The council introduced regulations restricting parking at a site on alternate weeks between certain hours. The ‘no parking’ signes were covered over with an unrestricted parking sign when parking was permitted. The defendant parked and left his car at a time when the signs were covered, but was then given a ticket after the covers were removed when the restrictions came back into effect. He appealed his conviction.
Held: The conviction was quashed.
Winn LJ said: ‘regulation 15, by sub-paragraph (c) . . [prescribed] that the authority should take forthwith
‘all such steps as are reasonably practicable to cause to be erected on or near to the said roads traffic signs in such positions as the local authority may consider to be requisite’ – and here come the operative words in my opinion – ‘for the purpose of securing that adequate information as to the effect of the order is given to persons using the said roads’
The authority should take all such steps as are reasonably practicable for the purpose of securing that adequate information is given to persons using the said roads.
The short answer in my view which requires that this appeal should be allowed is that the local authority here did not take such steps as they were required to take under that regulation. They did not take steps which clearly could have been taken and which clearly would have been practicable to cause adequate information to be given to persons using the road by the signs which they erected.’
Judges:
Winn LJ, Ashworth and Widgery JJ
Citations:
[1967] 2 QB 676, [1967] 2 WLR 1239, [1967] 1 All ER 1048
Statutes:
Traffic Regulation Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1961
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Applied – Macleod v Hamilton 1965
Unless an authority which makes a traffic control order complies with the requirements imposed on the making of such an order and the publication of the order is adequate, any offence which it purports to create cannot be effectively prosecuted.
Cited by:
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 – 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.
Road Traffic
Updated: 24 November 2022; Ref: scu.251550