The big ol' list of Airport Byelaws and Plans/Maps/Charts

Coupon-mad

I agree.

In the talk that led to the Boxing Day legislation that changed the status of railway land, it was said that removing the 'parking/vehicles' clauses in the railway byelaws would be enough to bring those sites in as relevant land.

doubledotcom

I respectfully disagree.

The suggestion that Newcastle Airport car parks may be “relevant land” for the purposes of PoFA rests, I believe, on a misunderstanding of both PoFA and the Newcastle International Airport Byelaws 2021.

PoFA paragraph 3(1)(c) excludes from “relevant land” any land on which the parking of a vehicle is subject to statutory control. The statute does not require the word “parking” to appear in the governing instrument. The test is substantive, not linguistic. The question is whether the act of leaving a vehicle on the land is regulated by statute.

The Newcastle Airport byelaws plainly impose statutory control over vehicles across the airport estate, including areas to which the Road Traffic Enactments do not apply. Byelaw 6 applies to private airport roads and other parts of the Airport, and regulates vehicle conduct, stopping, standing, and removal. Vehicles may not be left so as to cause obstruction or danger. Vehicles left unattended must be secured. Airport Officials or constables may require vehicles to be removed from parking places. Vehicles may not be left unattended with the engine running or without removing the ignition key. These are direct statutory controls over the act of leaving a vehicle.

The byelaws also contain an express statutory regime dealing with vehicles left on airport land. Byelaw 4.36 treats vehicles as abandoned where, among other things, they are left without a valid pre-booked parking arrangement or remain static beyond defined thresholds. That is a statutory definition of unlawful vehicle retention, enforced through criminal or quasi-criminal mechanisms. Parliament cannot have intended PoFA keeper liability to apply where the same conduct is already governed by statute.

In addition, byelaw 6.8 requires drivers to comply with traffic signs, road markings, and directions erected or given by or with the consent of the Airport Company. This is not confined to public highway signage. It is a statutory power to regulate vehicle movement and positioning throughout the airport, including car parks. Where compliance with signage is mandated by statute, the conduct regulated by those signs cannot simultaneously be characterised as purely contractual for PoFA purposes.

The argument that Newcastle Airport land becomes relevant land because the byelaws do not use the word “parking” is therefore, in my opinion, unsustainable. PoFA does not operate on a “magic words” basis. It excludes land where parking behaviour is subject to statutory control. The Newcastle byelaws regulate precisely that behaviour, even if they do so using terms such as standing, leaving unattended, removal, and abandonment rather than a single heading labelled “parking”.

The comparison drawn with railway land is, I believe, misplaced. Railway station car parks only became capable of being treated as relevant land after Parliament removed statutory control over parking in substance, not merely by altering drafting style. That was an affirmative legislative change. No equivalent removal of statutory control has occurred at Newcastle Airport. The byelaws continue to regulate vehicle presence and retention comprehensively.

On a proper reading of PoFA paragraph 3(1)(c) and the Newcastle International Airport Byelaws 2021, the act of leaving a vehicle on airport land is subject to statutory control. Accordingly, land within the Newcastle Airport boundary, including car parks, is not relevant land for the purposes of PoFA, and keeper liability under Schedule 4 cannot arise.

cooldude255220

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81873725#Comment_81873725

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the byelaws must use the word parking. That any particular byelaws use the word parking inevitably helps to prove that they regulate parking, but a failure to use the word parking doesn't mean they don't regulate parking.

You say that the test is whether leaving a vehicle on land is regulated by the byelaws but I think this is overly broad. It must be, by virtue of the wording of POFA, whether parking is regulated.

I don't know whether there is an authoritative definition of parking, but Jopson v Homeguard [2016] B9GF0A9E draws a distinction between "pausing for a few moments or minutes to enable passengers to alight or for awkward or heavy items to be unloaded, and parking in the sense of leaving a car for some significant duration of time". Which is a narrower definition than merely leaving a vehicle; it has to be leaving it for some significant duration of time.

It also considers the definition of parking in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary: “To leave a vehicle in a carpark or other reserved space” and “To leave in a suitable place until required.” That implies to me that parking is concerned with the activity of leaving a vehicle (for some significant duration) in what effectively amounts to a car parking space.

The byelaws don't so much regulate parking, as they regulate people abandoning their vehicles. Put it this way, if I were to park in a parking space and simply not pay for parking, I do not think any one of the byelaws could be used to criminally prosecute that conduct.

Byelaw 6 applies to private airport roads and other parts of the Airport, and regulates vehicle conduct, stopping, standing, and removal. Vehicles may not be left so as to cause obstruction or danger. Vehicles left unattended must be secured. ..

Vehicles may not be left unattended with the engine running or without removing the ignition key.

As above, "leaving a vehicle" or letting a vehicle stand for a moment, whilst covered by the byelaws, does not necessarily amount to "parking".

