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legal
guide to UK motoring, sections for law enforcement, Driver licensing,
learner and new drivers, buying and selling, speeding fines, owning a
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When is a highway not a highway?
Parked
on workplace property adjacent to the road (BN 416)
The appellant was issued with a PCN for being parked on a
grass verge alongside a restricted section of road. In appealing
on the ground that no contravention had taken place, he said
that the vehicle was not parked on the road but on land belonging
to his place of work, albeit outside the chain-link fence
delineating the boundary of his workplace. The Adjudicator
ruled that, regardless of who actually owned the land, it
still formed part of the highway and the restriction applied.
In any event, the photographic evidence showed that one wheel
was actually on the carriageway.
The appeal was dismissed.
Public access makes private land public (BN 400)
Issued with a PCN for parking on a paved area alongside
the Salvation Army hall, the appellant appealed on the ground
that no contravention had occurred. The Adjudicator ruled that,
while it was not disputed that the land belonged to the Salvation
Army and was not adopted by the council, photographs showed
that the adopted area and the Salvation Army land appeared as
one continuous pavement, so that a pedestrian would have no
reason to distinguish between any part of the area and would
quite reasonably assume that there was public access to the
entire width of paving. Thus, the Adjudicator found, the whole
area was one to which the public had access, whether by right
or tolerance, the location was thus one to which the bylaw applied
and a contravention was established.
The appeal was dismissed.
Penalty issued where informal agreement existed (BN 384)
The appellant parked his motorcycle on the 5 metre-wide
pavement immediately outside his shop and was issued with a
PCN. He appealed on the ground that he was parked on privately-owned
land and no contravention had occurred. At a personal hearing,
the appellant explained that only the half of the pavement closest
to the road was owned but the council, the rest belonging to
the shops or demised to them under the terms of their lease.
The Adjudicator found that there had for some time been an arrangement
between local shop owners and Parking Attendants that PCNs would
not be issued when they parked there. The council attended the
hearing and confirmed that no further PCNs would be issued.
The appeal was allowed.
A road designated as a car park with inadequate signage (AL
44)
The appellant parked in a private road and was issued with
a PCN for having "parked in a restricted area in a car park
without displaying a permit". In appearance, the road was clearly
not a car park but, with its tarmac carriageway and pavements
and bounded by private houses, a church, a fire station, industrial
premises and a doctors' surgery, had every appearance of an
ordinary suburban street. The appellant appealed on the ground
that the contravention had not taken place. The council said
that the road was not, in fact, adopted but was owned by the
adjacent properties. They had decided, following requests from
the landowners, to include the road in a bylaw relating to off-street
parking places, effectively designating it as a car park, use
of which was restricted at all times to local permit holders.
The Adjudicator presumed that the council had employed this
rather odd fiction in the belief that, being unadopted and privately
owned, the road could not be regarded as part of the highway
to which normal parking restrictions might be applied. However,
no area within the road could be said to be restricted and the
appellant would have had no idea when reading the PCN why it
had been issued. The Adjudicator found the PCN to be defective
and the signage to be inadequate and inconsistent with the terms
of the bylaw, in that it failed to convey the nature of the
restriction. He ruled that, as a road running between two definable
points to which the public had unrestricted access, both on
foot and in vehicles, it might properly fall within the definition
of a highway, giving the council power to regulate parking,
were there sufficient reason for doing so, in what might be
considered the more usual way, using on-street signing with
which any driver would be familiar.
The appeal was allowed.
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