Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Parking appeals
In the past four or five years, I have twice appealed against parking tickets. The first time, the restrictions in Burgoyne Road were temporary and I thought they were not properly marked. I asked for an explanation as to how such temporary restrictions should be displayed. No explanation was forthcoming but, as Haringey didn't deal with the appeals process within the time allowed, the fine automatically lapsed.
The second case was quite recent. I parked without paying for a few minutes near the old N8 Royal Mail delivery office in Tottenham Lane to collect a parcel. It was early on a Saturday morning and the street was deserted. There was no queue in the delivery office and I was there only as long as it took the clerk to decide that he couldn't find the parcel(!). When I came out, there was still no one about and no ticket on my car and I went home. Some days later I received a ticket through the post implying that I had driven off before the "Civil Enforcement Officer" could issue a ticket and fix it on my car.
I appealed against this saying I was loading and asked why the CEO had not approached me and where he/she had been hiding. Haringey sent copies of photos the CEO had taken, rejected my appeal but did not respond to my points. I therefore appealed to the new (ish) Parking and Traffic Appeals Service for London on the grounds that Haringey had not properly dealt with my appeal and that the CEO had not been prevented by any action of mine from fixing a notice or giving it to me personally. I was content for the case to be dealt with by post.
The result of this appeal has now arrived. Haringey offered no evidence, ie no response at all, not even a copy of the Penalty Charge Notice. The Independent Adjudicator therefore had no choice but to allow the appeal on the grounds that the contravention did not occur. This means that he did not take account of anything I had said in evidence either.
Haringey's action (or lack of it) could be seen in several different ways. For example, they could simply have decided that offering evidence would take too much time and effort for an uncertain result. What might be called the "let's be careful with public money approach". They could have actually agreed with me that there could have been something dodgy about the way this CEO acted which they either didn't wish to defend or would rather not spend time investigating. They could simply have been too busy in the weeks before Christmas to deal with the work.
I suppose that this is end of the matter but if not, I shall update this thread later.
In both cases, I was left with an unsatisfied feeling that my local council are not interested in whether I understand their activities.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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John_D, I take your point. And timed-stamped photos should help. Although I was wondering whether being discussed on HoL might in any case lead to the blue van driver finding an alternative parking space.
More generally, in his first blog entry for 2015, Mr Mustard offers eleven very practical New Year Resolutions to help people avoid getting PCNs by following the rules. Again demonstrating that his advice is about drivers - and councils - doing the right thing. With neither side 'gaming' the system: drivers to avoid paying; and councils to bump-up their income.
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Permalink Reply by Dick Harris on
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I am returning to the original subject of my post to complete the picture for those who are interested.
It seems that my guesses as to why Haringey had not followed the case up were all mistaken. They did in fact assemble a bundle of evidence to send to the Independent Adjudicator but it wasn’t posted until after the deadline by which time he had dealt with the case. I did however take the trouble to read the evidence which took the form of a copy of the relevant regulation (many photocopied pages) and the note taken by the Civil Enforcement Officer (CEO) which said that I was seen entering the Post Office. It is worth mentioning here that the only “Post Office” in that street was the now closed counter for collecting undelivered parcels.
Upon reading the regulation (entitled the Traffic Management Order) I found that article 45 (1) (e) (ii) says that (my paraphrase):
Any vehicle may wait in a pay and display parking place if it is waiting while postal packets are being collected for loading on the vehicle from premises adjacent to the ...etc etc
I conclude from this that I what I did was not an infringement of the Order. Moreover, this should have been perfectly clear to the CEO. Even if it was not clear to the CEO it should have been clear to the person at Haringey who received my first letter of objection.
If Haringey’s written evidence had arrived on time, I would have pointed out the relevant text to the Adjudicator who would, I suppose, have allowed my appeal on the grounds that the order was not infringed rather than on the grounds that Haringey had not responded in time.
I took the trouble to write to Haringey in early January asking why the exception set out in Article 45 (1) (e) (ii) of the Order had not been regarded as applicable to my case.
I have today received a letter acknowledging that the Penalty Charge Notice is cancelled. Their letter does not acknowledge that I wrote to them in January and does not answer my question about Article 45 (1) (e) (ii). It concludes that no further correspondence will be issued.
I don’t propose to waste more time on this matter but I would hope that one of our councillors makes sure that the head of Haringey’s Parking Service is aware of this case. It would seem to show a public service in which the people responsible are unwilling to explain their understanding of their own regulations, don’t care much about how they are applied in practice and have little respect for the appeals process.
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My heart sinks when I see a sentence beginning: "I would hope that one of our councillors makes sure..." And sinks lower when that hope relates to Parking.
When I went on the Council (in 1998) Parking was the one of the last things I intended to get involved in. Not because it is unimportant. But because I assumed the system worked in a more or less fair and transparent way; with clear rules; and checks and balances. As the saying goes: 'You live and learn'.
I slowly came to realise a system set up to ration roadspace fairly and to balance competing interests, has become perverted into a system for taxing vehicle owners. In my experience, councillors don't understand this. Perhaps they trust that Haringey's staff who run Highways & Parking know what they're doing. Or councillors are so so grateful for the extra income parking and traffic fines generate, that they let themselves to be persuaded that the cash is not just welcome but entirely legitimate.
Or maybe they feel that, compared with the appalling cuts being inflicted on some of the most vulnerable people in the Borough, parking is very small beer. I agree; it is. For me, joining in the battle to ameliorate the worst of the stupid, short-sighted and right-wing Koberite idiocies has pushed aside a lot of other things I was doing. (The term used by Yanis Varoufakis is "Fiscal waterboarding". I view what our own council leadership is doing as social waterboarding.)
On the other hand . . . .
Dick, you're now proposing to let matters rest. You've run your lap and hope others pick up the baton. Unfortunately that is why and how Haringey keeps getting away with it.
So please don't just "hope" that one of our councillors may do something. At minimum, make a point of emailing or phoning your three ward councillors and Stuart McNamara the "cabinet" councillor responsible. And updating them on how your PCN was eventually cancelled.
From your post, it seems that Parking wrote telling you they prepared the papers for your PATAS appeal and failed to send these in on time. Point out to councillors the incompetence of this. Added to the incompetence of failing to read the Parking Regulations.
It's not impossible, of course, that what really happened was that someone read the papers before they went to PATAS and realised that Haringey would probably lose - and look publicly stupid.
Either way you should at the very least have received an apology.
If it was me I'd be consider a possible complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman - not about the legality of the PCN, but the maladministration of the process. Because if individuals don't complain, nothing will change.
On my Flickr photoblog a page from March 2009 still gets consistently far more hits than any other. (Currently over 34,000) On it I posted email correspondence with Dr Ita O'Donovan a former Haringey Chief Executive about our local Controlled Parking Zone. I ended with a plea to her:
"If Haringey Council makes a mistake let’s be candid and honest about it; accept responsibility and accountability; apologise with genuine contrition; and correct the error as quickly as possible. In other words, let’s behave like a reputable business instead of someone flogging dodgy DVDs at a car-boot sale."
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You are, of course, quite right Alan in what you say and I did hesitate before daring to say that I would go no further. I would love to be sure that our local administrators were enlightened, well educated and fully professional in their dealings and that they understood that these things are relevant not only to the top tier but to everyone who acts in the name of the Council. It would be good to find that when front line people don’t fully understand their jobs or misbehave, it is the task of those higher up not only to correct the mistakes but to take action to improve matters for the future. Rather than prolong this public thread, I shall send you a private message.
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