Airport Officials or constables may require vehicles to be removed from parking places.

Ironically, this makes the lack of specific parking byelaws even more conspicuous by their absence. It acknowledges that there are parking places, but things like leaving a vehicle in them, buying a ticket, not overstaying, staying within the lines etc etc - all of which might be expected to be covered if the byelaws regulated the act of parking - are absent.

Byelaw 4.36 treats vehicles as abandoned where, among other things, they are left without a valid pre-booked parking arrangement or remain static beyond defined thresholds.

I don't think this can be said to regulate parking. It's merely defining when a vehicle is abandoned.

In addition, byelaw 6.8 requires drivers to comply with traffic signs, road markings, and directions erected or given by or with the consent of the Airport Company. This is not confined to public highway signage. It is a statutory power to regulate vehicle movement and positioning throughout the airport, including car parks. Where compliance with signage is mandated by statute, the conduct regulated by those signs cannot simultaneously be characterised as purely contractual for PoFA purposes.

I would argue that traffic signs are specific signs (e.g. those signs under TSRGD); give way, stop etc and do not include contractual signs for car parking arrangements.

doubledotcom

I think where we diverge stems from reading the word “parking” in paragraph 3(1)(c) in isolation, rather than in context and in light of how Parliament framed statutory control.

PoFA does not define “parking”, nor does it qualify it by duration, bay markings, tariffs, or payment regimes. Parliament chose a deliberately broad formulation: “parking of a vehicle is subject to statutory control”. The question is therefore whether statute governs the circumstances in which vehicles may be left or kept on the land, not whether the statute uses the word “parking” or mirrors a commercial parking scheme.

That matters, because if “parking” were limited to leaving a vehicle for a significant duration in a marked bay with payment conditions, paragraph 3(1)(c) would be largely redundant. Most statutory regimes do not regulate parking in that narrow, commercial sense. They regulate where vehicles may stop, stand, be left, remain, or must be removed — precisely because statute is concerned with control, safety, and management, not tariff enforcement.

The Newcastle Airport byelaws do exactly that.
Byelaw 6 regulates where vehicles may stop, stand, or be left; whether they may be left unattended; when engines must be switched off; and when vehicles may be required to be removed. Byelaw 4.36 defines when vehicles are treated as abandoned by reference to authorisation and time. Taken together, those provisions place the keeping and leaving of vehicles on airport land squarely within a statutory framework.

That statutory control is reinforced by byelaw 6.8, which requires drivers to comply with traffic signs, road markings, and directions erected or given by or with the consent of the Airport Company throughout the airport estate, including car parks. This obligation is statutory, not contractual. It is not confined to TSRGD signs, and it does not depend on a driver’s consent.

Once compliance with signage is mandated by statute, the conduct governed by those signs cannot simultaneously be characterised as purely contractual for PoFA purposes. Whether the signage resembles TSRGD signage or a private parking sign is immaterial; the controlling feature is that obedience is required by law, not by agreement.

That is statutory control of parking for PoFA purposes. The fact that the control is expressed through rules on stopping, standing, obstruction, authorisation, removal, and mandatory compliance with signage does not take it outside paragraph 3(1)(c). On the contrary, that is exactly how statutory parking control typically operates.

Jopson does not assist with this point. Jopson draws a distinction between parking and brief stopping for the purposes of a private lease dispute. It does not define “parking” for the purposes of PoFA, nor does it purport to narrow Parliament’s exclusion of land subject to statutory vehicle control. Importing a leasehold nuisance analysis into Schedule 4 is a category error.

Similarly, dictionary definitions do not advance the argument. Parliament did not define “parking” by reference to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, and PoFA does not confine statutory control to paid-for bays or designated parking places. Paragraph 3(1)(c) is concerned with whether statute governs the activity at all, not whether it governs it in a particular commercial way.

In short, the operative question is not whether the byelaws regulate parking perfectly or commercially, but whether the parking — in the ordinary sense of leaving or keeping a vehicle on land — is subject to statutory control rather than left wholly to private contract. Newcastle Airport byelaws plainly satisfy that test.

cooldude255220

The question is therefore whether statute governs the circumstances in which vehicles may be left or kept on the land

The starting point is to use the language that Parliament used. They used the word parking, so the starting point must therefore be whether the land is "land on which the parking of a vehicle is subject to statutory control". I do not understand why you think you can simply substitute the word that Parliament used - parking - with leaving or keeping.

Most statutory regimes do not regulate parking in that narrow, commercial sense.

Is that correct? Pre the recent changes, the railway byelaws did just that, for example.

That statutory control is reinforced by byelaw 6.8, which requires drivers to comply with traffic signs, road markings, and directions erected or given by or with the consent of the Airport Company throughout the airport estate, including car parks.

