Jam up the system by appealing



lots of trees get turned into parking tickets and letters of appeal

Here is a lightly edited copy of an article which first appeared in the Telegraph where you can read the entire article.

Councils handed out 250,000 more parking tickets last year despite cutting the number of traffic wardens by 5 per cent, research has found. In Barnet, this is called "Putting the Community First". Tickets issued up by nearly 4%.

A total of 6.8 million parking tickets were handed out in 2011, according to information covering 71 city councils. An immense number. Parking tickets have nothing to do any longer with keeping traffic flowing, or rationing space, they are simply a cash generating machine.

This is a quarter of a million more penalties than were given the previous year. Did this increase happen by accident? Did motorists suddenly get worse at parking? No, the councils decided to issue more tickets.

A shortage of town-centre parking and increased use of CCTV technology to spot illegally parked cars were behind the increase in fines and clamping, according to insurance company Swiftcover.com

The fines generated at least £234 million in revenue for local councils, the company said. An average of £34 per ticket issued.

Although it is illegal for local authorities to use parking fines specifically to bolster their coffers, the extra funds have come at a good time for councils as they have had their budgets from central government cut by an average of 7 per cent a year until 2014. What a happy coincidence.

According to Swiftcover.com an average of 74,257 fines were handed out by each local council last year, almost 2,000 more than they gave in 2010. However the 71 city councils gave out about 95,000 each. Barnet Council issue about 160,000 parking tickets every year so are being far too aggressive in their approach and I fear that this is getting worse as I have just heard of a ticket being knowingly given to a broken down vehicle. Don't hassle the warden but write in to Barnet Council and complain about their contractor NSL.

The rise came despite the number of traffic wardens across the councils falling from just under 3,900 to 3,700. Traffic wardens will not have suddenly decided to dish out more tickets. They will have been leant on to do so, either subtly or otherwise.

Robin Reames, chief claims officer at Swiftcover.com, said that shortage of parking has become a “huge issue” in towns and cities across the UK in the past five to ten years. This is not the problem in Barnet. There is loads of parking space because the change to pay-by-phone has caused behavioural change and visitors are going elsewhere where they can pout cash or card into a machine.

However, he said that this does not excuse illegal parking. Nor do I.

“Although it might be an easy option to park on a double yellow for a short time, it’s potentially dangerous as well as being illegal, and can result in a fine,” he said.

An increase in the number of fines led to an increase in the number of disputes by motorists. If everybody challenged every ticket we could make it too expensive to issue one and the council would think again.

While 1.67 million fines were disputed in 2010, this rose to 1.76 million in 2011. This means that one in four parking tickets were queried by drivers. Come on you can do better than that. Let's get that 1 in 4 figure up. An extra 250,000 tickets led to another 90,000 appeals. We are reaching the critical point where extra tickets equals extra work and no extra income.

Of the disputed tickets, four in ten ended up being dropped by the council. Look at that. A 40% that an appeal will cancel your ticket. It has to be worth a quick letter.

Motorists had dramatically different success rates when they questioned tickets depending on where they lived.  The survey found that only 11 per cent of fines were dropped on appeal in Bradford. However this rose to 72 per cent in Chichester.

Could we get Barnet to cancel 72% of tickets? It's worth a bash.

The council already has to deal with 600,000 pieces of correspondence every year. Can we make it a million?

Yours appealingly

Miss Feezance.

Avoid all parking charges

This is Katie Price not me. ( globalcool.org )

The simple answer is to buy a two wheeler i.e. a moped, a scooter or a motorcycle.

With a big bike you can carry an extraordinary amount of shopping or a change of clothes if you are off to a meeting.

Do wear the proper safety clothing.

You can park in designated spaces in council car parks and if those are full you shouldn't be helpful and pout your little bike in a corner out of the way; you should use a car space (yes, really).

You can also park in permit bays and pay & display free of charge.

From the council website:

Motorcycles Only – for motorcycles, free of charge and for an unlimited period. Motorcycles can also be parked in pay and display and permit parking places free of charge and without a permit.

I am off now to buy a nice pink Lambretta.

