Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms B’s complaint about two Penalty Charge Notices and the amount she had to pay to resolve the matter. Further consideration of the complaint would not achieve any more for Ms B.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Ms B, says enforcement agents visited her home twice and demanded payment totalling over £700, after she forgot to pay the £2 Mersey Gateway Bridge charge. Ms B says she is disabled and she had to borrow money from friends and suffered financial hardship as a result of paying the charges.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
4. The Traffic Penalty Tribunal considers parking and moving traffic offence appeals for all areas of England outside London.

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the information Ms B provided and the Council’s response to her complaint. I sent a draft decision to Ms B and invited comments before I made a final decision.

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What I found

6. There is a £2 fee for crossing the Mersey Gateway Bridge. If the fee is not paid by midnight the following day, the Council may issue a penalty charge notice (PCN) to the registered keeper of the vehicle.
7. Ms B crossed the Bridge twice on the same day in March 2019 but forgot to pay the fee. In April 2019, the Council sent her a PCN for each trip. A PCN for failing to pay the Mersey Gateway Bridge fee is £40, reduced to £20 if this is paid within 14 days.
8. Ms B did not pay the PCN amount, but instead paid the initial £2 fee online for each crossing. She says she believed that resolved the matter because the website accepted her payment. As Ms B had not paid the PCN amount, the Council took recovery action. It issued a charge certificate for each PCN which increased the costs to £60. Ms B did not pay or respond to this, so the Council registered the debt with the County Court, adding a court fee and issuing an Order for Recovery. Ms B says she believed she had settled the matter by paying the original £2 fee, so did not respond. The Council then registered a warrant for non-payment and passed the debt to enforcement agents to recover payment.
9. By the time the enforcement agents visited Ms B, the costs had increased to £510. Ms B says she paid £320 at that visit and entered into a payment arrangement for the remaining £190. When Ms B missed a payment and asked to pay it a day late, she says the enforcement agents refused and requested the full remaining amount.
10. Ms B contacted her Member of Parliament who wrote to the enforcement agents asking them to investigate how the costs had risen so much. The enforcement agents agreed to place the matter on hold while they investigated. But they then visited Ms B again, requesting another £360 in payment. Ms B had to borrow the money from friends.
11. Ms B complained to the enforcement agents, who accepted they had failed to inform her they had completed their review of her case, were satisfied the costs were correctly incurred and would recommence recovery. The enforcement agents refunded the £360 Ms B paid on the second visit. The Council has investigated Ms B’s complaint and is also satisfied the correct processes were followed. The Council has declined Ms B’s request to refund the fees she has paid.
12. While Ms B is unhappy with the way the Council has dealt with this matter, the Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. Ms B accepts she did not pay the initial £2 fee on time. When Ms B received the PCNs, she had the choice of either paying the discounted rate of £20 within 14 days, the full amount within 28 days or making representations and following the free and straightforward right of appeal to the independent Traffic Penalty Tribunal if she wanted to challenge the PCNs. Ms B instead paid £2 and the did not respond to the correspondence that followed. The Council has followed the established recovery procedure where a PCN is not paid and there are no reasons for the Ombudsman to criticise the Council.
13. The enforcement agents acknowledged they should not have visited Ms B again without confirming recovery action would continue, but by waiving the additional enforcement fee they have already provided a suitable remedy for this fault. Further consideration of the complaint would not achieve any more for Ms B.

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Final decision

14. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because further consideration of the complaint would not achieve any more for Ms B.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman