Stephanie Croft v Devon County Council & Ors

When making a traffic regulation order, a local authority must conduct the qualified balancing exercise required by section 122 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. It must consider the safe movement of vehicular and pedestrian traffic, together with the relevant matters in section 122(2). The duty is not confined to risks arising on the road being closed. It may extend to risks created on another road by diverted traffic, including risks to vehicles caused by pedestrians unexpectedly entering or emerging near that road. A planning decision does not necessarily discharge the traffic authority’s separate statutory duty. Where the decision-making report materially misleads the committee into treating a relevant safety issue as outside its remit, the resulting order may be quashed.

The claimant brought a statutory challenge under paragraph 35 of Schedule 9 to the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 against Devon County Council’s decision to make a traffic regulation order restricting motor vehicles on parts of Pitt Lane, Appledore. The order would divert traffic through Estuary Avenue, part of a residential development, near a local area of play.

The claimant alleged that the Council failed to consider child and pedestrian safety arising from the diverted traffic, and failed to consider risks at the junction with Pitt Lane and the loss of passing places. The claim was heard with a related successful challenge to planning permission for nearby dwellings. The central issue was whether the Council had lawfully discharged its duty under section 122 of the Act.

1. Claim allowed and traffic regulation order quashed. The claim was established on Ground 1. Ground 2, concerning the blind bend and loss of passing places, was not established.
2. Under section 122(1) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, read with section 122(2), the authority must conduct the required balancing exercise. The words “so far as practicable” qualify the duty to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of traffic, rather than the duty to have regard to the matters in section 122(2), applying UK Waste Management v West Lancashire District Council [1996] RTR 201 and Trail Riders Fellowship v Hampshire County Council [2019] EWCA Civ 1275.
3. The relevant safety duty was not confined to traffic using Pitt Lane. Even if children running from the play area onto Estuary Avenue were not themselves pedestrian traffic, their sudden presence on the road or pavement could jeopardise the safe movement of vehicular traffic. That risk therefore engaged section 122(1).
4. The committee’s report stated that the traffic and highway impact of the play area had been considered through the planning process, that no design hazards had been identified, and that the issue was not relevant to the proposed order. Read as a whole, that response conveyed that the identified safety issue was outside the committee’s remit. It was materially misleading and there was no basis for concluding that the committee had not proceeded on that footing. The reasoning in R. (Mansell) v Tonbridge & Malling BC [2017] EWCA Civ 1314 was applied.
5. The earlier planning process did not amount to a prior formal decision binding the traffic authority on whether to make this particular order. The principle in R v Warwickshire County Council Ex p. Powergen Plc [1998] P & CR 89 was therefore inapplicable. The Court declined to exercise its discretion not to quash because it could not safely conclude that the order would inevitably have been made after proper consideration.