Brighton & Hove Council: Money-Grabbing T*ssers

[Notters]

I'm afraid there is a simple rule to follow with parking in Brighton & Hove.

Never ever ever expect the council, the wardens or anyone in the parking office to ever give you the benefit of the doubt.
So;
Never overhang a yellow line by an inch
Never overstay in a bay by a single minute
Never make an error completing a visitor permit
Never fail to display your permit or your ticket so the fuckwits can't see it with ease
Never try and reason with these people

The only way to avoid this street robbery, is to tow a caravan and park it on a playing field or other grassed area

I'm sorry, but all of this is complete and utter bollocks. If you make an honest mistake, they will cancel a ticket, provided you write them a letter to explain why you did what you did.

Why should you be able to overstay in a bay by a minute? How about five minutes? An hour? If you do get a ticket because you overstayed for a good reason (e.g. you were at the doctor's and he had to do some tests), write to them and they will let you off, they are very reasonable.

If you make an error filling in a visitor's permit and get a ticket, I can't see how you can have a problem with this. They are very simple to fill in. In fact they keep making them simpler and simpler.

So if you display a permit so it can't be seen with ease, and you get a ticket, do you think that's unreasonable?

 

[Notters]

these tickets need to be issued to raise money for cycle lanes as cyclist do not contribute in anyway. if you cant see the sense in that then you are a fool sir

Ah, this old myth again. 90% of cyclists are also drivers. Would you rather they were all driving ALL of the time instead of cycling and therefore wearing out our roads even faster?

 

[glasfryn]

you are very lucky the old tow away squad are not still about!

 

[peejay1958]

I'm sorry, but all of this is complete and utter bollocks. If you make an honest mistake, they will cancel a ticket, provided you write them a letter to explain why you did what you did.

Why should you be able to overstay in a bay by a minute? How about five minutes? An hour? If you do get a ticket because you overstayed for a good reason (e.g. you were at the doctor's and he had to do some tests), write to them and they will let you off, they are very reasonable.

If you make an error filling in a visitor's permit and get a ticket, I can't see how you can have a problem with this. They are very simple to fill in. In fact they keep making them simpler and simpler.

So if you display a permit so it can't be seen with ease, and you get a ticket, do you think that's unreasonable?

This is good advice. If, after writing to them, they won't cancel the ticket there should be an independent tribunal you can appeal to. My wife did this and won her case against Worthing Borough Council who were made to look very silly in the process. Persevere and you stand a good chance of getting a result.

 

[Notters]

With regard to the OP, write to the council. Tell them you were on holiday and made an honest mistake in forgetting to renew your permit. Offer to pay for one of the fines, and you'll probably get away with that.

 

[ditchy]

First you get the renewal then you get 7 days grace, from the 8th they will ticket you.

I agree tho that too often these tickets are about revenue and not punishing genuine offenders.

Dosent the renewal notice come at leat 2 weeks before ?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Seem reasonable. Equally if you forget to renew your tax your car could be crushed. If you forget to renew your insurance you could go to prison... etc.

If you forget to not get off your tits and wield a knife in NYC you get shot. Life could be worse.

 

[Deano's Invisible Pants]

OK, update. I went to the parking office to renew my resident's permit (at the same time still steaming and all set to chew someone's ear off about the unfairness of the double parking ticket). To be fair, the bloke I dealt with was great and reckons if I appeal both I should get one of them repealed - but not guarantees. He even went as far as giving me an extra month's permit - 'just in case the appeals people don't apply common sense'. Fair play to him - he actually apologised. Just shows there are clearly some good customer-facing people in the council, even if the people who make the policies should be shot!

 

[Lincoln Imp]

Claims of car parking fascists, of dim ideologues running the council, traders losing trade, tumbleweed floating down Western Road... where's TLO when B&HCC need him? Must be on holiday.

 

[Springal]

Seem reasonable. Equally if you forget to renew your tax your car could be crushed. If you forget to renew your insurance you could go to prison... etc.

And you get a renewal for car tax. I must admit it is pretty poor, although saying that in my day job we don't have a good contract system, so a lot of the time our clients contracts run out without warning...!

 

[Bob!]

My missus got a bailiff notice a few weeks ago, when she called the company it turned out to be about £300 notes owed for council tax from before we were together..seven/eight years ago! They are desperate for money and will do owt possible to raise it! Needless to say we have added this xtra to our list of bills. Adur council seem to be much better organised.

If the amount owing dates back more than seven years, you don't need to pay it. There's a statute of limitations on debt. They know this, but will try it on anyway...

Yeah, I believe the limitation is 6 years, but
... it's from when the debt was last admitted (so if any payment was made it's from the date of the last payment)
..... until taking it to court for the magistrates to judge that it's a true debt.

If it's with the bailiffs it's been to court, and there's no limit.

 

[tubaman]

So after a couple of weeks' holiday, I walk to my car this morning to take my daughter to nursery.

That's strange, I seem to have got a parking ticket. Surely some mistake, I thought - after all, I have a resident's parking permit. But oh dear, on closer inspection my permit expired at the end of July, and what's more, there's a 2nd parking ticket under my other wiper blade (£140 in total). No doubt had I not used my car today, I would have found a 3rd.

Naturally, it is my fault for overlooking the need to renew before going on holiday and there will be no come back - even though I have more than paid for the additional days having previously bought 30 visitor permits costing a few quid each.

However, having spent £££££££ thousands for the privilege of parking my car near my house over several years (not to mention council tax), would it be too much to expect a polite warning note rather than a parking ticket for this transgression? Nothing received in the post either.

