Mayor Jason Perry admits thousands of motorists were affected by the latest error from his dysfunctional council, but residents remain angry, some saying they had their Christmas ruined by the worry over the £195 fines
Oi! Oi!: Del Boy Mayor Perry is going to have to refund more than £500,000 collected from dodgy fines
Croydon’s cash-strapped council will have to make refunds totaling more than £500,000 to thousands of aggrieved motorists, after the residents were served with demands for fines without first receiving an initial Penalty Charge Notice.
The council last night admitted it was in the wrong when issuing more than 3,000 of the £195 penalties for driving offences that took place from October to December, butthey failed to offer the residents an opportunity to deal with the matter by paying a £65 fine.
Croydon’s part-time Mayor, Jason Perry, is blaming the dodgy fines on a computer software error and has issued a grudging apology.
The Town Hall’s Labour opposition has described the situation as a “PCN fiasco”.
Inside Croydon was first to report the concerns of many of our readers, as they were hit with the demands for £195 fines after not having responded to the original notice – because they were never sent it.
Our report alerted the council to the issues, and they have spent the past week investigating what has gone wrong, after one Tory councillor initially dismissed the issue as a “computer glitch”, while others tried to blame problems with undelivered or delayed mail.
Croydon’s “digital-first” council appears to have compounded the problems because many of those affected report difficulties in contacting any council officials to raise their concerns because of the deliberately under-staffed phone lines.
“I tried to sort it and got stuck in your awful automated phone system,” one angry resident said. “Received the ‘second’ charge letter on December 20, Christmas was ruined worrying about nearly £400 allegedly owed.”
They added: “Thieving bureaucrats.”
Another reader who had cause for worry because of the council’s failings described last night’s council climbdown as “Too little, too late.”
A Thornton Heath resident said, “I received a notice and paid under duress. I had no previous notifications… I made a payment which I can ill-afford for fear of it being passed on to a collection agency.”
And another said, “It’s all too easy to make money off the motorist.”
Climbdown: part of the council’s Twitter thread, which they delayed issuing until after 6pm on a Friday evening
The PCN fiasco climbdown is especially embarrassing for piss-poor Perry, who has spent the past year whingeing over the much more modest £12.50 fee for driving more polluting vehicles within London’s ULEZ.
Tory Perry is a group administrator and “expert” of a social media group which has celebrated hundreds of thousands of pounds of criminal damage carried out against ULEZ cameras and infrastructure.
Having promised an “update” this week, the council’s propaganda bunker finally issued a Twitter thread after 6pm on Friday evening.
“We’re still investigating, however, we have identified a problem with our penalty charge notice printing process that is likely to have impacted 3,138 penalty charge notices issued between mid-October and mid-December, 2023.
“This meant that motorists did not receive the first notice of contravention through the post, giving them the opportunity to pay the discounted rate, and only became aware of it once they received a further notice.
“We are really sorry about this, and we are working as a priority to identify everyone who has been impacted.
“Please be assured that any affected penalty charge notices will be cancelled. We will be issuing refunds to those who have already paid and will be in contact with them to arrange this.
“If you think you have been affected by this issue – including if you have already paid the PCN – please get in touch so we can check against our records.
“You can reach us by emailing pcn@croydon.gov.uk, or phone us at 020 8726 6000 select option 1, and dial extension 44056, between 9am and 4pm, Monday to Friday.”
Good luck trying to get through…
Perhaps Mayor Perry can put in a couple of shifts on the phones to help clear the backlog at his dysfunctional council, and so help towards actually earning his £82,000 per year salary.
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