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I'm a little confused here.

Received an email from the NorthHampshireCivil@justice.gov.uk email address but written by someone in my local court.

Confirming interpreter for hearing on 15th December but I've not received any correspondence about a hearing for 15th December. It's the 1st I've heard.

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Subject: (*case ref*)- Reasonable Adjustments for hearing on 15th December 2025 at ***** Justice Centre

Dear Sir,

I am writing to you to confirm that a BSL interpreter has been booked to attend the hearing with you following the information you have provided in your Directions Questionnaire. 

The information in your forms suggests that you may require a disabled parking space on the day of your hearing at Aldershot Justice Centre. For this to be secured, please could you provide the following details:

Car registration number
Make & Model of the car
 
I can also confirm that we have both an external and internal lift.

If there is any further assistance that the Court can provide, please contact prior to your hearing.

Regards,

Mrs **** ****

Team Leader
***** (my local court) Justice Centre | HMCTS

Web: www.gov.uk/hmcts

As of the 5 August 2024 All Civil & Family Calls are now dealt with by the National Service Centre Number 0300 123 5577

Working Pattern: Term Time Only
I work flexibly and emailing late in the day suits me, however I respect your working hours and don’t expect a response outside of them.
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Does that mean the PPC have decided to go ahead with a hearing?

If I reply to the email will it get to this person at my local court or go to Northampton?

Received the following letter today

I assume this is what you were talking about.

<img src="https://i.ibb.co/9kpbP9rr/Screenshot-20251017-213321-Gallery.jpg" alt="Screenshot-20251017-213321-Gallery" border="0">

Quote from: Endorfin on February 18, 2025, 11:14:46 am

Didn't have a clue what it was about so called them and gave them the email ref number. They said it was in reference to parking and they tried to get me to confirm reg number saying that they take data protections VERY VERY seriously, and as I have more than 1 vehicle, I gave the 1st 2 characters of the vehicle I didn't think it would be and they confirmed it wasn't that.
I said that it told me all I needed to know and unless there was a court order we had nothing to discuss..and he kept interrupting by unprofessionally forced laughing saying that "their clients ZZPS" is very litiguous and always will sue and they will issue me with a CCJ. I told them that only the court could issue a CCJ, and by all means, take me to court, again with the laughing and "ahhh entitlement, thank you so much for that today ma'am (more laughing) I love it when people try to tell me my job, love.....we'll continue to progress and will be adding more charges"

I just ended the call at that point. The complete unprofessionalism assured me that I had nothing to worry about. Prior to getting this email, I had been getting emails from ZZPS, which I had been ignoring, so this was a progression from this.

In an earlier post, you said that you rang the Debt Collectors and spoke to them, so, with respect, why are you now unable to take a telephone mediation?

I called via text relay, where an operator will speak what I type and types what the called party says.

It involves using an app called Relay UK which is  dreadfully designed and horrible to use.
Aside from that, the process of my typing what I want to say, while the called party (who 90% of time isn't patient enough to wait for me to finish before interrupting) stands by for the operator to relay it to them, then takes their response and types it to me.

Some deaf people have clearer speech than I so they have the option of speaking, while the operator types their replies.

It's something I'll only use when I've no other option (emails, texts being ignored etc)

In answer to your question, yes technically, I can receive calls as well but apart from the issues stated above, it involves dialling a prefix first, and for many govt departments this prefix gets blocked. In this case, it would have meant a 3 way mediation became a 4 way mediation and very confusing.

You can try putting it to the test yourself, download the Relay UK app, and try using it to call a friend, and receive a call as well, and report back here. It's free to use, apart from the cost of the calls.

Often companies and organisations, and indeed individuals forget that when the Equality Act mentions an obligation to make reasonable adjustments, it means for the disabled person, not vice versa.

Thank you.

I emailed yesterday with your draft, with some slight amendments:

Dear Tonisha,

Thank you for your email.

You state that you “reached out” with alternative arrangements. I must rebut that assertion. I have received no such communication, whether by email or post.

Furthermore, the new date of 01/10/2025 was imposed without consideration for the information I already provided on my N180 Directions Questionnaire. It is not reasonable to disregard this information.

For clarity, my position remains that this claim is entirely without merit. My settlement position is £0, and therefore the utility of mediation is extremely limited. In truth, the whole exercise risks being a waste of everyone’s time and resources. A more proportionate use of court resources may be to dispense with mediation altogether and allow the claim to proceed to allocation.

Nevertheless, if mediation is insisted upon, I am prepared to engage provided it is conducted in an accessible format with a BSL interpreter present and scheduled at a mutually convenient date.
To be clear, this means a face to face BSL interpreter. VRI in this situation isn't suitable, for various well documented reasons, but also due to my ongoing issues with my hands clear communication via sign is less possible and requires the interpreter to be able to understand deaf speech, which is acutely difficult via VRI.

Please confirm that my requirements are properly recorded on the file so that further avoidable errors do not occur.