Byelaw 6.8 applies to indications or directions given by:

• traffic signs
• pedestrian signs
• road markings
• airport officials
• constables

The only one of those which it is arguable applies is traffic signs. Yet as I point out, "traffic signs" have a specific legal meaning. When considering what exactly is meant by "traffic signs" in the byelaws, it is reasonable to consider their context in TSRGD. It is also reasonable to consider why the byelaws don't require compliance with all signs (instead of limiting them to traffic and pedestrian signs". In my opinion a sign displaying contractual terms for parking is not a traffic sign within the meaning of the byelaws.

Jopson does not assist with this point. Jopson draws a distinction between parking and brief stopping for the purposes of a private lease dispute. It does not define “parking” for the purposes of PoFA, nor does it purport to narrow Parliament’s exclusion of land subject to statutory vehicle control. Importing a leasehold nuisance analysis into Schedule 4 is a category error.

It is my view that the reasoning in Jopson was that the driver was not liable for two distinct reasons: (a) because of the overriding lease, but (b) because she was not parked. These were two separate reasons which both operated separately. It is clearly relevant because it discusses what "parking" is and this is the wording that Parliament has used in POFA.

Similarly, dictionary definitions do not advance the argument. 

Where there is a dispute as to what a term means either because it is not adequately defined or not defined at all then Courts can and do use dictionary definitions to assist.

doubledotcom

I think we are now going in circles and approaching this from fundamentally different interpretative starting points.

You are reading paragraph 3(1)(c) through a narrow, technical definition of “parking”, informed by Jopson and dictionary usage. I am reading it as a statutory exclusion concerned with whether vehicle presence on land is governed by statute rather than left wholly to private contract. Those positions are unlikely to be reconciled in a forum exchange.

Ultimately, this is not something resolved by abstract debate. It is resolved by judicial interpretation. I am therefore going to pause the discussion here and seek the view of a close family member who is a very long serving district judge, as that is the level at which this question would actually be determined in practice.

I am not suggesting that forum discussion has no value, but at this point further speculative argument is unlikely to add clarity. I will update the thread if and when I have a considered judicial view on the point.

doubledotcom

Pending a judicial view, I will just set out my own current thinking as a holding position, not as a definitive statement of law.

In my view, the recent amendments to the Railway Byelaws (The Railway Byelaws Amendment Order 2025) are highly instructive when considering how paragraph 3(1)(c) of Schedule 4 to PoFA is meant to operate.

Historically, railway land was excluded from PoFA because vehicle use and parking were subject to statutory control under the byelaws. When Parliament decided that contractual parking at railway stations should instead be capable of civil enforcement, it did not rely on narrow interpretations of the word “parking” or on arguments about whether stopping or standing amounted to parking. Instead, it made express legislative changes.

The amended Railway Byelaws now deliberately carve contractual parking schemes out of statutory control. Byelaw 14A continues to regulate vehicle use for operational and safety purposes, but explicitly excludes anything conveying the rules of a contractual parking scheme. At the same time, enforcement under the Byelaws is made unequivocally criminal only. That combination removes contractual parking from statutory control in substance, thereby allowing PoFA to apply.

For me, that legislative approach is significant. It suggests that general statutory control over vehicles is ordinarily sufficient to exclude PoFA, and that if Parliament wishes PoFA to apply it must affirmatively remove contractual parking from the scope of that control.

Applying that reasoning to airports, Newcastle Airport byelaws continue to impose statutory control over vehicles across the airport estate, including stopping, standing, leaving vehicles unattended, obstruction, removal, abandonment, and mandatory compliance with signs and directions. There is no express exclusion of contractual parking schemes from that statutory regime.

On that basis, my personal view is that the absence of a section expressly labelled “parking” in the airport byelaws is not determinative. What matters is that vehicles on airport land remain subject to statutory control, and until Parliament takes the same kind of legislative step it took with railway byelaws, contractual parking at airports remains within that statutory control for the purposes of paragraph 3(1)(c).

I appreciate that others take a different view, and I am not suggesting this resolves the issue. I am simply explaining why, at present, I consider the railway amendments to support a broader, substance-based reading of paragraph 3(1)(c) rather than a narrow, label-driven one.

Lafrasse

Authority on the meaning of "Parking".

The lawyers in Homeguard v Jopson appear to have missed a potentially relevant authority: Ashby v Tolhurst [1937] 2 K.B. 242.

SIR WILFRID GREENE M.R. @ 249:

"You take a car park ticket in order to obtain permission to park your car at a particular place, and parking your car means, I should have thought, leaving your car in the place. If you park your car in the street you are liable to get into trouble with the police. On the other hand, you are entitled to park your car in places indicated by the police or the appropriate authorities for the purpose. Parking a car is leaving a car and, I should have thought, nothing else."

