Council Controlled Parking Zone Permits

gorses

Hi everyone, first post, bit of advice needed.
My street is inside a Council run permit parking zone. I buy an annual permit which allows me to park my car outside my house. I also have a few books of 20 day visitor permits. I have had these 2/3 years. In April the council wrote informing me that from June my daily permits would be invalid as they were introducing new scratch off type permits. I complained as I still have 56 'old' permits which cost £5/book or 25p each. The council have refused to replace or refund any part used books at every stage of compaint.
Does anyone know if sale of goods applies? I can't believe they can sell me a permit then make it invalid. I am at the final appeal stage so I want to know where to go next.
I know it's only £14 but to me it's a matter of principle. Maybe I'll just continue to use the invalid permits and ignore any parking tickets I get.:eek:

Regards,
GORSES

anewman

gorses wrote: »

Maybe I'll just continue to use the invalid permits and ignore any parking tickets I get.:eek:

Beware that the Council would be likely to take you to court over unpaid tickets though and obviously this would be the visitors they take to court not you. My point of view would be so long as the permits have no expiry date and you have paid for them then they're valid. Whether or not a court would accept this and your letters from them as evidence of refusal to provide valid permits in lieu of your previous payment is another matter.

Did you agree to any terms and conditions regarding the purchase of visitor permits? If so have a good read through that, you're looking for any bits which say the council has a right to revoke them and not provide a refund, that sort of thing. It's a bit like when you get a PAYG phone. The terms and conditions say they can disconnect your phone and take all the PAYG credit with it without giving a refund, if you do not ue it for 30 days or something like that. If there were such terms and conditions I would have hoped the Council would have been kind and thoughtful enough to point these out in refusing your appeal.

Gordon861

If your permits don't have an expiry date on them I don't see any reason that they aren't allowing you to continue to use them. It would be like the Post Office this year saying that any first class stamps with the old pictures on will no longer be valid for posting letters.

To be honest I would make a call to your local councillor and see if they want to start kicking up a fuss, put a call into your local paper as well and tell the councillor that you intend to do it. I work for a local authority and the last thing you want when you work there is some councillor sticking the oar in and making your life difficult. Also if a councillor thinks they can get good publicity from something they will jump at the chance.

gorses

There are no terms and conditions I am aware of. I just phoned the council to ask them. They'll probably reply next month.;).

I also spoke to someone at Consumer Direct who told me that as the council are not classed as a trader they are NOT subject to the Sale of Goods Act or Provision of Services Act!!! Is this accurate??

anewman

Is there anyone else with old tickets? I say arrange to all go down to the council office one day where one purchases these tickets and prepare to be there a long while demanding that they refund or replace the now invalid tickets. They'll want to get rid of you quick, and they can't exactly get security or police onto you if you're not being threatening etc.

gorses

Council have confirmed that there is nothing in terms and conditions which allow them the right to revoke.
However they said what they have done was checked by their legal department and is "reasonable".

peter_the_piper

Reasonable is not the same as legal. It may be reasonable to them, after all they have your money. Have you asked them to swap them to the new ones?

TheBogsDollocks

Your best bet is to make as much noise as possible. Involve your local councillor and submit a formal complaint so that if you are not given satisfaction you can involve the Local Govt Ombudsman to investigate. Perhaps knock on doors and get a petition up and running (stand outside the local shop if need be getting signatures). If you are losing out then it stands to reason that other zonal users will be.

diable

If you have had them for so long it seems that you don't use or need them. I suppose if you have the time you can try to get a refund from the council but personally for the sake of £14 I wouldn't bother.

gorses

They have a policy of only exchanging full books of 20 permits.
I have 3 books of 18, 18 & 19.
There was a petition sent to the council a few months ago with around 200 signatures - we have heard nothing back.
I guess this is what happens when you have the same council leadership for 50+ years.
I'm about to go to the final formal complaint stage and if there's no success then ombudsman here we come - but I'm not confident on the correct result.
Plan B is to remove my annual permit and use the 'invalid' ones instead. I'll collect as many fines as I can - it will make a great story for the papers.
Sure it's only £14 but it's the principle. I already pay £20/year for my annual permit and I will need to buy a new pack of visitors permits at £5 for family visitors, tradesmen etc. This time I won't buy a new visitor pack every year though.

In the meantime is anybody able to confirm or not the statement about councils not being subject to consumer laws??

I will post back any outcomes.

Coupon-mad

Local Government Ombudsman link, easy to make a complaint as long as you've already exhausted the Council's complaints procedure:

http://www.lgo.org.uk/making-a-complaint/

Not sure about Consumer legislation not applying to the Council - one would expect that it surely should apply as the parking permit scheme is a 'service' they are supplying. And by buying those old permits you and the Council entered into a contract - they cannot arbitrarily change the terms after purchase (if there's no expiry date on the permits).

I would battle on and involve your local paper and MP (particularly if he represents a rival party of the Council majority...). And meanwhile also lodge the Local Gov Ombudsman complaint for good measure - Ombudsmen take ages to make a decision so don't hold your breath!