Parking Ticket Issued By Police in a private car park

sebdangerfield

superbiggles wrote: »

Neil surely a University or hospital is municipal property, not privately owned?

Imagine this scenario, the owner of the centre wishes to park across the entrance, could he still get a ticket, if he owns the land? You might say "yes" he is blocking all his tenants in, but as the owner of the land, surely he can do as he pleases?

No this would still be obstruction. The RTA states it as whether public has access, therfore if public have had access to get on then they also have access to get back the highway. This town and Police caused act would further this to include the owner of the land placing anything on it to stop them getting to the street. This would include gates.

peter_the_piper

A question. The private car parks you mention as having public access, would they not have an implied permission for anyone to enter, wheras the private car park the op was in only had express permission for specific persons(namely staff) to enter, including gates and signs. Would not this alter things?

sebdangerfield

peter_the_piper wrote: »

A question. The private car parks you mention as having public access, would they not have an implied permission for anyone to enter, wheras the private car park the op was in only had express permission for specific persons(namely staff) to enter, including gates and signs. Would not this alter things?

You're on the right track but implied permission and specific permission is less relevent here. For example, a pub car park would be held to be a road whilst it is open, not a road whilst it's closed (implied permission) but it's less likely for this to happen in the op's case, I say less likely as it would still be a road whether open or not if people can can get on and go from a to b like a pub on the corner of a road giving a shortcut even without permission.

For the op's example, the car park although not a public car park as in we, the public can go to it willy nilly, it is still a public car park as members of the public (the OP) use it for payment or otherwise. This causes alot of confuson in explaining the situation to clients.

This, obviously is by the by as the offence the op has been ticketed for can be commited in an area not held to be a road.

neilmcl

sebdangerfield wrote: »

The offence of unnecessary obstruction of the highway is defined as;

Highways Act 1980 section 137
Obstruction of the Highway

Just to clarify, I believe the offence in question is that of Unnecessary Obstruction as detailed in Regulation 103 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986.

No person in charge of a Motor Vehicle or Trailer shall cause or permit the vehicle to stand on a road so as to cause any unnecessary obstruction of the road.

sebdangerfield

I wasn't sure. NFPN are given out for both the RVR 1986 and Highways act. Both only really differ with regards to what the highway is obstructed by, cars work for all. There is also another section in the town and police clauses act if I'm not mistaken?

neilmcl

sebdangerfield wrote: »

I wasn't sure. NFPN are given out for both the RVR 1986 and Highways act. Both only really differ with regards to what the highway is obstructed by, cars work for all. There is also another section in the town and police clauses act if I'm not mistaken?

I believe the OPs first post mentioned unnecessary obstruction as opposed to wilful obstruction of the highway. As you say there's not a lot of difference between the two in this case.

roddydogs

Just to say that in my far off Traffic Warden days, we were often called to obstructions like this, and Unless the vehicle was on a Public Road, we were NOT allowed to ticket them, even if this was, say a Council Estate to which, obviously the public had access, we wernt even allowed to report Tax offences.

peter_the_piper

I took the liberty of asking on pepipoo.com about this, I hope the OP does not mind. These are the answers if its any help. http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=47982&pid=433382&st=0&#entry433382
Some of these are also proper legal types. Make of it what you will.

neilmcl

To the OP. I've just noticed that you mentioned something about a Business Centre owning the property. Can we assume that your offices are on some sort of business park with a number of properties and a service road running throughout?

If you don't mind maybe we could have a postcode so we could see the layout via Google maps, which may clarify things a little?

superbiggles

Just to let you know the Police have rescinded the ticket. This was after many of the officers in the station doubted my chances! ...

The car park is here....

ST5 1RP - have to search on Google Maps as I can't post a link apparently.

Thanks you to everyone who posted, I didn't expect such a huge response ;o)