Just seen this one while clicking around but was not sure whether to put it in the fun and laughter section.
"This PCN took 9 months to challenge (£70 PCN) and cost ALL OF US several thousand pounds for the Council to fail to uphold. This is an unreasonable waste of public resources.
Even if the Council had won at the Parking Appeal Tribunal, which I called them to and which took about 15 minutes to find in my favour, they had already spent more money chasing £70 than they were going to regain. Much of the tribunal was spent by me giving the scruffy oik from the Council a proper rollicking for being late (6 minutes), for being unpresentable of the Council (unshaven, jeans, t shirt, lack of respect for the seriousness of the case), for not knowing the case he was there to defend in advance, for reading through the case notes during the hearing ie. he didn't do his homework..... I could go on but he really didn't expect me, at all! At no point was I rude nor did I raise my voice. I was hard, direct and unrelentingly positive that I was right. I immediately attacked everything he said and I asked loads of really awkward CLOSED QUESTIONS ie yes or no. Fail to prepare and prepare to fail!
Please note that the Council (Brighton and Hove) always only use 'negative language' and threats/ suggestions that you will fail at every opportunity. They also provide more ways to pay than I care to mention, while chipping away at your confidence and likelihood of not winning. They load everything against drivers and present an entirely unacceptable and unbalanced information process. This is immoral and unacceptable! They don't like it when it's used against them and act like a faceless entity, when in reality it's one person in an office who has to exceed their weekly targets, or else. This is unacceptable! They are Civil Servants and I will always force them, if necessary, to behave as such. I will be respected. (I do hope you're catching the attitude which you need to adopt when dealing with Civil Servants. They do not respect being friendly because they cannot alter 'the system' which they impose. Smiling at me while trying to extort money from me is a very bad idea. I'm no gangster, just some guy who will not tolerate his tax money being used against him and/ or squandered by idiots)
My first and second Appeals were rejected without any stated reasons given. Debt collectors licensed and sent to my address(notice arrived 27th december). I sent them away as the debt was unenforceable. Northants County Court revoked license to collect debt in February. Parking Appeals Tribunal(May). Council mistakenly accused me of fraudulently obtaining a residents parking permit(January). Warden who issued ticket stated in his notes at the time that I was "...delivering stuff" but Council refused to acknowledge this, or to provide a copy of the notes to me when requested. The local press (Argus)followed my story and published 3 articles about me and my case. (The Council didn't like this one bit. So do it!) I dislike the 11,290+ occasions on which they have licensed debt collectors to enforce parking tickets, because it is a disproportionate waste of public money and is not in the public interest. Debt collection should be a last resort, not the first and nobody can be treated as being guilty of an offence without a trial.
I am very happy that I challenged Brighton and Hove Council at every given occasion over the last 9 months and I encourage everyone who has acted reasonably (don't make stuff up, it's really not clever and lacks respect) to do the same. Now considering legal action against the Council for 9 months of eg. illegitimate harassment and stress etc etc etc.
Aug 4th 2010 - PCN issued for parking in a residential parking bay without valid permit.
- Residential parking in effect for 2 hours each day - 10-11am and 7-8pm. Justification given by council for this arrangement 'to deter commuter parking re. Hove train station local overflow parking issues'. My property is three quarters of a mile away from Hove train station, so this is just a work of fiction created to maximise revenue ie it's nothing short of a protection racket because it's practically impossible to park anywhere without either breaking the law or having to pay to do so.
I do not require a residents parking permit for where the ticket was issued, because I have use of a driveway. I have another property in Brighton for which I do hold a valid residents permit.
First appeal rejected despite Warden's note "he was delivering stuff". I explained this several times but it was flatly dismissed. As the facility exists for wardens to make notes of mitigating circumstances, then those notes are legitimate. The Council tried to argue that I was 'loading' and not 'delivering stuff' but failed to do so successfully. Their argument was "were you loading, unloading or delivering?". My answer was "all of the above", as I was loading my car, delivering the rubbish to the local tip and unloading it there. In order to load my car, I had to unload some things from the boot; thus 'delivering stuff'.... to my garage. But wait, it gets even more bizarre!
"Provide evidence that you were loading your vehicle"... like what, I wondered? So I asked them what they would accept as 'evidence' that I had cleared my garage several months ago (and now it gets bizarre).... "photos of the things you disposed of, photos of the space in your garage where they once were and a receipt from yourself to yourself for the work that you did". I have this in writing! Read on.....
But that's not all. As I stated above, I have a residents permit for my car. The Council accused me of fraudulently obtaining TWO residents permits for the same vehicle, in the same residential parking zone under different names. I have this in writing too! There was one of those really awkward silences on the other end of the line when I called them to discuss this. The previous owner of my car lives in the same parking zone and when I legitimately bought my permit, they Council didn't automatically cancel the existing one, belonging to the previous owner. Laughing yet?
There's loads more to this but the overall idea is that you remain reasonable, that you get everything in writing (calls are not recorded in Brighton and Hove Councils Parking Offices. I know this because I requested recordings or transcriptions and they told me it was impossible. Therefore I could claim absolutely anything and they could neither prove or disprove it) and that you NEVER, EVER GIVE UP AND PAY! "
