A trailer used to transport goods between this country and continental Europe as found to be without a plate as required by regulation 3. The defence claimed the trailer was exempted by Schedule 2 of the regulations as it fell within the class of trailers ‘Temporarily in Great Britain a period of 12 months not having elapsed since the vehicle in question was last brought into Great Britain’. He appealed a finding that ‘temporarily’ meant for a limited time. They heard nothing to the effect that the time during which the trailer had been or would be in this country was limited and therefore it followed that it ought to have been plated.
Held: There is implicit in the phrase ‘temporarily in Great Britain’ an element other than simply a time element. The trailer in question, was not here casually but regularly, as part of its regular habits of life so far as a trailer can have such habits. ‘If you have here, as you have, a trailer regularly travelling between England and the Continent so that its presence in England is intermittent but regular and repeated, I do not think that it can, on a fair use of language and in particular upon a true construction of this regulation, be said to be a trailer temporarily in Great Britain at any relevant time. I would, accordingly, dismiss the appeal.’
Lord Widgery CJ
[1971] 1 WLR 1508
Goods Vehicles (Plating and Testing) Regulations 1968 3
England and Wales
Citing:
Approved – Inland Revenue v Cadwalader 1904
An American citizen, with his ordinary residence and indeed practising the law in New York, took a three-year lease of a furnished shooting lodge in Scotland. He resided at the shooting lodge for a period of two months in each year during the . .
Cited by:
Cited – Stena Rederi Aktiebolag and Another v Irish Ferries Ltd CA 6-Feb-2003
A ferry plied its way between Dublin and Holyhead, coming into English territorial waters three or four times a day, and for up to three hours on each occasion. The claimants asserted that the construction of the hull infringed its patent.
Road Traffic
Updated: 30 November 2021; Ref: scu.195482