Amna Shaukat v London Borough of Redbridge (2240472061, 6 January 2025):1. Ivan Murray Smith attended by telephone as the Appellant’s Authorised Representative. The Authority did not attend and had not been expected to. Mr Murray Smith confirmed receipt of the Authority's evidence pack.
2. The Enforcement Authority's case is that the Appellant's vehicle was parked in breach of the prohibition against "footway parking".
3. Under Section 15(1) of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1974 as amended, a contravention occurs if a vehicle is parked anywhere in Greater London with one or more wheels on or over any part of a road other than a carriageway or on or over a footpath, unless an exemption applies.
4. The restriction against parking on a footway applies twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week and the vehicle need not be causing any obstruction. There is no requirement for signs to indicate the restriction and the vehicle need not cause any obstruction.
5. Mr Murray Smith relied on his skeleton argument, which asserts that the Authority has not provided any evidence that Cricklefield Place, the location of the alleged contravention, is an adopted public highway, or that it is a road to which members of the public have unfettered access. In his skeleton argument, Mr Murray Smith has provided images from Google Street View showing a metal barrier at the entrance to Cricklefield Place. That barrier is visible in some of the Appellant's contemporaneous photographs of Cricklefield Place. In the skeleton argument there is also a photograph of a sign on Cricklefield Place, which informs motorists that the car park will be locked from 10pm daily and that there is no access to the car park from 8-9am and 3-4pm on weekdays. This indicates that access to Cricklefield Place and the car park, which appears to be accessed by Cricklefield Place, is limited to the public at certain times.
6. In
R (Bowen & Ors) v. Isle of Wight Council [2021] EWHC 3254 (Ch) Keyser J concluded at paragraph 49 that:
"
a road will be a “road to which the public has access”, and thus within the definition of “road” in section 142 of the 1984 Act, provided that the general public do as a matter of fact exercise access to it and provided that those members of the public “have not obtained access either by overcoming a physical obstruction or in defiance of prohibition express or implied” (in the words of Lord Sands in Harrison v Hill, as approved and applied by the Divisional Court). The enquiry is thus essentially a factual one. If the conditions are satisfied, it is, as the Divisional Court sought-apparently unsuccessfully-to make clear in Cox v White, irrelevant to enquire further whether the presence of the public on the road was merely by the tolerance of the owners or whether the tolerance is to be taken to have given implicit permission.”
7. Applying Bowen to the facts of the present case, the question to ask is whether it is a location to which the public has access, which has not been obtained by overcoming a physical obstruction or an express or implied prohibition.
8. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, and in light of the evidence of the sign and the barrier, I am persuaded that there is some ambiguity as to whether the road is one to which the public has access without prohibition. I am therefore not satisfied on the evidence before me that the location in which the vehicle was parked was part of a “road”. I therefore find that the contravention has not been proved and this appeal is allowed.
Cordelia Fantinic
Adjudicator
6 January 2025
2240472061
AF07703565
