Welsh, R (on the application of) v Watford Borough Council

A parking adjudicator’s decision may be challenged in the Administrative Court only by judicial review for an error of law, subject to the requirement that the challenge is brought promptly. The court does not reweigh the evidence or substitute its view of the facts. A challenge to a traffic regulation order must ordinarily be brought within the statutory six-week period. Parking restrictions are not unlawfully discriminatory merely because disabled-person concessions do not permit parking in every location. Local authorities may balance residents’ interests with the concessions properly available to disabled motorists, provided the statutory scheme and relevant exemptions are lawfully applied.

Mr Welsh challenged a penalty charge issued after his vehicle was parked in a residents’ permit bay without the required permit or visitor voucher. A national parking service adjudicator dismissed his appeal in November 2002, holding that a disabled person’s Blue Badge did not authorise parking in that bay.

Before the Administrative Court, Mr Welsh sought to challenge both the adjudicator’s decision and the validity of the traffic regulation order governing the parking scheme. He also alleged discrimination and infringement of Articles 6 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The issues included the appropriate route and time limits for challenging the adjudicator’s decision and the traffic regulation order, and whether the scheme unlawfully disadvantaged disabled persons.

1. The application was dismissed. The adjudicator was the proper tribunal to determine the parking facts and whether the relevant regulations had been contravened. The Administrative Court’s jurisdiction was supervisory. It could intervene only for an error of law and could not reconsider the evidential basis of the adjudicator’s decision.

2. Any judicial review challenge to the adjudicator’s decision had to be brought promptly, ordinarily within three months. That period had long expired. In any event, the adjudicator had made no discernible error of law and had reached the correct decision on the applicable parking restrictions.

3. The challenge to the traffic regulation order was also out of time. Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, paragraph 35 of Schedule 9, provided the relevant route for challenging the making of the order within six weeks. The court declined to extend time.

4. The parking scheme did not unlawfully discriminate against disabled persons. The Local Authorities Traffic Orders Exemptions For Disabled Persons (England) Regulations 2000 provided appropriate concessions, but did not require disabled motorists to be permitted to park in every type of restricted bay. The council was entitled to exercise its discretion by balancing the interests of residents and other citizens while maintaining the statutory exemptions.

5. The procedure before the adjudicator was compatible with Articles 6 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Equal procedures did not require a medically qualified adjudicator where the issue was whether the parking regulations had been infringed. Costs ordinarily followed the event. Despite sympathy for Mr Welsh’s circumstances, costs were assessed at £850.

The judgment was a first-instance judicial review decision. The court reviewed a national parking service adjudicator’s dismissal of Mr Welsh’s parking appeal, but found no error of law and dismissed the application.