After reading (and posting) Shahrar’s email I got thinking about what other information about parking and PCNs issued I could request from Brent Council under FoI.

How many of us have been issued a ticket because of a simple honest mistake, like, say, scratching off the wrong day on a parking voucher in error, or perhaps forgetting to note your registration on a temporary residents permit? Well that’s me on both counts.

How many of us have been issued a parking ticket due to an error on the part of the parking warden, like, say for example, parking a commercial vehicle in a resdential street contrary to local restrictions when no contravention could have occured as you were not driving a commercial vehicle and there were no such local parking restrictions? A bit of specific example I realise… Yes, me again.

When I make an honest mistake Brent Council will not hear your pleading and will not yeild their power to strike out the ticket, leaving you to either pay the PCN or meet Brent in court. Yet when a Brent Council Parking Warden makes a similar simple honest error, power is yielded and PCNs are cancelled.

I wonder if I Brent have data on the number of tickets that that they cancel each year due to warden error… What is of greater interest is whether Brent collect data on number of appealed tickets due to an error on the part of the driver. And can I get it?

Shahrar Ali, a Green Party candidate at both this years local and last years national elections, sent me an email yesterday on a topic important to car-owners - Penalty Charge Notices, or, rather, f’ing-tickets, as I’m sure most of us refer to them. Shahrar told me about meeting Brent residents while campaigning during the local elections and a common gripe that came up - being issued with a ticket on a public holiday.

He writes:

“Trouble is, “Restrictions apply on Bank Holidays” signage is to be found only on some of the posts as one enters the zone. But most people, reasonably in my view, take their cue from the signage in the bays - which without any explicit indication to the contrary they will assume does not apply on public holidays.

Brent can’t have it both ways. Had the assumption not been justified there would hardly be a need for the additional signage. The trouble is these signs are not fit for purpose, ie. noticeable.

What’s at issue? Nobody likes to get a fine at the best of times, but the suspicion is that signage has been erected to maximise the chances of catching people out and making a quick buck. That’s dishonest and only fuels resentment towards local government - increasing cynicsm and eroding trust in public or democratic institutions, moreover.”

Shahrar made a reuqest under the Freedom of Information Act for data from Brent Council on the volume of parking tickets issued in a single Controled Parking Zone in Brent on both Bank Holiday Mondays and the normal Mondays preceeding and following them.
Shahrar writes: “The results of my request surely confirm that the majority of drivers have been caught out on public holidays not because they were “trying to get away with it” (in the words of one council official) but because they were duped.”