Preferential parking treatment

Dear Ceredigion Council,
ms Spain

Why is Rattray's van allowed to park every day in blatant and overt contravention of the traffic order sign applicable to the loading bay in Chalybeate St. Aberystwyth?

The van is there for more than an hour with no visible sign of loading or unloading taking place and quite often returns well within the hour and all this on a daily basis.

How many pcn have been issued to this vehicle BK56 DXH in the last 3 months for these contraventions?

How does one obtain one of these prized exemption certificates that Rattray's alledgedly have and what is the upfront cost?

Thank you

S M golden

Yours faithfully,

M Golden

Dear Ceredigion HPW, Katy Spain
Thank for your response of the 18-02-2014, before I continue with my original request of the 09-02-2014 (Preferential parking treatment) may I request please;

a) A full list of the contraventions codes used by Ceredigion County Council on their PCNs?

b) A copy of the CEOs handbook?

c) What information is on a PCN?

d) Is the street location of the contravention recorded anywhere on the CEOs handheld device?

e) Is the fact that the contravening vehicle is a goods or private vehicle recorded anywhere by the CEO as a record for Ceredigion County Council?

Thank you S M Golden

Yours sincerely,

M Golden

Dear Ceredigion HPW,
Dear Katy Spain

Please may one have a response to the following 6 questions under the FOIA.

Thank you for your reply of the 18-02-2014 and one respects your answer that the Data Protection Act 1998 does not allow personal details to be disclosed, mindful of this fact one re-phrases the question contained in the FOIA request paragraph 3 of the 09-02-2014 and re-submits.

One acknowledges that you did address part of the following question in your response of the 24-02-14 in which you state;

Quote,
“The fact that the contravening vehicle is a goods or private vehicle is not recorded anywhere by the CEO”.

One has to accept that the above may not be recorded directly, but it certainly is recorded indirectly as any self respecting data base would contain the following, the contravention codes that are on the PCNs and these would of course be different for LGV and Private Vehicles that contravene the Traffic Order in the loading bay in Chalybeat Street + the recorded location + the CEOs camera evidence (please note following paragraph) + information held on the CEO’s handheld device and other corroboratory evidence. With all the foregone at your disposal, one would assume, that the information requested in the following question would be quite simple to ascertain and not time consuming as there can be but a few PCNs issued to private vehicles in the in requested time frame and in all probability none issued to goods vehicles.

As far as one is aware the guidelines applicable to TMA 2004 advise all Councils to use camera evidence to support the CEOs evidence and to this end recommend photographing the PCN when in position on the windscreen and if possible to include within the high quality image, the tax disc. If Ceredigion County Council has taken this advice on board, each tax disc image would show if the offending vehicles tax class is either a private vehicle ‘P’ or a goods vehicle ‘LGV’ or HGV. Even if you respond by saying that the CEOs do not take a digital image, the CEOs do note the tax disc number on the PCN, so the DVLA would have provided full information to Ceredigion County Council applicable to that particular vehicle.

Without appearing facetious or patronising the answer to request 1 is very simply found by a process of elimination within the information at your disposal and would therefore, require only a small amount of your time as it is only dealing with a 28 day period so one feels this is a perfectly reasonable request.

Request 1
How many many Penalty Charge Notices have been issued to Goods Vehicles contravening the Traffic Order in the Loading/unloading bay in Chalybeate Street Aberystwyth for the month of February-2014?

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You also confirmed in the second paragraph of your response of the 18-02-2014; Quote, “there is no automatic exemption afforded to any specific vehicles to park in contravention of the Goods vehicle Loading Only bay”.

So one can only assume that the current de-facto situation appertaining to the issue of PCNs in the loading bay in Chalybeate Street is upheld at the CEOs discretion or more to the point and allegedly in (the publics perception) the “back office staff’s” very subjective instructions to the CEOs.

Unfortunately by allowing the businesses adjacent to the said loading bay to ensconce themselves all day in the bay in contravention of the traffic order in force is only denying other visiting goods vehicle drivers wishing to legitimately deliver to other businesses in the vicinity a chance to use the bay. Therefore, the said loading bay is in the eyes of those visiting goods vehicle drivers, a private parking space masquerading as a loading bay for a very privileged few. This is a view shared by many members of the public in Aberystwyth who have complete empathy with this view from their own observations of the farcical status quo that exist in the said loading bay.

The “back office staff” are also very lucky in that their generous offer to blanket exempt a certain group/class from the Traffic Order has not had a significant uptake in the Darkgate Street loading/unloading bays as this would bring Aberystwyth to a standstill. If one is correct in their interpretation of your response of the 18-02-2014, all businesses adjacent to the loading bays in Great Darkgate Street are exempt from the traffic order and like their peers in Chalybeate Street (which has set a precedent) may therefore, park in the loading bays without loading/unloading and come and go when ever they like providing they are in a goods vehicle.

Quote extract from your response of the 18-02-14:

-------not all vehicles that park in contravention receive a PCN. This is especially the case where vehicles are parked adjacent to the owners property or business---------

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Request 2
Please forgive one’s incompetence and inability in that they are unable to locate the precise section of legislation that gives legitimacy to the “the back office staff’s” exemption list for a group/class of the public.

May one therefore, please ask for guidance to pinpoint the precise section of the relevant legislation that authorises the “back office staff” to exclude ad lib a portion of the general public from the traffic order. This would aid transparency and give provenance, credence and clarification to the fact that the “back office staff’ are not acting ultra vires when excluding certain sections of the populous from the traffic order?

