MET Parking PCN, Stansted, NTK,

doubledotcom

What MET are saying there is utterly mendacious, and POPLA can be given a very clear explanation why.

First, the Stansted Airport Byelaws 1996 are still in force and published on Stansted’s own website. They apply “within Stansted Airport – London”. The byelaws do not contain any plan and do not limit themselves by reference to freehold ownership.

Secondly, the very document MET rely on – the sealed amended claim form and associated material from the Just Stop Oil injunction – does not say that the red-lined “Plan 2” is the airport byelaw boundary. In the Claimants’ Skeleton Argument for that injunction, counsel for Manchester Airports Group state that the Stansted Byelaws “contain no plan, leaving it open to be decided as a question of fact what falls within the airport”. They go on to explain that:
• Plan 2 shows the “operational boundaries” for the purposes of the injunction; and
• the area shown on Plan 2 falls within the description of “Stansted Airport” in the byelaws, but does not necessarily exhaust or define the whole of that description.

In other words, the High Court material expressly treats the Plan 2 red line as a litigation tool for defining the premises covered by the injunction, not as a statutory re-drawing of the airport boundary, nor as any amendment to the byelaws. It cannot, by itself, alter where the byelaws apply.

Thirdly, the same skeleton argument explains that within each airport there are “Third Party Areas” where other companies hold the title or an interest, and the airport operator does not have an immediate right to possession – but those areas are nevertheless treated as being within the airport for the purposes of the injunction. That is perfectly consistent with the statutory framework: under the Airports Act 1986 and the Civil Aviation Act 1982, an “airport” is defined by its use as an aerodrome (land, buildings and works comprised in the aerodrome), not by who owns each parcel of land. Ownership changing hands does not automatically switch off the byelaws.

Against that background, MET’s reliance on a letter from Stansted Airport Limited suggesting that byelaws “only apply on land that is owned and in the possession of the airport” is simply wrong in law and inconsistent with the airport’s own submissions to the High Court in 2024. Even if Stansted Airport Limited chose not to seek an injunction over a particular parcel, or chose not to prosecute byelaw offences there, that would be a discretionary enforcement decision; it would not convert land under statutory control into “relevant land” for the purposes of Schedule 4 PoFA.

For PoFA, the only question POPLA needs to answer is whether parking at Southgate Park is “subject to statutory control”. That turns on whether it forms part of the aerodrome covered by the Stansted byelaws. MET have not produced:
• any amending byelaws;
• any statutory instrument changing the designated airport area; or
• any legal document revoking the application of the byelaws to this location.

Instead, they rely on (a) a civil injunction plan drawn up in 2024 for protest-control purposes, which the claimants’ own skeleton expressly says may not exhaust the airport area; and (b) an assertion about ownership that is legally irrelevant to where byelaws can apply.

Finally, their own landowner-authority evidence confirms that this development is marketed as the “Stansted Airport Amenity Area” and that Tabacon is a tenant within that wider airport complex. A private lease and a parking-enforcement contract cannot disapply public-law byelaws, and they certainly cannot, by themselves, turn non-relevant land into “relevant land” under PoFA. MET have therefore failed to discharge the burden of proving that Southgate Park is relevant land, and POPLA should accept that Schedule 4 PoFA does not apply.

Not only that but they have effectively admitted that the land was under byelaws and are now asserting that a sale somehow switched those byelaws off. That is a legal nonsense unless they can show a statutory amendment or revocation.

Their own wording is:

“The site falls within the boundaries of the Airport and is subject to statutory control…”
“…the plan submitted…was superseded and replaced when the airport sold the land in 2011.”

That logic only makes sense if the land used to be within the airport/byelaws area and MET’s case is that the 2011 sale is the reason it is supposedly no longer under byelaws. In other words, they are not denying that this area was once within the byelaw-controlled airport – they are saying that ownership changes have taken it out.

The point you need to emphasise to POPLA is that unless the byelaws are revoked or amended by the proper statutory route, they continue to apply regardless of who owns or leases the plot. The only way to change the application of the byelaws is by new/amended byelaws or a change in the statutory designation of the airport by order.

A private disposal from Stansted to Grove Developments in 2011 is not such an instrument. MET have produced title documents and a letter of opinion, but no statutory instrument changing or revoking the byelaws for that parcel.

This is how you rebut that point to POPLA:

MET’s own evidence effectively concedes that this location was previously within the airport/byelaw boundary and that its supposed change of status depends entirely on the 2011 sale. They state that the plan I relied on “was superseded and replaced when the airport sold the land in 2011” and then attempt to argue that, because the freehold passed to Grove Developments (and is now leased to Tabacon Stansted 2 Limited), the land is no longer subject to Stansted Airport byelaws and has somehow become “relevant land” for the purposes of PoFA. That is a legal non sequitur: byelaws are a public-law overlay on a defined airport area and do not switch off merely because a parcel is sold or leased to a third-party developer. Ownership is irrelevant unless and until the byelaws themselves are amended or revoked by the proper statutory mechanism.

MET have produced title documents and a letter from the airport operator, but they have not produced any statutory instrument or amending byelaws redefining “Stansted Airport – London” so as to exclude Southgate Park, nor any instrument revoking the application of the byelaws to this land. In fact, their reliance on a High Court injunction plan prepared for protest-control litigation in 2024 does not and cannot amount to a formal alteration of the byelaw area. In the absence of a revoking or amending instrument, the only rational conclusion is that the land remains subject to Stansted Airport byelaws and therefore is not “relevant land” as defined in Schedule 4 PoFA. MET’s position depends on the incorrect assumption that a private sale can disapply statutory byelaws; unless they can produce a valid statutory instrument to support that assertion, POPLA should find that PoFA keeper liability is unavailable in this case.

Ciderspace666

If I could give you 10 thumbs up I would!! Thank you POPLA said that I could only add evidence in response to MET, that I couldn’t add any new evidence so i think I’m ok to state the above - can I use pretty much word for word?