Dear Mr Mustard

I recently used two one-hour parking vouchers so that I could park for two hours in North Finchley. I scratched off  the correct silver boxes and put the vouchers in the windscreen side-by-side but still got a parking ticket. I scratched out the same arrival time on both vouchers and a traffic warden told me that they have to issue a ticket if I do that, even though it is correct; only following orders, apparently. Is this blatant profiteering by the council?

I challenged the PCN and it has been cancelled. However, the council's letter says that one voucher should have been scratched to start at 9am and the other one at 10am, so don't the council know what they are doing?

The cancellation letter from the council made me even more annoyed as they write about my relatively minor oversight when I have done nothing wrong. They have wasted my time and really ought to compensate me and apologise.

What should I do next time and how many people do you suppose have paid up in error?

Yours sincerely

Paul
(North Finchley)

 

The facts:

What the back of a parking voucher says:

You may need to use more than one voucher at a time to pay for a longer parking period up to the maximum period of stay so long as each Voucher has the same arrival day, date, month and time scratched off to cover the full duration of your stay. You must clearly write your vehicle registration number.

 

Dear Paul

I am sorry to hear that you received an unjustified PCN. You acted absolutely correctly by following the instructions on the back of the Voucher. This is the sort of information that the independent adjudicator at the Parking and Traffic Appeals Service (PATAS) would have looked at if the council had rejected both of your appeals. PATAS considered a case like yours in 2013 and found in favour of the motorist. Therefore, the NSL enforcement team, who are contracted to Barnet Council, should be aware of the rules.

It is very disturbing that traffic wardens have been given instructions to issue PCN when multiple Parking Vouchers have been correctly used and that Notice Processing Officers, who deal with appeals, are also ignorant of the rules. I would estimate that there are between 100 and 500 such cases in a year. Clearly both the traffic warden on the street and the back office staff need retraining in this area.

It is galling to be told you have made an oversight when you have done no such thing. The council should, at the very least, apologise to you and preferably make a gesture of goodwill by, say, sending you some free Parking Vouchers. I am sorry to say that good manners are rarely seen in this field, there seems to be a presumption that the motorist must be in the wrong. If you do get it wrong you have to pay a penalty but if the council get it wrong it is suddenly no big deal. The playing field needs to be levelled out so that the council pay the motorist for every wrongly issued PCN - that would make them more careful.

Do the same scratching out next time and keep your used vouchers in the glove box for a few months, just in case you need them as evidence.

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard