Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Green Lanes is the most ticketed street in England and Wales for illegal parking
In today's Sunday Times (New Section p 15) it says that last year Haringey grossed £564,000 from 12,302 penalty notices issued on our very own 1 1/2 mile stretch of Green Lanes, thus making us the most ticketed street in England and Wales for illegal parking (I'd copy the link but Mr Murdoch charges you to read his output online). I am particularly interested in this fact as I have just received a £50 fine for parking in a bay on Green Lanes under the sign with says "pay at machine till 5 pm on Saturday". The ticket was issued at 5.15 on Saturday. Once I've written to The Times, has anyone else had a ticket like this and can you advise me how to get it withdrawn?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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Are you sure it doesn't mean no parking at all after 5pm ? ie until restrictions end at 6.30.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Well it seems that Green Lanes now holds the crown formerly held by Lordship Lane.
In what must be the all-time, all-England, nay, all-Britain record for parking fines in a single street, Haringey booked £3,200,000 in parking penalties in that one street in 2005/06. That was exceptional, as a bus lane was being introduced, but it does put the Green Lanes cash flow into perspective.
We don't know who held the crown for richest street (in Parking Penalties) in Britain in the intervening years, but our very own London Borough surely can't have been far off the pace. With Haringey #1 currently, I don't know whether to be proud or to despair. Alternatively, LBH seem to be able to rely on illegal parking and again I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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The reason that stretch is so high for PCNs is because it's so confusing for those looking to park (and shop) there. Only certain times are allowed for parking because at all other times it becomes a 'clearway' for through traffic. I once paid £51.50 for a pack of chips.
Like you Takaokagiejin I had paid my money into the machine but got a ticket for being parked there just beyond 5pm. It wasn't at all clear that this wasn't allowed. The ticketers are waiting to pounce.
Haringey Council loves its ticket income because it produces little other income (eg. business rates).
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Permalink Reply by Takaokagiejin on
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Such is my obesession with legal parking that this is the second parking ticket I have ever had in my life - glad I'm not the only one who didn't understand the signs, makes me feel a little less thick!
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Takaokagiejin I suspect you are far from being alone in finding parking signs unintelligible.
Often people are in a hurry and don't always have time to decipher what might be meant: I find the signs are sometimes ambiguous. People end up guessing at the meaning and deciding to take the risk they've guessed wrong. This can play into the council's hands, or coffers.
Parking notices are prime candidates for the Plain English campaign. With some of them, its hard to see where the jargon ends and entrapment begins.
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You have the company of 11,000 other people Takaokagiejin so don't worry. :) Obviously that stretch of road isn't clearly sign posted. But don't expect the council to do anything about it.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Don't think they just throw this money away. They're not allowed to spend it on anything other than "transport". That includes the over 60s passes that the council issue.
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I'm feeling better about the £50 by the minute
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I'm sure you're right about ring fencing John, in that every single penny raised is going on transport. But £1m of penalty charges is going on Transport, that can then substitute for a £1m that was formerly being spent on transport and which is then released to spend on anything the council likes. It can be an accounting sleight of hand. Ring-fenced monies raised does what it promises and can at the same time also be meaningless.
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Permalink Reply by martin on
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I think I've only had two parking tickets in my life too. One was in Glasgow, where I just hadn't paid enough attention to the signs. Fair cop, there's your fifteen quid. (A bargain, you'll agree.)
The other was round the corner from my old flat in Lordship Lane. It was a Sunday, I was in a hurry, I left a hire car there for half an hour while I picked up some stuff and headed back out again. I'd had a quick glance at the sign, scratched my head a bit, and got the impression that on Sunday evenings it was a free-for-all - ie you didn't need to pay and display or require a residents' permit. Apparently I was wrong, and it was a residents only time, and I came back out to find a PCN on the windscreen.
I took a snap of the sign, headed out, and the next day mentioned it to the a colleague, and showed him the photo to show how confusing it was. "Wrong," he said, and forwarded me a copy of the appeal he used to get a PCN cancelled. And it's got a wonderful phrase in it:
"The signs present do not meet the criteria of the intended sign type in that the particular wording is not a permitted variation on the 660.6 design [of the The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002]. In the case of Davies v Heatley [1971]R.T.R 145, it was ruled that no offence is committed if the sign is in any way contravened, even if the sign is clearly recognisable to a reasonable man as a sign of that kind."
So if the sign's confusing, it's likely that it doesn't meet the prescribed design in the relavent law, and if it isn't in the regulations, then the sign's basically not valid. You can see examples of the prescribed signage in section 7 of http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/tss/tsmanual/tsmchapter3.pdf
Note that this only applies to what's on the signpost, and not the parking meter - Alan Stanton has been campaigning to the council to get the former brought up to scratch (because the result could be unenforceable PCNs); and the latter made clearer, because as has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, they're so unclear they're like traps.
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I have appealed a ticket I got in Crouch End due to a similarly misleading sign. I copied the text on the sign in to the appeal via the council website. Not sure if it will work but apparently they have an "independent adjudicator".
https://eforms.secure.haringey.gov.uk/ufs/ufsmain?esessionid=355072...
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Take photos of the sign, contest the ticket before your 14 days are up, when your appeal is knocked back, appeal again and if knocked back again, then appeal to the adjudicator. It costs you nothing and even if you end up losing, you still get to pay the lower penalty. Normally there will be other signs aswell as the one you read, check for red routes, etc. If there is a sign missing, then you could get off with ticket! As for ambiguity, these signs should have been cleared for use, they are nationally recognised - you can check whether there is a legal order for the contravention you have been given - check with the council.
I can only assume that after 5pm the whole road becomes a clearway, in which case there will be clearway signs and a sign stating times at the start and end of the clearway - or you parked in a bus lane which becomes a clearway effectively at busy times - I would suggest a stroll up and down green lanes to check all signs in place!
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