Thank you in anticipation of your assistance and guidance.

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You also state in paragraph three of your response of the 18-02-14;

Quote ”CEOs observe vehicles for evidence of loading or unloading and if this is seen may complete the activity within the confines of the restriction placed on the loading bay”

This is a very biased and flawed interpretation by the “back office staff’’ of the Transport Management Act in that they imply, that so long as the CEOs observe one of the businesses in Chalybeate Street arriving in the loading/unloading bay and then by loading/unloading for 1 minute they may then park in the bay for the following 58 minutes without any further loading or unloading, then 1 minute before the mandatory 1 hour is up put a tray or cushion back in the van. Obviously this is allegedly, in the eyes of the “back office staff” complying with the applicable signage, but this is a very biased, subjective and misinterpreted view of the Traffic Management Act 2004 and its current guidelines.

The statutory observation period for a goods vehicle is 10 minutes, if as you imply the Traffic Order in place at this loading bay is 1 hour, the Transport Management Act 2004 and all the Statutory guide lines state that the loading/unloading must be visible and continues for the whole 1 hour, Leaving the back door of a van open for 99% of the permitted time with a tray or cushion showing is not visibly loading/unloading continually in law, but simply making an overt controversial gesture to the general public who are subject to the Traffic Order in its entirety without any exemptions.

It is worth noting here Ceredigion County Council’s own publicised ‘Traffic Order’.

CEREDIGION COUNTY COUNCIL (PROHIBITION AND RESTRICTION OF WAITING AND LOADING AND UNLOADING) (CONSOLIDATION) ORDER .PART 4 – GENERAL PROVISIONS RELATING LOADING ONLY PARKING PLACES

25. (a) The driver of a vehicle shall not permit it to wait in a loading only parking place for longer than it is necessary to enable goods to be loaded or unloaded from a vehicle and not longer than the maximum period permitted for waiting specified in relation to that loading only parking place as identified on the plans attached to this Order; and

25. (b) when a vehicle has left a loading only parking place after waiting theron, the driver therof shall not within the period specified in relation to that parking place and as identified on the plans attached to this Order, after its leaving, permit it to wait again upon that loading only parking place.

In the context of the above Traffic Order
3. INTERPRETATION AND DEFINITIONS

Within this section of the Traffic Order there is no definition given for the word ”‘necessary”, therefore, words are required to be given their plain, ordinary, and literal meaning, with the normal dictionary meaning assigned to the word; Thus Necessary = “Absolutely essential to achieve something”.

This makes a complete mockery of the de facto situation regarding the loading bay in Chalybeate Street and the “back office staffs” very subjective definition of the word ‘necessary’ as loading for 1 minute and then leaving a vehicle unattended for 58 minutes cannot be deemed ‘necessary’ in law or indeed in the eyes of Aberystwyth populace.

Unfortunately it appears that the “back office staff” and Ceredigion County Council’s legislators are not singing from the same hymn sheet.

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Request 3
As the purpose of the “back office staff” is: Quote from current legislation; “to protect CEOs from allegations of inconsistency, favouritism or suspicion of bribery”.

One now asks what safeguards are in place to protect the “the back office staff” from “allegations of inconsistency, favouritism or suspicion of bribery” and to whom are these “back office staff” accountable or is it self autonomy?

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Request 4
When the “back office staff” (whom ever they may be elected, none elected or a mish mash of both) decided to whom they would allegedly grant ex gratia exemption from the Traffic Order in-force in Chalybeate Street loading/unloading bay, were personal interest declared by these decision makers and registered by the monitoring officer and the reasons for the exemptions recorded, thus acknowledging and giving all due respect and regards to the following advice and by so doing, allay any general public misgivings?

Advice referred to and included here are for information and transparency purposes only.

Government UK online.

“Holders of Public Office have a duty to declare any private interest relating to their public duties and are required to declare any personal or business interest which may, or may be perceived to be (by a reasonable member of the public) influencing or having influenced their judgement and these are to be recorded in the register of Interest”

Committee on Standards in Public life January 2013. The seven principals of public life.

Ceredigion County Council Code of Conduct -- Local Government Employees.

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One now refers to your response to the request of the 21-02-2014 requesting a copy of the CEOs hand book. In your response of the 24-02-2014 you state the CEO’s handbook contain personal details hence your refusal to accommodate the request. However, in mitigation it was never intended or envisaged that you would go out and retrieve a handbook from one of the CEOs and scan it, but merely scan a new one that in all probability is in the usual statutory advised format.

One would logically assume, that when Ceredigion County Council originally acquired the CEO’s handbooks from the printer/supplier they did not contain any clandestine personal details, as providing personal information to the printer/supplier would have put Ceredigion County Council in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 under section 40. subsection 1 (Personal Information).

Request 5
Mindful of the above two paragraphs, would you please confirm that when the copies of these handbooks are received from the printer/supplier by Ceredigion County Council they do not contain any personal details and that these details are added at a later date ad-hoc?

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Request 6
May the writer now for the second time, request under the FOIA;

A copy of Ceredigion County Council’s CEOs handbook without any personal details please?

Transport Management Act 2004 & Department for Transport, operational guidance to local authorities.
Civil Enforcement Officers’ handbook.
8.2 The local authority should produce a handbook for CEOs. This should be based
on the training given to CEOs and could be used both as part of that training and
as a guide to procedures for officers on duty. The handbook should explain the
different types of parking contravention

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Thank you for your patience and please accept my apologies for the lengthy explanations that were included in the above preamble for clarity and transparency purposes.

Yours sincerely,

M Golden