Yours appealingly

Miss Feezance

NSl - No tickets - no kidding

pircture credit www.verydemotivational.com

On 17 March 2012 the Guardian printed a whole page dedicated to the working life of an NSL traffic warden. After all the bad publicity in Westminster with the Hakim Berkani case ( all details on the Nutsville blog ) this page of puff was a welcome respite for NSL and read like an advertorial.

I particularly liked this paragraph:

Sarpong insists that he has never been set a quota or target. "There are lots of days when I don't issue any penalty notices," he claims. Which must make the daily beat pretty boring – does he feel a thrill when, after hours of blameless drivers, he spots a culprit?

There is a long pause. "I don't want to answer that," he says with the faintest of smiles.

Firstly I simply didn't believe there are days when no tickets are issued in a 12 hour shift. Then I wondered if that had happened in Barnet so I got my good friend Mr Mustard to put an FOI question in for me, as he is the expert in that area, and so he refined the question into a suitable form.

He asked how many full shifts had been carried out by Barnet's "traffic wardens" in February 2012 that had resulted in not a single ticket being issued. Now there are over 50 wardens and 28 or so shifts a month so that is 1400 chances to go 7 hours and not issue a ticket.

The answer "None" Yes that is right, not a single complete shift passed without at least one penalty charge notice being issued. Traffic warden on duty = certain penalty charge notice issuance.

So either Mr Sarpong is being economical with the truth ( and not with his tickets ) or NSL employees will be sitting with their feet up on rainy days in all the cafes of Barnet not issuing tickets when they take over on 1 May 2012.

If anyone in Enfield wants to ask the London Borough of Enfield for the statistics of tickets issued on each shift for the last year then be my guest. I think you can guess what the answer will be.

Remember, if you get a PCN, appeal it! Don't just pay without at least writing a nice letter to the council. The longer the better. If you can run to 3 or 4 pages of badly scrawled prose then you are doing your bit to clog up the system as someone has to read it all.

Yours appealingly

Miss Feezance

More LIP service

Picture credit: BBC/Kudos

Continuing with my service to you of the LIP - Local Implementation Plan - we come on to Paid Parking. My comments in red and any bold, italics or underlining adding to Barnet Council text by me.

7.6.18 The forgoing section on residents permit generally applies also to business permits. They are also zone specific and primarily intended to assist businesses that have a need to base vehicles near their premises. A user-friendly system of application and renewal applies, and private vehicles used in connection with a business will be considered for business permits if the business can make a suitable case for this and confirm the vehicle is being used for business purposes.

7.6.19 A regulatory mechanism to deter unnecessary use is price; the fee from April 2005 being £300 per year. There is a limit of 3 permits per business. Now £500 for a specific vehicle registration or £800 for any vehicle registration in case you use hired vehicles regularly.

7.6.20 As with residents permits, the Council considers the value that a permit has to a permit holder, and that an equitable simple cross-borough single charge rate is most appropriate. i.e. one zone business permits cost the same in all zones, not that they can be used in all zones.
7.6.21 Any policy of introducing pro-active zone review will also take into account business parking provision. The Council anticipates that in future further regulation may be needed if take-up exceeds what can be reasonably accommodated, taking into account other needs, and will consider the use of needs-assessments having regard for what used the vehicles are put to, and/or giving consideration to the extent to which off-street parking is available.

7.6.27 Whilst steps are taken through regular market-testing to seek to ensure that the most robust machines are installed to maintain a service for customers, the Council will consider other options – in particular those that offer convenient cashless alternatives. The Council will seek to introduce any new payment regimes in parallel with pay and display so as to retain a pay-with-coin option as not all customers will have access to alternatives. So the council have known all along that offering only one payment choice was not a good idea.

7.6.28 The Council manages parking duration with a non-linear charging regime. Short-stay - less than an hour - is charged at a proportionately lower "per-minute" equivalent rate than the rate for medium-term stay countering the concern expressed by local businesses that the lack of cheap short-term parking may drive away passing and "impulse" trade. Longer stay has a proportionately higher charge thus encouraging turnover. The opposite is now the case in High Barnet Car Parks whose charges are:

30mins £1

1hour £2

90mins £3

over 90mins £5

which leads to the rather odd situation where the 91st minutes costs you £2 and such that stays of 90mins to 150mins cost more per minute than staying all day, although they both cost the same amount. After 2hrs 30mins the stay per minute is cheaper thus making a mockery of stated policy.

