The claimant objected to accounts drawn by the defendant auditors for Bolton Council, saying that they had wrongfully included sums from parking fines which had (he said) been unlawfully claimed by the Council. He contended that because parking restriction signs had departed from the statutory specification, the applicable TRO was unenforceable, and any PCN was similarly unenforceable, and any income received as a result of its issue had been unlawfully received by the local authority.
Held: Ouseley J said: ‘In my judgment, the event which gives rise to liability to a PCN in the de-criminalised parking scheme (the equivalent of the offence under a criminal statute) is parking in contravention or non-compliance with a provision in the 2005 Consolidated Order. The provisions of the Order are couched in language such as ‘the prohibition on parking during controlled hours on a road within a specified zone or loading bay or taxi rank’. Those controls may be specified other than by reference to specific markings. I assume that the provision prohibiting a stay longer than paid for in permitted on-street parking bays is in similar vein. It therefore seems to me that two approaches are possible although neither arises unless the signs depart from the prescribed form in a more than trivial way. The first approach, on what I have been shown of the Bolton MBC Orders, is not to ask whether the signs comply with the Regulations where contravention of the sign itself is not prohibited. It is to ask whether the signing of the restrictions was adequate to inform the average driver of what he should or should not do or where. This would reflect decisions such as Hassan and James v Caley. I have not been shown any provision of the TRO which makes non-compliance with a prescribed marking or sign, by itself, a contravention of the TRO. It appears to be the reverse. The sign informs the driver about the restriction in the TRO. And if the restriction is itself adequately conveyed by means other than the sign and the sign does not mislead about the nature or extent of the restriction, the TRO on that approach may be enforced by PCN.
The importance of this is that it may contrast with the language of the offences in Davis v Healey and Canadine v Director of Public Prosecutions in which the offence itself was contravening the prescribed road marking or sign. So any deficiency in the prescribed sign was directly in issue . . The alternative approach is to ask whether – subject to trivial non-compliance – the markings meet the prescribed requirements. If not, those markings should not have been placed on the road at all and the requirements or restrictions they indicated have no force, even though it may be perfectly clear from the deficient signs where and to what extent the restriction applies.’
Follow the strict Davis v Heatley approach. He said: ‘I have not found this an easy issue to resolve, not least because of my uncertainty about the statutory provisions which I have actually received (late and incompletely perhaps), the differing lines of authority and also because the issues have not been argued either by the auditor or by Bolton MBC.
In the end, and without great confidence, I have concluded that what Mr Hickinbottom said in Buckinghamshire County Council should be taken to be the law. The purpose behind a common prescribed system of road signs and markings includes certainty for drivers wherever they are in the country. They are not therefore faced with different varieties of signs wherever they go for the same permitted parking, prohibitions and restrictions. The common system also regulates signs in order to avoid clutter and confusion to road users by regulating what can or cannot be put on the road surface or signs by its side.’
Ouseley J
[2010] EWHC 2923 (Admin)
Bailii
Audit Commission Act 1998 16 17
England and Wales
Citing:
Applied – Davies v Heatley QBD 1971
The defendant appealed, by case stated, against his conviction of failing to stay to the left of a continuous white line. An intermittent white line had been placed between the two continuous white lines. The magistrates convicted saying that the . .
Cited by:
Incorrect – Herron and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v The Parking Adjudicator CA 27-Jul-2011
The claimant appealed against refusal of judicial review of decisions of the parking adjudicator as to the correctness of 39 penalty charge notices. In each case, they said that the signage supporting the notice, in particular single and double . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.426507