MET Parking contract that seems to be a little underhand...

[JC101]

Hi - i'd be very interested in hearing the views of some of the forum regarding an issue i've been looking into for around 2 years. It involves a piece of land that used to be free to park in, but a few years ago was changed to a Met Parking enforced zone, free, but for 2 hours.

 

The legality of how it was originally voted for is sketchy, but a supposed consultation with 5 local shops suggested it was a good idea - no residents were consulted, and with parking terrible on the main roads, this has meant sometimes there is no option but to park and leave the car there, resulting in tickets.

 

Over the last 2 years i have tried to find out the name of the contact at Barnet Council who organised the consultation, and who runs the contract with Met Parking. Nobody has been able to give that to me, not even with a FOI request, and in fact there was originally a debate over who the land belonged to. The Council insisted it was Barnet Homes, whilst Barnet Homes said it wasnt them. It took myself to show the land registry documentation and the council's asset register to prove it was the councils.

 

Met Parking refuse to offer any help as to who their contact is, and I have now escalated it because i have over £1000 of parking tickets piling up. I can only assume that the contract was instigated by an individual within the council, possibly on receipt of backhanders possibly not (no liable there), who may have now left, and nobody has a clue what the story is. My premise is that the original consultation was totally inadequate, and it should have been made a residents car park, but at the moment I am waiting for the Head of the Council to revert with help if he can, other than that I'm at a loss.

 

I'm happy to talk through the information I have with somebody, as i said, it's an interesting one, and I'm sure one of you would love to get your teeth into

 

Thanks,

 

Jude

[ericsbrother]

. People cant vote to have parking cowboys present, only landowner can sign contract with them so you need to identify the land in question and then pay the Land Registry the £3 fee to see who owns it and what covenants are on said land. By the rest of your post it looks like the council so they may be entitled to employ these muppets. Of course MET wont help, they are getting money for nothing and they might not have any right to be there even though they have a contract.

How long have you been parking there before this more recent change. There may well be an "easment" created by continuous use and the LR entry will tell you if there is anything that protects the flat dweller's use or at least limits the authority of the council to do anything that harms your enjoyment of it.

As for the £1000 or so charges demanded, we can help there but we will need a lot more information. Choose one of the charges and tell us when the date of the parking event was, whether it was a screen ticket of just letter through the post, when the NTK arrived and EXACTLY what it says with just you personal details and the ticket number removed, weneed to know exact location and all dates and what it is they say you have done wrong and we will compare that with the wording on the sign.