Land covered by Byelaws - RK liability??

Computersaysno

A friend complained to the councils who own 51% of the airport and got the following reply..

We now have a reply from the Airport management who as you suggested sought reassurance from legal counsel to re-confirm their understanding of the situation.  In summary, the Airport byelaws do not cover the parking of a vehicle and therefore parking at the Airport is not subject to statutory control. The Protection of Freedoms Act is therefore being correctly applied to enforce PCNs at the Airport.

On reading the byelaws there indeed is no mention of statutory control of parking....[here's a link to anyone interested...https://www.newcastleairport.com/media/4745/nial-byelaws-final-signed.pdf]... 

ANd POFA does indeed say : In this Schedule “relevant land” means any land (including land above or below ground level) other than—

(a)a highway maintainable at the public expense (within the meaning of section 329(1) of the Highways Act 1980);

(b)a parking place which is provided or controlled by a traffic authority;

(c)any land (not falling within paragraph (a) or (b)) on which the parking of a vehicle is subject to statutory control.

The POFA explanation says : The scheme applies only to vehicles parked on “relevant land”, the definition of which excludes a highway maintainable at public expense and a parking place provided or controlled by a traffic authority. Other land where parking is governed by a statutory scheme including that contained in Part 6 of the Traffic Management Act 2004 (which includes provision for keeper liability) is also excluded from the scheme as set out in this Schedule.


Now my understanding was that any land subject to byelaws is not relevant, but it seems by the words and their reply that the byelaws must specifically cover parking to amke the land 'not relevant.

As an aside : Note that Bristol Aiport byelaws DO cover parking, so their land is indeed 'not relevant'.

Would welcome peoples thoughts on the matter. 

Coupon-mad

Interesting. They are correct that if byelaws do not cover the parking of a vehicle then the POFA can apply.

fisherjim

Link doesn't seem to work!

This one does:

https://www.newcastleairport.com/about-your-airport/aerodrome-and-airport-operations/airport-byelaws/

LDast

The byelaws apply to all land within the airport boundary, irrespective of whether it is a car park, 'private' land with a McDonald's on it or a road. Unless the boundary map shows that there are 'pockets' of land within the boundary that are not covered by the statute, then the land is not relevant for the purposes of PoFA.

Have a look at this boundary map of Gatwick and you can see the complexity of the boundary where there are bits that are not under statutory control:

fisherjim

Looks to me like they have just messed the whole thing up by missing bits out and leaving bits in, the whole thing is a mess. 

If they specifically want to exclude parking from bye-laws surely they should explicitly say so in the document and state that it is under private management, but it doesn't, it's a mish mash.

Coupon-mad

LDast said:

The byelaws apply to all land within the airport boundary, irrespective of whether it is a car park, 'private' land with a McDonald's on it or a road. Unless the boundary map shows that there are 'pockets' of land within the boundary that are not covered by the statute, then the land is not relevant for the purposes of PoFA.

Have a look at this boundary map of Gatwick and you can see the complexity of the boundary where there are bits that are not under statutory control:

That's incorrect: if the byelaws do not cover the parking of vehicles then it IS relevant land.

fisherjim

So if they are saying Byelaws don't apply, if you are a keen plane spotter with money to spare, you could park on the perimeter road with your binoculars watching the planes all day and it will cost you £60 parking charge which you agreed to by their private parking contract.

Coupon-mad

Yep.       

Computersaysno

fisherjim said:

So if they are saying Byelaws don't apply, if you are a keen plane spotter with money to spare, you could park on the perimeter road with your binoculars watching the planes all day and it will cost you £60 parking charge which you agreed to by their private parking contract.

Yes, and of course you would not ever pay the £60...

Computersaysno

Interestingly they issue 'PCNs' for [paraphrasing] 'stopping on the the red lines' and for 'dropping people off in the garage area'...

Are these issues POFA suitable?