PCN 52J Croydon Council Sutherland Road

[ekuhgk23]

Hi all

Please help with any advice. A bit of a long story.

Yesterday I received a charge certificate for £195. I never received any pcn before this. Date of contravention is 06/02/24 and notice to owner/pcn is identified as as 18/04/24. To be cleared this is a home I've lived my entire life and it did not arrive.

Now for backstory:

I was in a serious car accident in December and garage via insurer provided a replacement vehicle from December - February. ]I have reached out to the garage but no response yet as this has happened yesterday. Is it likely Croydon Council found owner via DVLA, issued pcn to the garage and then charge certificate to me? Would the dvla have me down on a replacement vehicle? I suspect they would not have and that's why I did not receive original pcn.

Furthermore, pcn is for 52j failure to comply with a prohibition on certain types of roads. I've just checked footage and doesn't look like I've even done this -although I will go back to road tomorrow as it is late now. Basically, road is restricted but signage is facing outwards instead of direction of travel -so appears as no entry for vehicles when I am exiting the road. There is also roadworks closing the opposite side of road but as they don't have a view from my direction of travel neither of us have any proof of signage in my direction. I am pretty sure it was one of those 8.15 – 9.15am and 1 hour in the afternoon e.g. 2.45 – 3.45pm roads now I've looked into it. It was originally completed restricted via planters then changed. I am going back today but between February & now it could have easily changed again.


Charge certificate has no appeal details as I have missed deadline, according to them. Anyone know best grounds for appeal or how to proceed. They definitely didn't send me a pcn but hard to prove I didn't receive it. Do I wait for next correspondence and complete a witness statement? What's my best line of defence without proof of how it looked in Feb.

Thank you


https://imgur.com/a/gH43A6K

[ekuhgk23]

Hi all.

I have found out some more info which will be vital.

Croydon Council sent the PCN to the garage.

1.The garage named me but the council sent them a notice of rejection dated 23/04/24 .
2. I received a charge certificate but no pcn dated 20/06/24
3. Council and claimed to have sent me the pcn 18/04/24 which clashes with the rejection they sent the garage
4. the garage claimed they named me as a driver but then randomly received the rejection
5. the road was previously no entry or exit with giant planters covering it (see link below)
6. as point 5 that means they definitely had to update the road removing the planters and adding signage
7. I visited today and the signage is there now but definitely was not on both sides of the road. I can see back of something on a lamp post one side of the councils footage but nothing on the other so impossible for there to have been any sign on one side
8. I have taken videos today. If you approach Sutherland road from one of the main roads there is no signage warning you that you are coming up to a restricted road (it's only visible from entrances further back on Sutherland road). Even if you do hit the two signs which are there now there was roadworks on the day I went passed (visible in the evidence council provided) and most of the roads if I reversed are no entry but tbh not sure if that counts as I could have reversed and gone straight up in opposite direction)

This means they would according to them have been chasing two people for the same ticket.

Link to notice of rejection sent to garage https://imgur.com/a/PwZANk0
Link to no entry that was previously on the road https://imgur.com/a/xHYXmA0

[NickVel]

Hi fellow sufferers of Croydon's cash grab

I came across your post hoping to find kindred spirits having regularly used Sutherland Road/Canterbury road over 20 years to get to Mayday hospital.

Imagine my surprise then to get a ticket (delayed 7 days) then another a couple of days later, for when I made the return journey the same day.

I agree the signage is/was extremely difficult to spot - and people are not looking out for restrictions where they never applied before.

Pretty tee-ed off that I probably couldn't argue against the new signage, even though on the picture supplied it's pointing in the opposite direction to travel, I coughed up 2 lots of £65 through metaphorically gritted teeth, in the knowledge that resistance was probably useless and the threat of 2x £195 for appealing and losing, was in the councils reckoning (correctly) that I would cave rather than fight.

I then got to thinking why should others suffer from unintended transgressions due to Croydon councils strategy to trick people into not one but two fines (or more) for this hidden motoring trap, until they "get the message" (see FOI response below)

So I made a freedom of information request to the council asking for details on the stats of offenders - I post the response at the bottom which is not overly helpful apart from to confirm that the strategy is to fine unwitting drivers as many times as is necessary for them to get the message and find and alternate route.

But it did point me to publicly available data on fines issued for what purpose etc. Latest available data is only Apr 23 to Mar 24 so skewed on the Sutherland Avenue restrictions as only recently in that period.

What however is telling is that the VAST majority of fines even in that period are for failing to see the easily missed signage.

Contraventions Apr 23 to Mar 24	Grand Total	% total fines
Failing to comply with a prohibition on certain types of vehicles	26275	40%
Failing to comply with a restriction on vehicles entering a pedestrian zone (Camera Enforcement)	18571	28%

So almost 70% of the councils parking fine revenue is from this one type of infraction, badly signposted and unexpected from commuters, where before the road was unrestricted. And a high proportion was from repeat "offenders" on the same day.

At £65 a pop minimum, that's around £300k pa. This seems like the very easiest of touches for Croydon to fill the black hole in their horrendously mismanaged budget.

I shall be sharing with Chris Philp who has a great track record of holding our useless council to account. But any other grist to the mill appreciated.

Your friend in alliance against corruption

Nick



Request FOI/10980


Further to your request received on 29/10/2024, I confirm that the Council has now considered your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. For ease of reference, I will now address each of your questions in turn.

I have just received two penalty notices for travelling along Sutherland Road. The signage is pitiful and facing the wrong direction.

"The signage in place is correctly installed and clear to the motorist in Sutherland Rd and is in line with the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 (TSRGD)"

There are also advanced signs before turning into Sutherland Rd from Canterbury Rd warning the drivers of either a banned left or right turn except authorised vehicles

It is incredibly rare that a route that has traditionally been acceptable to travel on suddenly becomes forbidden with only vague indications that this is the case.

I (and many others) have used this route in the 25 years I have lived in the area to get to Mayday hospital.

I believe that there are a disproportionate amount of people being caught by this unjustifiable "trap", clearly designed to raise revenue for the council with no obvious justification - why is this restriction applied to this road and no others (locally or at all withing the borough?)

MY FOI Requests -

1) How many drivers have been caught and fined for travelling along Sutherland avenue since the restriction was incepted?

This information is provided on our website and is therefore exempt from Croydon Council under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, ‘Information reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means’.

Section 21 is an absolute exemption and therefore does not require the public interests balancing test to be applied. All currently available Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) data is available on the council's website at:

https://www.croydon.gov.uk/council-a...t-tma-accounts

(The street is called Sutherland Road by Canterbury Rd)

2) For the number of months measured in 1 above, How many cars were observed using sutherland avanue during the same period prior to the inception - this data would have been gathered as part of the business case to introduce these restrictions.

Before - NB - 62 vehicles/hr; SB - 45 vehicles/hr

After - NB - 40 vehicles/hr; SB - 40 vehicles/hr

3) How many drivers were fined more than once for transgressing the restrictions

1760 drivers issued more than one fine at Sutherland Rd (bidirectional), motorists behaviours change once a fine is issued and this reduces entry into the road. The penalty notice arrives via post and can be up to 7/10 days after the event hence why there can be multiple entries before the driver stops contravening the area.

4) How does the frequency of transgression per day, compare to other similar restrictions within the borough.

See answer to Q1.