That passage was considered, in a different context, in R. (on the application of Airport Parking & Hotels (Birmingham) Ltd) v Civil Aviation Authority (Application for Relief) [2003] EWHC 2106 (Admin)

per Davis J:

"38.. Mr McManus, at one stage in his argument, suggested that those words connoted that the car in question had to be left by the driver, in the sense that the driver absented himself from the vehicle. I do not, for myself, read that passage from Sir Wilfred Greene's judgment in that way. A car can perfectly sensibly be described as being parked even when the driver remains in the car throughout. For example, many visitor in cars to seaside car parks would seem to do just that. In any case, I do not see, in the present context, that it can be determinative that in setting down and picking up the driver may not absent himself from the bus. In my view, it is perfectly sensible to say that the bus is parked while it disgorges passengers and luggage or, as the case may be, while it awaits the intromission of passengers and luggage."

That would include drop off/pick up (kiss and fly) etc

'Parking' and 'park' were considered in R. (on the application of MacDonald) v Adjudicator of Traffic Penalty Tribunal [2024] EWHC 3592 (Admin). The court was not required to come to conclusions but gave its view (obiter). It is irrelevant when considered waiting or parking whether a motorist leaves the vehicle.(That is consistent with Airport Parking & Hotels (Birmingham) Ltd) Approving the logic of HHJ Harris in Homeguard: it must be a question of fact or degree when the nature of the stop means that the car has been parked (or is waiting).

IMO these authorities are supportive of the argument that if byelaws regulate stopping and/or leaving vehicles they are statutory controls on parking.

cooldude255220

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81876751#Comment_81876751

I appreciate the thought you're putting in to this question, and I'm certainly interested in hearing a judicial viewpoint too. Like you, I'm not saying my opinion is correct, but I think it is an interesting debate.

I'm not sure I follow/agree with all of the logic presented, but reading your reply has made me consider the following:

The government took two linked but separate steps:

(a) amending the byelaws to remove contractual parking schemes from their scope

(b) amending POFA to exclude railway byelaws from the definition of statutory control

But (b) raises an interesting point:

1. Removing the contractual parking arrangements from the byelaws should, on the face of it, mean that the land is no longer land on which parking is subject to statutory control (because the byelaws no longer cover contractual parking arrangements). So, on the face of it, POFA ought to apply merely by this action.

2. If POFA ought to apply, then there is no need I can see to also amend POFA as has been done in (b).

Amending POFA is either:

(a) unnecessary, and a 'belt and braces' approach;

(b) required, because the operational and safety purposes that you mention (which are alike to the

Newcastle byelaws in terms of dealing with obstructions etc) is still parking within the meaning of POFA.

On this reading, just removing contractual parking issues from the byelaws would decriminalise such

conduct without operators being able to utilise POFA, hence why the amendment was needed; or

(c) required for some other reason, which is not clear to me.

Additionally, in reading the amended railway byelaws, it is clear that they felt a need to exclude, from the definition of "traffic sign", "an object or device for conveying the rules of a contractual parking scheme".

That adds some ammunition to the argument that traffic signs could encompass contractual parking schemes. And as Newcastle's byelaws include obeying traffic signs, then this is, in addition to the above, another reason why Newcastle may indeed still relevant land.

cooldude255220

The airport is covered by byelaws by virtue of the Airport Byelaws (Designation) Order 2009, which designates the airport for the purposes of section 63 of the Airports Act 1986. Once designated, the airport is subject to statutory control, and land subject to statutory control is not “relevant land” for PoFA.

Just wanted to come back to you on this @doubledotcom because I've not been contrarian enough lately!

Section 63 states:

(1)Where an airport is either—

(a) designated for the purposes of this section by an order made by the Secretary of State, or

(b) managed by the Secretary of State,

the airport operator (whether the Secretary of State or some other person) may make byelaws for regulating the use and operation of the airport and the conduct of all persons while within the airport.

You're quite right that article 2 of the order designates Newquay Airport for the purposes of section 63, but all that does is allow Newquay Airport to make byelaws. Designation under section 63(1)(a) is not sufficient to make the airport land on which parking is subject to statutory control and therefore not relevant land under POFA; there are a number of mandatory steps required to get to that point.

If, and only if:

1. The airport is either designated by order or managed by the SoS; AND
2. The airport makes byelaws under section 63(1); AND
3. Those byelaws regulate parking (in accordance with section 63(2)(d)) AND
4. Those byelaws are either confirmed by the SoS in accordance with section 63(5) (if the airport is not managed by the SoS), or made by statutory instrument under section 63(7) (if it is)

then can it be said that the land in question is not relevant land.

In other news, Newquay Airport has responded to me:

The Airport has byelaws that came into effect in 2017. 

They were previously published on the website, but it recently came to light that associated maps indicating the area to which they apply were not linked to that document. The Airport Byelaws have been removed from the website and are currently being reviewed.