Kind regards
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Received email this morning saying it's been cancelled:

Mediation Cancelled
Claim number: *****

Parties: UK PARKING CONTROL LIMITED v ******

Mediation: between 13:30 and 16:30

Date: 01/10/2025

Please note that the mediation appointment in the above matter has been cancelled as one or the other party is unable to meet the criteria for mediation. We are unable to provide any further information at this stage so please continue to follow any instructions issued by the court.

If not already done so. the claim will now be transferred out of our business centre to a court where standard directions will be given and you will be notified in writing of the next stages to follow. It is important that both parties follow these instructions and adhere to the timetable set down by the Court. Further information can be found at; Make a court claim for money: What a court claim is - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

If you require any further information about the next steps, please contact the home court. You can use the link below to find the contact details.

https://www.gov.uk/find-court-tribunal

Civil National Business Centre | HMCTS | St Katharine's House 21-27 St Katharine's Street | Northampton | NN1 2LH Phone: 0300 123 4593 Email: scmreferrals@justice.gov.uk

I don't have much more to add other than that already helpfully shared by b789 above, other than to say if you have time, you may wish to respond to the private parking consultation in b789's signature.

Whilst this latest issue is a symptom of the largely automated court process, rather than the conduct of the parking company per se, it's an example of yet another hurdle faced by disabled people in what is already a stressful process. If parking companies operated ethically, this farce would have been resolved with one letter to the parking company, explaining that an occupant of the vehicle was entitled to reasonable adjustments and did hold a blue badge. Instead, the farce rolls on...

Thank you.

Yes, it's a daily bane of my life that companies and organisations insist on using telephone calls, when the initial contact was made by email/app/online etc.
Some quick examples:
Hometree emergency home cover - push you to use online fault reporting rather than telephone, perfect for me - except when they then try to ring you to confirm engineer booking, several times. Then email you to tell you it's been cancelled because they weren't able to get hold of me!
LG ThinQ: Big on online connectivity, push to use their app for the WiFi connected fridge with all the state of the art tech, report a fault via the app & then multiple phone calls, eventually a no-reply text message saying we've tried to get hold of you on number provided with no success so fault allocation has been closed, if you still require assistance please use the app to open a new fault etc
Even my GP, email to get an appointment, receive a no-reply text to say "your telephone appointment with Dr *** is at 2pm today, if this is not suitable please telephone the surgery" - email to say I can't use the phone, get an email saying I've missed my appointment with a little reminder of how much missed appointments cost the NHS, then an email a couple of days later apologising for the oversight and suggesting it may be best to come into the surgery to book an appointment in future
Worse one is the hospital/NHS who openly state that they won't/can't use email or text to inform you of appts, discuss results etc for various reasons, even though there's the NHS app which is meant to be very secure, I simply don't understand it. So they insist on sending via the post.

It's every day and a complete pain in the a***. And then you get people coming up to you saying "ey ent technology marvellous, it must be a godsend for you to be able to just email nowadays" 

I must sound like a whinging old fart, and I suppose I am!     If it was 1994, I'd understand, back then I was super excited about the future of email, I didn't think that 30 years later companies with a big online prescence would still insist on phone calls.

Email received today with TELEPHONE mediation appointment despite telling them that I'm deaf and needing a BSL interpreter. I don't think I even gave them my telephone number.

Also it's booked for 9th September, when I said I wasn't available.

Getting a bit sick of this now, got a lot going on, had my MRI scan for suspected cord compression on Friday and the hospital mucked up the cochlear implant headkit application to protect the magnet in my head, where it wasn't protected and was nearly ripped out of my head (asked the MRI operator if he'd done it before and he said no but he'd watched some videos) so I'm awaiting x ray to see if it's been displaced.

I wish they'd just f*** off. I mean I just forgot to display my blue badge one time.

Anyway here's what the email said, the start of it anyway. Do I get in touch with the court to highlight that I'm deaf?

"Your telephone mediation appointment
Appointment date: 09/09/2025

Appointment time slot: 13:30 to 16:30

Your confidential telephone mediation appointment has been booked for the above date and time slot. This means that the mediator will call you between the times shown. Your appointment will last for around one hour from the point at which the mediator calls.

The mediator will call both parties separately – you will not talk directly to the other side. They will try to help you both come to an agreement before the case goes to court.

Where your mediation appointment is mandatory, If you do not attend the appointment, the judge will take this into consideration at any court hearing and may issue a penalty. This could include the judge automatically ruling in the other party’s favour or ordering you to pay for some or all the other party’s costs."

Submitted today by email as advised.

Thank you very much for your help thus far.

Thank you for that.

Just further info, I'm deaf and a sign language user so would need the court to provider a BSL interpreter.
The other thing is I'm having some serious medical issues at the moment, I've just been discharged from hospital, and will be returning for an urgent MRI for suspected cord compression (the only reason it wasn't carried out there and then is that I've got a magnet implant needing surgical removal before the MRI)
If it's cord compression then it's likely to be surgery so at this point in time I'm unsure when I'll be free and in sufficient health to attend court.
(The spinal cord compression is affecting motor function of my hands, meaning loss of communication via sign language)