Barnet Council has been urged to refund thousands of pounds of income from parking tickets following a traffic order mix-up.
Derek Dishman, who uses the alias ‘Mr Mustard’ to fight people’s parking fines, claims hundreds of penalty charge notices (PCNs) were incorrectly issued in a controlled parking zone (CPZ) that operates on event days near StoneX Stadium, the home of Saracens in Mill Hill.
The CPZ was introduced by the council in streets near the stadium in early 2013 using legal tools that regulate road traffic and parking known as traffic management orders (TMO).
The following year, the council moved to a mostly map-based TMO system. But during the switchover, some of the restrictions in Wheatley Close, Barford Close, Westside and Hall Lane, were missed off the map. The council published a new order in March last year correcting the omissions.
After trawling through a database of PCNs issued in the affected roads during the period before the council corrected the order, Mr Dishman, who lives locally, found 864, with all but 15 imposing a £110 penalty. Even accounting for those paid at a discount, he claimed the council would have raked in £45,720 from the erroneous tickets.
Mr Dishman said he believed it was “completely immoral” for the council to issue penalties they did not have the power to issue “because they messed up their own rules”.
He added: “The only morally correct course to correct the situation is to refund the money.”
A council spokesperson said: “The council has not consulted on any changes to exclude any roads from the event day controlled parking zone from the previous event day traffic management order, prior to 2014 when the consolidated traffic management orders were made, nor had it made changes to the parking arrangements, such as the signs and lines, which indicate the restrictions that are in operation during event days, and are intended to protect residents from anti-social parking…
Source : times
