P.S. to Western Lancer - GWR phone number said they won't be able to talk to anybody on the phone about a fine...email or write. We emailed, had a reply saying we aim to contact you in 15-20 days and had a reply within 2 hours! We thought it would be hard to get to the courts too, but they answered within seconds and we were talking to someone within a minute.
I'll update when the SD springs into life. Until then, thanks again
Thanks for update - does sound positive. I should have explained my reasoning ref phoning (which obviously can be required) - dates form my experience doing advice work in a previous job - it was not about the ease or otherwise of getting through - it was about the audit trail 'evidence' of what was said in the conversations later on when they had to be relied upon as evidence of why a course of action was / was not taken, as it were.
I learned that people can come away from conversations with completely different understandings of what the other person said they should do / told them was going to happen etc etc
I'd often deal with people who would need help and conversation would go along lines of:
"well the person at the DSS / Council / etc I spoke to told me that...."
to which I would say "which person was that, what was their job title, what was there name, when did they say that would happen by"
to which the answer would be "I don't know who they were, I just rang this number"
"which number?"
"The number on the letter they sent me"
"Can I see a copy of that letter?"
"Oh I didn't keep it, I thought it had all got sorted out when I rang, but now I've had this other letter asking me for all the money back..."
I'm sure you know what I mean!
Best avoided by following up every conversation in writing. Tedious I know.
Anyway - sounds like you are on track wit the process and good luck with it, hope it's sorted without too much extra hassle and cost.