In considering tariff and occupancy the Council will take into account local circumstances, and amongst other measures will consider the use as an indicator of an 80% - 85% occupancy rate in line with LPAC recommendations in the past and subsequently endorsed in Traffic Management and Parking Guidance for London by the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State has issued guidance that car park occupancy rates should be managed so that demand does not excess 85% during peak periods. That is certainly the case in Barnet for all the car parks that I drive past are half empty or more at any time on any day.

7.6.32 There are no current proposals to reduce the availability of long stay parking as it is not seen that where it is currently provided it is affecting availability of short stay or permit parking. This is taken to be a reflection of the situation in an outer-London borough whereby the capacity of streets is not subject to the same parking stress as an inner London authority and yet charges are being increased as if it is the case and comparisons are made with more central boroughs to justify price hikes.

7.6.33 In 2005/6 the Council will be seeking to identify funding to work with Waltham Forest, Enfield and Haringey (the North London Transport Forum members) with a view to introducing discounted or free parking for "green-fuelled" vehicles in an integrated manner across the borough boundaries, the aim being that a scheme covering several boroughs will be more attractive and be more likely to encourage motorists to invest in alternative-fuelled vehicles but we don't care anymore, we just want your money, so your charge has been increased from £15 to £50 for a resident's permit.

7.6.34 The Council does not consider free "limited stay" parking as a useful option for the borough as the enforcement of such parking places is entirely reliant of repeat visits by the same parking attendant who must log details of all legally parked vehicles. This is impracticable given the other commitments on the officer to patrol other streets. Time-restricted parking will therefore be regulated by means that require only a single visit to detect a contravention – currently pay and display. i.e. the residents are here for the convenience of traffic wardens and not the other way around. With pay and display having been abandoned wardens do now have to make two visits to detect a contravention in,say, Hampden Square where there is 30 minutes free parking and which businesses are demanding in other locations to stop them going out of business.

More soon.

In the meantime, if you get a parking ticket, appeal!

Yours appealing

Miss Feezance

Lines and signs - Strafford Rd grounds for appeal.

picture credit: www.notomob.co.uk

The enforcement of parking is meant to be all about fairness. However, I think it really hurts the council if they issue a parking ticket (penalty charge notice / PCN) and then have to cancel it. The officer might even have a little cry. What they should be doing is looking fairly at the situation and asking themselves if the ticket has been issued in honourable circumstances and if not, they should be delighted to cancel it. Enforcement is meant to be about keeping traffic moving not about raking in as much money as possible.

I am a great advocate of appealing if the lines or signs are wrong. The lines and signs are of generally standard format so that drivers from all over the country encounter uniform rules. Therefore if the signs or lines are not clear an appeal should be allowed; in legal terms ambiguity favours the party who has suffered by it.

I think I must have encouraged too many people to put in appeals where lines are not clear as the council has reacted. Look at this CPZ bay in Strafford Rd.

who stole the bay markings?

The white line you can see is the centre of the road. Where is the marking for the combined "residents / Pay by phone" bay? Completely erased. I watched a CEO (Civil Enforcement Officer / traffic warden) patrol this bay last week and he didn't even glance at the markings to check they were reasonable. All the cars had permits so he went on his way without dishing out any tickets, but he would have. If you have had a parking ticket in Strafford Rd send in an appeal. If you have paid for one recently ask for your money back as you have paid in error.

This will change soon but on Barnet Council's website it currently says:

Civil Enforcement Officers are not contractors – they are directly employed by the council. We aim to deliver a good quality service in a fair manner, and to provide help and assistance, but we are there to enforce restrictions if people disregard them.

So having directly employed CEOs was seen as a good thing. Bad luck, not any longer. NSL are coming and their dodgy tricks are legion. 

You have to ask yourself if Barnet Council don't actually trust NSL very much either. One of the tasks of NSL will be to maintain lines and signs. If a parking ticket is successfully appealed on the grounds that the lines or signs are incorrect then NSL will have to put them right, probably within a fixed period such as 30 days, so that closes the door to repeat appeals at the same location. Given that the success rate of fixing defective lines & signs is likely to be a Key Performance indicator in the contract I ask why three people are now going to be employed by Barnet Council to look at lines and signs?

1406 Parking Lines Signs Staff

The parking informnation supervisor (PIS) will earn between £30,001 and £32,800 and his/her two parking Information oficers (PIO) will earn between £22,221 and £24,646. Thus there is a salary bill oif around £77,000 and with on-costs of office space, national insurance, pension contributions of 24% and vehicles there will be no change from £150,000 p.a.

The point of their job is to defeat enough appeals against parking ticket appeals to cover the cost of employing them (as otherwise it would be cheaper to allow all technical signs & lines appeals). People who appeal on the grounds of invalidity are likely to do so at an early stage and their tickets will thus be worth half of the £60 lower rate contravention or £110 higher rate contravention, say a £45 average. If we divide the £150,000 by £45 then the PIS/PIOs will need to defeat 3,333 appeals between them in a year. That is 1,111 each across about 200 working days (and the officers have other things to do). So let us suppose these challenges are correct half of the time then each officer will have to deal with 1111*2 = 2,222 inspections each year all over the borough. So that is 11 sites a day to visit, photograph, take notes and measurements and then return to base to write a report ready to send to the Parking and Traffic Appeals Service if necessary. No-one is going to be able to work to that schedule day in day out.

It is evident to me that these officers are going to cost more than they save. 

The commonsense answer, except in Barnet, would be to make sure that your parking contractor had a perfect line and sign maintence programme.

Yours appealingly

Miss Feezance

East Barnet - the parking debate at the Chipping Barnet Residents Forum

I am indebted to Dan Hope of the Barnet Bugle for this interesting footage; Dan spends a lot of his time ferrying his impressive equipment from one meeting to the next.

It is a polite demolition of the council's plan to charge for a small car park in Church Hill, East Barnet, a secondary shopping location and of the method of payment.

Much commonsense is in evidence. Mostly from residents.

Cllr Barry Evangeli implores East Barnet residents to help him fight off Brian Coleman's plan for charges in the car park from The Barnet Bugle Ltd on Vimeo.

Let's all move to Ealing where they have a council that listens

New stop and shop proposals

picture credit www.ealing.gov.uk - Presumably a Stop & Shop shopper. Shop looks nice.

The council is soon to start consultation around extending the period of maximum stay for stop and shop bays at selected locations to allow motorists to stay beyond the current free period.

No decisions have yet been taken and full consultation will be carried out before any changes are implemented.

The proposals are intended to give extra flexibility to motorists and business customers so that they can stay a little longer, while continuing to prevent long stay and commuter parking.

Under the plans motorists would use the pay by phone system to extend their parking period.

The proposal will not make any amendments to the existing free stop and shop time. Motorists will be able to park for the initial free period in the same way as is currently practised. If they do not want to extent their stay they will not have to register for the pay by phone service or make any phone calls or send any text messages.

Motorists wanting to extend their stay beyond the current free period will use the council’s pay by phone service to extend their period of parking for a flat fee of £1.80, plus the service charge of 20 pence, which is applied by the telephone payment provider.

The proposal is to allow motorists to stay for an additional two hours in all cases. This means that in locations where there is currently a free period of 30 minutes the maximum stay will be two hours and 30 minutes, in cases where there is a free period of 60 minutes the maximum stay will be three hours and in cases where the free period is two hours, the maximum stay will be four hours.

A formal consultation will take place where the council will work with and involve the ward forums, local businesses and residents in the areas where it is proposed it might be suitable to trial the scheme. Everyone will have the opportunity to have their say or make any suggestions that they think may improve the scheme’s implementation.

The current proposed locations for consultation are:

• Lady Margaret Road, Greenford (O/S No. 462), on slip road
• The Uxbridge Road (Nr Ealing Common Station)
• Pitshanger Lane, W5
• Lady Margaret Road, Greenford (O/S No. 462), on highway
• Singapore Road
• The Broadway, Southall (O/S Lidl)
• The Broadway, Southall (O/S Lidl)
• Crown Street, Acton
• Horn Lane, Acton (Opposite Stuart Road)
• Leeland Terrace
• Alfred Road, Acton
• Ruislip Road, Greenford (O/S No.3)

What a pity that Barnet Council don't listen to businesses like Ealing do.

Could this be part of the reason why the shops of Ealing Broadway are so numerous?

Yours appealingly

Miss Feezance