Neil Herron & Parking Appeals Ltd, R (on the application of) v The Parking Adjudicator & Ors

A controlled parking zone does not become invalid whenever part of a road fails to conform strictly to the prescribed markings. The statutory definition requires substantial compliance, assessed by whether road users receive adequate information about the applicable restrictions.

Parking liability arises from contravention of the valid traffic regulation order, rather than from contravention of the zone itself. Accordingly, remote signing defects do not defeat enforcement where the entry signs and the signs and lines at the place of parking adequately convey the restriction.

The appellants received penalty charge notices for parking on single yellow lines within the Sunderland controlled parking zone. They contended that numerous defective or missing signs and markings elsewhere meant that the zone failed the definition in regulation 4 of the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002. On that basis, they argued that local time plates were required by General Direction 25.

A parking adjudicator rejected that argument and upheld 39 notices relevant to the proceedings. A reviewing adjudicator declined to interfere. Bean J then dismissed the appellants’ judicial review claim.

The central issue on appeal was whether irregularities elsewhere in the zone invalidated the entire zone and therefore rendered the appellants’ parking restrictions unenforceable.

1. Appeal dismissed. Regulation 4 of the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002 does not require every part of every road within a controlled parking zone to carry one of the specified markings. That interpretation would insert words into the definition and could not accommodate other lawful parking controls, such as pedestrian-crossing zigzags. It would also produce anomalous changes in a zone’s validity whenever roadworks temporarily removed markings.

2. The correct standard is substantial compliance. Even an apparently mandatory statutory requirement does not necessarily invalidate public action undertaken without strict conformity. The question of construction is whether total invalidity can fairly be attributed to the legislature’s intention, applying R v Soneji [2005] UKHL 49.

3. The restrictions enforced against the appellants arose from the valid traffic regulation order, not from the controlled parking zone as such. The zone’s principal consequence was the dispensation under General Direction 25(2) from placing local time plates beside single yellow lines. Its validity did not determine the underlying validity of the restrictions imposed by the order.

4. Regulation 18 of the Local Authorities' Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996 made adequate information the touchstone. The adjudicator had to determine whether the authority had taken the necessary steps to convey the applicable restriction adequately. Regulation 4 and compliance with the prescribed zone signage were relevant to that inquiry, but defects remote from the place of parking were immaterial unless they could cause error.

5. The strict approach adopted in Moss v KPMG [2010] EWHC 2923 (Admin) was wrong. Davies v Heatley was distinguishable because it concerned an offence of failing to comply with a prescribed traffic sign rather than breach of a restriction imposed by a traffic order. The court nevertheless reserved its position on whether Davies should now be followed where an irregularity could not have misled the road user.

6. The adjudicator permissibly found, as a matter of fact and degree, that the cumulative irregularities were trivial and could not mislead a driver. He was right to assess each contravention by reference to the signs and lines where the vehicle was parked. Stanley Burnton LJ gave the judgment; Aikens LJ and Sir David Keene agreed.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal was dismissed. The court upheld Bean J’s dismissal of the judicial review claim and the conclusion that the relevant signing irregularities did not invalidate the controlled parking zone.

2. Administrative Court: Bean J dismissed the claim for judicial review. He held that alternative lawful parking prohibitions could interrupt the specified markings and that non-compliance too remote to mislead the particular motorist was immaterial.

3. Parking adjudication: Ms Kennedy rejected the application to review Mr Keenan’s decision. Mr Keenan had upheld the relevant penalty charge notices after finding that the cumulative irregularities did not invalidate the zone and could not have misled drivers parking on clearly marked restrictions.