10 November (Part 1) - Light blue touch paper and retire immediately
While
Bexley council’s dishonesty and corruption reverberates around the corridors of
power ordinary run of the mill dishonesty and incompetence continues unabated. I
refer of course to councillor Craske’s parking regime and in particular his four mobile CCTV cars.
Yesterday’s News Shopper published
its anticipated article on
the subject of their certification and managed to merely scratch the surface of
the problems. Not that that is a criticism of the News Shopper because there is
a strategy being played out by Notomob and not all of their bombs have yet been primed.
A Bexley Council spokeswoman (Tina Brooks the Parking Manager?) said “There is
nothing in the regulations or guidance which prescribes (sic) an actual certificate
must be issued by the appropriate body on behalf of the Secretary of State for Transport”.
Let’s see what the law says and how Nigel Wise, the man who beat Richmond and Westminster
councils with his superior knowledge of parking law, has addressed Bexley council…
The Law
Civil Traffic Enforcement Certification of Approved Devices
2.1.4 Applications to the Secretary of State
The Secretary of State will decide whether to issue a certificate of approval to
the applicant on the basis of the Technical Construction File and any other
exchanges that take place subsequently.
Wise Nigel
“You will see from the above
[Section 2.1.4] that your VCA letter is not the type of
document that you need to hold to be able to conduct any lawful enforcement. You
will also see that contrary to the Bexley spokeswoman’s false
statement a certificate is required to be issued. As you insist (at
the behest of the VCA) that your letter is not a certificate you therefore do
not have the correct documentation in your possession.
Adjudicators rightly expect to see a certificate that actually names the
approved devices on it. I feel that your assertion that “Adjudicators need to be
educated” will not be well received by the Adjudicators. Education can only come
from the educated.
Furthermore even if your ‘letter’ was a certificate it certificates nothing.
Please remove your vehicles from the roads and get ready with the refund
process.
If you would like the details of how to carry out the refund procedure correctly
please contact Richmond Council Parking Department. If you have difficulty in
getting through this will be because they are inundated with requests for
refunds as you will also be.”
In summary, Bexley has a Technical Construction File but hasn’t been to the
Secretary of State to request that it be used as the basis for him issuing a
certificate. No certificate equals no authority to issue fines.
There are more ‘bombs’ up Notomob’s sleeve and one of them looks like a Hiroshima
style device to me. I can imagine Tina Brooks going round assuring Craske and co.
that all is well so they can relax and go back to plotting the downfall of bloggers
but I sense another downfall arising. At the other guilty councils their parking managers
found themselves at the Job Centre.
Read about Westminster council’s
multi-million pound cock-up here.