So my question is, who are these people supposed to be serving - because it sure as hell doesn't seem to be residents and council tax payers

Appeal it. I presume you were on holiday when the reminders landed on your mat.

 

[albion534]

I think we have a good council. I can't give you much sympathy as it doesn't sound like you've tried to get them written off yet. The ticket office often write off charges if there are sympathetic circumstances. And if there wasn't a residents scheme the entire town would park their lazy arses in your road.
Maybe you should get a bike with a child seat and just ditch the car, think of all the money it will save you! There, I'm sure that won't annoy you

My van broke down a few weeks ago on double yellows opposite downs school, I displayed a clear sign saying broken down, but couldn't get it removed till Monday, lo and behold, 2 tickets, which they have refused to sign off saying that it should have been removed on Saturday.....

 

[chrissyboy01]

Not for being two weeks late though - they are the ultimate punishments. You could argue the punishment for not displaying a valid permit is a CCJ ( as that's ultimately what you would get if you allowed the issue to continue ).

Allowed it to continue? You mean ignoring it and hope it goes away.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

My van broke down a few weeks ago on double yellows opposite downs school, I displayed a clear sign saying broken down, but couldn't get it removed till Monday, lo and behold, 2 tickets, which they have refused to sign off saying that it should have been removed on Saturday.....

It would be nice to believe that they would take exceptional circumstances in to consideration, on receipt of a garage bill/receipt.

Although could you not have had it towed home?

 

[LadySeagull]

OK, update. I went to the parking office to renew my resident's permit (at the same time still steaming and all set to chew someone's ear off about the unfairness of the double parking ticket). To be fair, the bloke I dealt with was great and reckons if I appeal both I should get one of them repealed - but not guarantees. He even went as far as giving me an extra month's permit - 'just in case the appeals people don't apply common sense'. Fair play to him - he actually apologised. Just shows there are clearly some good customer-facing people in the council, even if the people who make the policies should be shot!

Just to encourage you to post about these tickets on pepipoo forums, where most people can get off most Council PCNs (and why not?):

FightBack Forums -> Council Parking Tickets Clamping and Decriminalised Notices

You would just need to take a close up photo of each PCN with the car reg nummber and PCN number covered, plus one close-up of the small print on the back (if they are both the same on the back). Show a Googlestreetview link of the bay where you parked and explain what happened, ask for help in appealing them both.

The only thing to be aware of is that, although most people win in the end, it does almost always involve getting a 'computer says no' rejection letter from the good old Council at first...because they can. It's all about money, not parking management nor keeping trafic flowing. It's just money to the Council and to persuade most people to just pay up, the rejection letter usually re-offers the discount like it's some sort of bargain.

If you do appeal all the way there are no costs, no Court, just an adjudicator making a decision in the end and if you did lose on one of the PCNsyou would have to pay the full penalty (discount bribe being long gone by then).

For those saying he should just pay up because it's his mistake, you should see the shocking mistakes, mismanagement, admin flaws, misinformation, ignoring/ignorance of statute law made by Councils on almost every single pepipoo thread. If Councils can't follow a fair and lawful process without slipping up almost every time, then why should a motorist feel they have to pay up for their (usally much more minor) mistake, that's the pepipoo view.

Try it.

 

[LadySeagull]

My van broke down a few weeks ago on double yellows opposite downs school, I displayed a clear sign saying broken down, but couldn't get it removed till Monday, lo and behold, 2 tickets, which they have refused to sign off saying that it should have been removed on Saturday.....

Exemption = broken down...although as it was left for a couple of days you may have a harder job and would need corroboration from the garage that it could not be moved sooner.

Try pepipoo if you haven't paid, you have just got the first predictable 'computer says no' letter which almost everyone gets. It's someone's job to issue those template rejection replies and almost no-one gets a ticket cancelled without having the carrot of the discount dangled at them with the rejection template letter to try to get you to pay up and shut up.

Not saying everyone wins but about 90% of people on that forum do, and in fact most people at any Council parking adjudication win, it's about a 70% success rate in most areas, even higher in some.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

So after a couple of weeks' holiday, I walk to my car this morning to take my daughter to nursery.

That's strange, I seem to have got a parking ticket. Surely some mistake, I thought - after all, I have a resident's parking permit. But oh dear, on closer inspection my permit expired at the end of July, and what's more, there's a 2nd parking ticket under my other wiper blade (£140 in total). No doubt had I not used my car today, I would have found a 3rd.

Naturally, it is my fault for overlooking the need to renew before going on holiday and there will be no come back - even though I have more than paid for the additional days having previously bought 30 visitor permits costing a few quid each.

However, having spent £££££££ thousands for the privilege of parking my car near my house over several years (not to mention council tax), would it be too much to expect a polite warning note rather than a parking ticket for this transgression? Nothing received in the post either.

So my question is, who are these people supposed to be serving - because it sure as hell doesn't seem to be residents and council tax payers

Tough Shit !!!!

Parking restrictions are governed by the Road Traffic Act 1984

 

[Lush]

There's a car parked outside my house on a residents permit. It hasn't moved since before Christmas and has had a flat tyre for months. The permit and tax ran out in July and I was hopeful the council would tow it away, but it seemed to get a weeks grace and the owner has now extended tax and permit for another three months. Parking spaces are at a premium round here so its a bit annoying to see one being used as storage for a crapped out car.

 

[smeariestbat]

Tough Shit !!!!

Parking restrictions are governed by the Road Traffic Act 1984

aha, the person that gave you the ticket has arrived