It was not a proper purpose of an experimental traffic scheme to seek to ban heavy goods vehicles. The council used traffic calming measures to seek to dissuade heavy goods vehicles using certain roads to get to a waste management site.
Carnwath J said: ‘The second main point is in relation to the duty under section 122 to have regard to the desirability of maintaining reasonable access to premises. I do not find section 122 an altogether easy section to construe. It refers to a wide range of different matters which have to be taken into account, but it is not clear precisely how the priorities between these various matters are to be ordered. The words ‘ so far as practicable’ show that some limitation is intended on the weight to be given to some of the factors. In Greater London Council v. Secretary of State for Transport [1986] J.P.L. 513 at 517, the Court of Appeal appear to have assumed that those words qualify the duty to have regard to the items in subsection (2) , thus, in effect, making those matters subordinate to the matters which are referred to in subsection (1) . However, there appears to have been no detailed argument on the point in that case and the comments appear to be obiter. To my mind, it seems more likely that the intention is the other way round. Had it been as the Court of Appeal suggest, one would have expected the parenthesis to read, ‘ having regard so far as practicable to the matters specified in subsection (2) below.’ Furthermore, it is difficult to see the purpose of such a limitation on a duty which is simply to ‘ have regard’ to certain matters, since it is always practicable to have regard to matters, not always to give them effect. It is more likely that the limitation was intended to qualify the duty in subsection (1) to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of traffic, that being a duty which would otherwise be expressed in absolute terms.’
Judges:
Justice Carnwath
Citations:
Gazette 17-Apr-1996, Times 05-Apr-1996, [1996] RTR 201
Statutes:
Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 9
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Wilson and Another v Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority Admn 19-Jun-2009
The claimants, who promoted responsible motorsports challenged the defendant’s Traffic Regulation Order banning vehicular traffic on certain unsealed roads in the Dales, saying that there was nothing to show that the relevant committee had taken . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Road Traffic
Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.90045