Well, what can one say about the council parking enforcement team? Back in December 2020, an enforcement officer issued a PCN to residents in Egbert Close who were parked outside their own house, with no yellow lines, and no offence committed.
Cllr Nunn and I took up their case as this PCN was unjust and I thank the parking challenge officer for upholding this appeal. Good news you think, so did we, but incredibly the same enforcement officer decided he knew better than the appeal team and yes you guessed it, he issued more PCNs. This was despite the resident showing the enforcement officer a copy of an email from the council giving them permission to park there. The resident advised us that the officer said we had misled him and gave the wrong information to the council. So it appeared like the film Groundhog Day.
Once again we wrote to the appeals management team to ask about the PCN and also the alleged statement. Well, once again the PCN was cancelled and in the email, it confirmed that the residents can park outside their houses in this location and we wondered if there were any more errors.
The Council made the following statement:
“I can advise that we have carried out a search on more recently issued Penalty Charge Notices in Egbert Close and cancelled those where the vehicle was parked outside the owner’s address.” So I must thank them for checking for any other PCNs that had been issued.
Regarding the issue of the enforcement officer making alleged statements about us misleading the council, we got the following reply:
“The Civil Enforcement Officer HGxxx has stated that at no time was it his intention to imply that anyone was issuing false information and apologizes if this seemed to be the case, but he was just trying to carry out his duties and was not fully aware of clause 86(3) in the Traffic Management Act 2004.
All Civil Enforcement officers have now been reminded of this clause and the Enforcement Manager will continue to monitor the use of this contravention.”
So hopefully now the residents of Egbert Close on the Dunningford Chase estate can park in peace, as always we will defend the residents who we represent.
If you need our help with parking or any other issues please contact us.
Cllr Barry Mugglestone
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