of Westminster rejected the informal challenge on the same day. Unusual and odd as the letter apologised for the delay in responding. Who said it was a cut and paste job? The letter didn't say why the challenge wasn't accepted just that they wouldn't cancel. This is an unhelpful trend which Mr Mustard has noticed creeping in during 2023.
 
All then went quiet, as the driver wasn't sucked into paying at a discount, as she knew that the company would refer to Mr Mustard who usually finds something which which to attack the ticket. On 6 November the Notice to Owner was issued to the company as the registered keeper. On 10 November Mr Mustard was instructed and he rustled up the formal representations on the same day. He found four strands on which to make representations.




       
A council, or the City in this case, are allowed 56 days for an on street parking PCN in which to serve their Notice of Rejection otherwise they are deemed to have accepted and must serve a Notice of Acceptance and cancel the PCN.
 
Service of a Notice of Rejection at this stage opens the door to the independent tribunal which Mr Mustard attends nearly every week and where he was expecting to win on argument #4 as he has done five times already.
 
Mr Mustard keeps an eye on enforcement authority websites so he can glean if an Acceptance or Rejection has likely been issued.
 
Something unusual happened on 20 December which was day 41 of 56, the City of Westminster wrote to Mr Mustard's client:

Mr Mustard looked at the ticking clock and thought there was the possibility that a Notice of Rejection would not be served (sending isn't enough, it has to arrive) by the 56th day being 4 January 2024.

On 4 January Mr Mustard emailed the City of Westminster as follows:


 


Not long after sending that email Mr Mustard's client, who is also very efficient, sent him a copy of the Charge Certificate which had been issued on 2 January 2024 and was a procedural impropriety as a response to representations was outstanding so the file must be placed on hold.
 
Having raised his query at a senior level the job of responding was given to 'Customer relations' (this isn't going to end well). The sort of response which makes Mr Mustard happy is short, simple and apologetic, something like this:

'Dear Mr Mustard. Thank you for your email. You are quite correct. We have cancelled the Charge Certificate and the PCn and apologise for the inconvenience. Yours etc'.

Here is what he got instead, just the 'good' bits:


Oh yes it does. If there is a procedural impropriety an adjudicator is bound to allow an Appeal by a motorist.


The 'correspondence' that the City of Westminster received was all in the one document with an image of the authority letter inserted into the text of the document which was headed 'Formal representations'.

Apparently in the City of Westminster a fundamental challenge to the legal wording and thus the right to issue a PCN isn't a representation. Nor, it seems, is a challenge that the Contravention did not occur despite that being one of the statutory grounds specified in the legislation. What we can gather from this is that the City of Westminster decided to act as if Mr Mustard had not written a word which put his client into a position where having been deemed to not have made a formal representation within 28 days of receiving the Notice to Owner they became liable for the PCN by default and then saw the penalty illegally increased by 50%.

Clearly, the City of Westminster had forgotten the contents of their own Notice to Owner, viz;

 
The non apology continued:


The City of Westminster are in for a shock. Mr Mustard doesn't fight many PCNs against this authority but one of his expert friends does. There are already 6 adjudication decisions made by 3 different adjudicators covering 4 enforcement authorities where this wording has been found to be wrong. 

Here is part of a tribunal decision which went against the London Borough of Hounslow and which you can quote to any other enforcement authority issuing parking PCNs on street (not through the post, they have different rules) when you ask them to cancel your PCN.


When an enforcement authority writes to you telling you that they are right and you are wrong, stop and think what is in it for the enforcement authority, £130 possibly. Look at what happened in the Post Office, innocent people were told they were the only one. The difference here is that Mr Mustard and the band of PCN experts to which he belongs know the difference between right and wrong. Success with a particular argument cannot be guaranteed as the decision above isn't a precedent, it is under the law as it stands legally persuasive and likely to be followed because the adjudicator named above has been deciding the fate of PCNs for more than the 13 years Mr Mustard has been appearing in front of him and the second adjudicator likewise. They are highly experienced qualified lawyers and came to their decisions after careful consideration of all the arguments. It matters not a jot to an adjudicator if they Allow or Refuse an Appeal as there is no financial incentive for them to decide either way, they apply the law without fear or favour.

Mr Mustard's final word for the parking department. Mr Mustard isn't a 'customer' so has no need of 'customer relations'. The City of Westminster have zero respect until they learn to say sorry when they have right royally lashed up.

Pity the motorist acting for themselves as knowledge is power and Mr Mustard knows what should be what. The more you all know, the better.

The end.


 


8 January 2024

When 'traffic wardens' meet

A funny story from the tribunal in Saturday's decisions. Here it is in full.

What is clear is that the Hounslow Council traffic warden who issued the PCN did so in a great hurry, as per usual, even though the motorist was in the frame from the very beginning.

Mr Mustard's advice is to calmly drive off in such a case as the notes made will often be deficient or the warden will make a false note as in this case. Mr Mustard has known the notes of the traffic warden to be destroyed by dashcam or doorbell footage.

If a traffic warden cheats you, please make a complaint to the council as otherwise they will continue.

The end.

11 December 2023

A sunny dis-position

 

So here we have an image of Sunny Gardens Road in Hendon Central. Signs here just can't sit still. The cctv sign has been twisted to the right since 2017 and the upper single yellow sign to the left since 2019. Traffic wardens are meant to report defective signs and have the sign team fix them rather than issue a PCN. No-one has done their job for 4 years.
 
A friend of Mr Mustard's got a PCN to the right of the sign. It wasn't an event day. Mr Mustard made the informal challenge (the one made in response to a PCN placed on the windscreen). Here it is.
 
To his astonishment it turned out, allegedly, that Mr Mustard was wrong, but the PCN was still going to be cancelled.


Readers will note that the alleged mistake made by the Civil Enforcement Officer is not specified. That, Mr Mustard surmises, is because he didn't make two errors, the one which Mr Mustard identified plus another one.

This is the first time in 14 years of fighting PCNs that Mr Mustard has received such an odd letter, so directly telling him how wrong he is when everyone in the world can see he is logically & technically correct.

A council simply should not enforce a PCN when their signs are not up to snuff.

If you walk past the southern end of Sunny Gardens Rd do let Mr Mustard know if the sign has been straightened up, by a note in the comments box. 

If you get a PCN at the same spot, Mr Mustard will challenge it for you. He takes no notice of the bluff about the cancellation not setting a precedent (well it was supposedly for the unknown error so Mr Mustard can't use it as a ground) as PCNs get cancelled by adjudicators for inadequate signage every day of the week (except Sundays when they don't sit).

The end.