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Live cases legal advice => Civil penalty charge notices (Councils, TFL and so on) => Topic started by: Top-boy on October 28, 2023, 01:49:35 pm

Title: Re: Haringey - Gordon Road N11 - 52M vehicle prohibition - signage and warnings
Post by: cp8759 on October 29, 2023, 09:54:05 pm
Please post up the PCN, some recent Haringey PCNs are flawed so we need to check the wording on yours.
Title: Re: Haringey - Gordon Road N11 - 52M vehicle prohibition - signage and warnings
Post by: Incandescent on October 29, 2023, 07:25:27 pm
Sorry, but there's nothing in your latest post that matters.  Your strongest point is the complete lack of guidance in the zone as to how to exit it. So your photo with the main road in sight, but barred for exit shows the lack of guidance (signs) to motorists visiting addresses in the zone. That road is effectively a cul-de-sac with the LTN established.  Councils have a duty, when setting up traffic management schemes like this, to provide signage to guide  motorists when previously available streets for through movement are blocked off. This zone appears to have none.


Title: Re: Haringey - Gordon Road N11 - 52M vehicle prohibition - signage and warnings
Post by: Top-boy on October 29, 2023, 08:59:29 am
Here is a second photo.

The issue for me here is twofold:

1 - the lack of road markings. There is a lack of clarity about where the "junction", mentioned in the order, actually is. At what point does it become an offence? Is it a zone or a line? And where?

2 - I am not entering a zone, I am leaving one. The order in contrast says "Prohibited access". Traffic must surely be prohibited from crossing a line (as per traffic lights) or entering a zone (yellow crosses at a junction).

No line. No markings. lack of clarity.

Many thanks

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Title: Re: Haringey - Gordon Road N11 - 52M vehicle prohibition - signage and warnings
Post by: Top-boy on October 29, 2023, 08:52:30 am
Hi and thanks. Here is a photo.

Having entered the LTN, all drivers will drive along this road in the direction of the image. The turning on the right is a cul de sac. The "flow" is to the left. (The "diverted traffic" sign is erroneous as there are road works in the LTN - it's not to do with the LTN itself.) I headed straight forward as the main road can be seen ahead about 100m away. So, there is no signage here where you have to turn left or turn around to get out of the LTN. I feel that is a defect. Is it enough of a defect to merit a challenge? 

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Title: Re: Haringey - Gordon Road N11 - 52M vehicle prohibition - signage and warnings
Post by: Incandescent on October 28, 2023, 07:24:39 pm
Frankly, there is little we can advise on without photos.  GSV views are out-of-date, so you really have to retrace your journey and take photos of signs that may be displayed as you drive. where roads have become cul-de-sacs as a result of the scheme, there should be signs that indicate these.

If you can't go back then I'm afraid the discount beckons, because at the moment there is no strong appeal argument that I can see at the moment. Absence of signs that show a motorist how to exit the LTN would strengthen your case but we can't see if there are any due to GSV being out-of-date.
Title: Haringey - Gordon Road N11 - 52M vehicle prohibition - signage and warnings
Post by: Top-boy on October 28, 2023, 01:49:35 pm
Dear all,

I have seen Gordon Road posts before but none (I think) asking this question.

I have the PCN for turning out of Gordon Road onto Bounds Green Road.

There is a sign and a small planter at the junction. Stupidly I drove through it, thinking - "How can it have become law that i can't drive a metre or two into a main road?" That would get my car out of the area, reducing noise and pollution and delivering the presumed aims of the scheme. Instead it seems the council wants me to drive several 100s of metres in the residential area to get out.

I understand on reflection what Haringey is getting at but on technicalities:
- There is no warning sign when you reach the last point at which you would have to turn off the road to avoid entering what is (in effect for all but emergency/council vehicles) a cul de sac. You either have to reverse the best part of 100m or turn on a narrow street with parking. I think such a sign is needed as you are required actively to turn off the road you are on.
- There is no line or marking on the road by the sign. At what point does it become an offence? Where is the "junction" as described in the order - is it a line, zone, what? The order says (in a table under a header of "Schedule 5 – Prohibition of Motor Vehicles except for permit holder ‘X1C’ (see article 9(e))") is "Gordon Road N11 - At its junction with Bounds Green Road." There is a planter but it is small and readily moveable - it cannot have the status of road markings. Indeed, can a sign on such a feeble movable object have any status?
- the map has codes A, C and D at the junction. It looks like the C and D ("No right turn" and "No left turn") refer to the turning from the main road into the side road. (That would be the main aim of the restriction surely.) The meaning of the A is unclear. It says "Motor vehicles prohibited" under a header of "Prohibited access". Prohibited from where exactly? And what does the word "access" mean - access to the wider world or access to the LTN? From where I was driving, it should be "prohibited exit" surely - I want to get out of the limited area LTN into the rest of the world? With no road markings or further instructions can their limited and ill-chosen words be sufficient?

Google maps street view does not have the new up to date signage.

Is this worth a challenge? It looks like a sloppy bit of work done on the cheap.

The TMO from 3/8/22 is here https://www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringeyg...tion_docs_0.zip

Within that, the file BG LTN TMO2.pdf has the relevant map on page 8 and the "Gordon Road N11 - At its junction with Bounds Green Road." description on page 5.

As a footnote - It's very unfair as there is a medical centre on this road that is currently doing flu and covid jabs for the elderly. So many will get back in their cars, drive straight forward to the main road - and then get the PCN. Where there is, for example, an active medical centre in a LTN, there needs to be more guidance.



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